Think of your professional engagements – especially lead nurturing – like you would a personal relationship.
No amount of promotional emails or attempts to engage your prospects or customers work, if the other party simply isn’t interested. Nobody wants to offer the ring, unless you’re sure the recipient will say yes.
So, it would seem that the best way to attract attention is to entice the person with something they can’t refuse. However, enticing and then not living up to your promises does more harm than good. Case in point: a hotel chain advertises that their online reservation system will make it easier for guests to make reservations. Then, when prospective guests fill out all of the required information online, the guest receives an error message that says “Sorry. Your transaction cannot be completed at this time. Please try again.” Talk about frustrating.
Or, look at the case of the online retailer, who allows the customer to make an online purchase and after submitting all details, including the delivery address, the customer is informed that the order cannot be fulfilled because the courier does not ship to the customer’s given address. These are all small details – but details that kill the relationship and, not to mention, the sale.
Needless to say, with these experiences, the individual most likely will choose to move on and lose interest in the relatinship, no matter how enticing the offer is in the future. What’s worse is that the customer will probably go to one of your competitors to fill their needs. It’s not far-fetched to assume that they’ll tell their friends about the bad experience they had with your company, too. It’s a downward spiral, but one you don’t want to get caught in. It becomes easy to see how easily a relationship can be tainted by an organization’s inability to prove their reliability.
This especially applies to retailers, who should understand that the cornerstone in online customer engagement is converting what would, otherwise, be a routine or drab transaction into a pleasurable experience. Imagine a customer who receives an email notification of a special offer, leading them to the company’s online store, only to spend 30 minutes trying to locate that specific product. This is obviously not going to result in a sale. But, it can be remedied by, for example, inserting a direct link taking the customer to the specific product page. It pays off to think these things through.
As a whole, living up to your promises while engaging your prospects and customers online is crucial to building engagement and loyalty, which will also help attract new clients. Create an experience for the customer that is enjoyable and easy, while respecting their wishes if they do not want to be contacted again. Create an enticing campaign, test internally, and engage away!
