When is the last time you had a wonderful experience as a customer? Chances are, it only took you a few minutes to come up with a story of a company that left you with a long-lasting impression. On the flip side, it probably wouldn’t take you long at all to think of your most recent poor customer experience and how it left you feeling angry and frustrated.
A few years ago, a friend of mine was stuck with one of the Samsung Note 7 devices on her T-Mobile account. She and her husband had recently separated. He took the phone and his line to another company and subsequently lost/gave away/sold the device. My friend was left paying a monthly fee on her bill for the device, and at first, T-Mobile was of little assistance.
Positive customer experience not only results in making your customers happy but also leads to additional revenue. The best marketing money can buy is a customer who will promote your business because they will refer their friends and family to you for free.
The way your company thinks about customer experience has a strong impact on how you look at your business as a whole. That’s one reason why focusing your efforts on developing a stellar customer experience is important. And if the customer experience you’ve developed isn’t great, you need to think about how to improve it and where to get started.
Here, I discuss what customer experience is and how you can adjust your content marketing strategy to improve your overall customer experience.
What is Customer Experience?
Customer experience refers to the impression you leave with your customers that affects how they think of your brand across the entire customer journey. Several touchpoints factor into the customer experience and these touchpoints happen on a cross-functional basis.
The two main touchpoints that create the customer experience are people and products. When you make a purchase, are you satisfied with the performance of the product? When you reach out to customer service, are you happy with the attention of the support representative that helps you solve your problem? These are generalized examples of the factors that come into play when developing solid customer experience.
If you want to build and sustain business growth, positive customer experience is crucial. It helps build brand loyalty and creates brand ambassadors who promote your business for you. It helps with customer reviews that people used to determine if they want to conduct business with you. Recommendations from family and friends and online reviews have more power with consumers than any brand originated assets.
Don’t think you should focus on building a good customer experience? Research shows that by next year (2020) customer experience will be the key differentiator between businesses – not price. As such, you’ll be able to charge more for the products and services you offer as long as you go above and beyond to provide a quality experience.
Tips to Improve Customer Experience with Content Marketing
Never Underestimate the Power of Visuals
Promoting evergreen content is one thing. But it is crucial not to forgo the importance of visuals. Yes, the content needs to be well-written, but it also has to be shareable and rewarding. Today’s consumers have higher expectations than ever and they likely will not excuse poor quality graphics and design issues.
Everything from the thumbnail images on your video marketing to your infographics, website and social media posts should be attractive. Failure to produce engaging imagery will reduce the number of shares and clicks you receive.
When people hear information, they’re likely to only remember 10% of it three days later. However, if that information is paired with a relevant image, they retain 65% of the information three days later.
Add Video Marketing
Video marketing is where you should be. Whether you’re doing YouTube videos, going “live” on social media platforms, or sharing videos across multiple platforms, what matters is you create quality content with subtitles that your audience can view even when muted.
- 60% of people would rather watch online videos than TV.
- Mobile video consumption increases by 100% every year.
- By 2022, video will account for 82% of all consumer internet traffic – 15x higher than in 2017.
Use Split-Testing
Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is one of the most useful hacks to help you improve customer experience. Your marketing team can test each component of the campaign and analyze its performance in terms of visitors and leads.
For instance, if you have designed two different landing pages with the same offer, split testing allows you to find out which one works best in terms of user experience so you can use it in your future strategy. Split testing works on a website in a similar way, showing you how visitors respond to changes on your website. You can test everything from the layout, colors, calls-to-action, photos, to even the offers themselves. The key is to test each element individually so that you have a clear idea of which change influenced the analytics. In theory, after testing each element of your website or landing page, you could create the perfect option for your target audience by combining all of the elements that had the highest conversion rate.
Build Thorough Consumer Guides and Free Resources
Today’s consumers are looking for product specific information to help them make a purchase decision. Because of insecurities, people are often afraid to spend their hard-earned money, especially when it comes to purchasing premium products or services.
Creating consumer guides is one of the best ways to market your products and services. Include tips to buy, pros and cons of the product, factors to consider and more. The more detail you include, the better. Use keyword research and social listening to determine the most frequently asked questions in regards to the products and services you offer. Make sure your guide answers all of those questions to ensure you’re providing the most benefit.
In addition to buying guides, focus on creating e-books and e-courses where appropriate. This could help you get more out of a potential customer. If you want to sell them what you’re offering, give them a resource first. A free e-book or online course is something newcomers will always find valuable for getting industry information. It doesn’t take long to create but provides continuous benefits for your company.
By providing these resources, you are sure to strengthen your brand voice as an authority in your niche and the loyalty of a customer who needs your product or service. If you need ideas of where to get started, do some competitive research to see what others are doing. Then, find ways to make yours better.
How is your current content strategy supporting your customer experience? Share your thoughts in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
Eric Sachs
SEO virtuoso, CEO @Sachs Marketing Group. Focused on being of service to business owners - helping to better position them in the eyes of their audiences.
