How can digital marketing support customer experience?

Recent statistics show that a customer is four times more likely to defect to a competitor if they encounter a service-related problem than a price or product issue.

Customer service is a highly significant factor of any brand looking to grow and expand its business, and digital marketing can help improve it in many different ways.

To help you get started, Mirfield-based digital marketing specialist Fishtank Agency has shared insight on how businesses can use digital marketing to improve customers' experience.

Get to know your customer
Firstly, using Semrush and Google Analytics tools can help you better understand your customer’s behaviour patterns, allowing you to adapt your site to fit their needs better. For example, you may notice that a particular page is frequently visited. Adding a banner or button with a link directly from your homepage can make it easier to find and increase traffic further.

On the flip side, you could do the same for content with low traffic and revisit the page or site map to see how you can improve it.

Keep visitors engaged
Updating your site frequently with new content or projects and sharing on social media platforms or via email newsletters will help keep returning customers engaged.

Fresh content is vital for any brand that wants to update potential customers of new products and services or any issues or delays that you are experiencing. Sharing this information can build brand trust and loyalty, making it more likely for customers to return.

Easy communication
Many retail sites utilise chat feature plugins such as Facebook Messenger that allows customers to communicate with the brand immediately. This active communication can solve problems much quicker than email correspondence; customers will be more likely to use the service/product over a competitor. It can also show the brands interest in customer satisfaction and dedication to customer experience.

Measure successes
Another useful digital marketing tool that can help improve customer experience is conversion tracking. The process allows you to track how a customer interacts with your site whether they have purchased a product, signed up for a mailing list or completed a form. This tool is handy when experimenting with new products, blog topics and social content as you can compare how different types of content have achieved goal conversions.

Convenience and accessibility
Unlike a physical store or business, a website can be accessed at any time. Although customers may prefer to speak to an actual person, having a large amount of advice-led content on-site, including FAQ’s, blogs or an ‘About Us’ section, could help entice their interest and give them necessary background information to reach out with a more specific enquiry or convince them to make a purchase then and there.

An online platform also means that sales can be made throughout the day, providing convenience for those who don’t work ‘regular hours’ such as nursing, engineering or manufacturing and any international customers based in other time zones.

Target the right audience
Incorporating digital marketing into your business strategy can help target a specific audience both organically or with paid advertising much more effectively. For example, you can specify what age or gender you want to target, along with location and interests. This is useful, primarily if you invest in PPC (Pay per click) advertising and don’t want to lose money by promoting your brand to people outside your target market.

Digital Marketing Case Study - Brookhouse Training
Founded over 30 years ago by James McConnell, Brookhouse Training, an established gas engineer training brand, worked with Fishtank Agency to develop its digital platform to reflect its unique approach to training.

James outlines how digital marketing has been crucial to the growth of his business: “We instructed Fishtank Agency to design a new, refreshed, visual identity for Brookhouse Training that not only looked good, but improved our customer journey and experience. It was important that the website was set up correctly with conversion goals in mind and ensured the user had the chance to get in touch, book a place on a course or request more information at every step of the process.

“These developments lead to a 310% increase in website sessions from social media channels, a 49% increase in overall website sessions since the launch and a 35% growth in overall page views. Our cost per conversion dropped as far as by 60% in some months which greatly improved our overall return on ad spend (ROAS).

Completely reinventing the Brookhouse brand, website and training centre was a scary thought, however, the team made the process really easy and took on board all of my ideas and thoughts which led to the growth in sales and business overall.”

Damien Fisher, managing director at Fishtank Agency, said, “With more and more companies taking their business online, there is more competition than ever, and so it is vital brands make the most of digital marketing to prevent customers from going elsewhere.”

“There is so much that can be done to help advance a customer's experience, and although it may not seem like a big advance from a business point of view, it could be the difference between someone choosing you or your biggest competitor.”