Skip to main content

Marketing Tips from Experts (3): Engage Your Customers and Clients


Rather than simply providing quality products or services, today’s businesses must develop strong and trustworthy brands. As Chizor Malize, CEO of Brandstone Consulting, says in an interview with Raheem Akingbolu at Africa.com, “Smart businesses engage the consumers who, today, want to participate and be a part of building what they wish to consume.” Malize adds that businesses therefore must have a “strong and genuine desire to have a positive position in the hearts and minds of their target consumers.”

Similarly, Leigh Ann Acquisto, Brand Behavior Specialist and Director of Liquorish Ink, explains that today, “brand owners can still craft their stories, but consumers are now demanding to be involved.” If you do nothing else, says Acquisto, “get closer to your customer!” (You can read the full article at SME South Africa.)

Regardless of whether we build our business brands online or offline, we need to make sure that we engage our clients/customers, encouraging them to be part of our brand. Here are a couple of branding articles that share great tips and expertise about how to do this:

How to Engage Your Customers with Sensory Branding

Giving your customers a new level of insight into your business through live video

3 ways to make customers fall in love with your business

I’m grateful to these experts for sharing their advice on how we can meaningfully engage our customers and/or clients today.

--Chimuka Moore
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Miyanda Maimbo Kitawa on Facing Challenges (Wisdom from Africa’s Successful Women Entrepreneurs)

Although gender equality is on the rise in Africa, there are more potential challenges for women entrepreneurs than there are for men. However, it isn’t unusual for successful women in business to attribute their successes to the challenges that they’ve faced. In this post, I share the wisdom of Miyanda Maimbo Kitawa , who set up the first human resources company in Zambia at a time when HR businesses didn’t exist there. As you’ll see, her story contains many lessons for women who are facing the challenges of entrepreneurship, especially those who are just starting out. A tough start doesn’t mean you won’t succeed: When Miyanda Maimbo Katiwa drove to Zambia to start her human resources company, she had only a little money to split between her living expenses and what was needed to launch her venture. Having quit her job and been told by her boss that it was impossible for someone without prior experience to succeed in such a business, she knew she was taking a huge risk. “T...
2 comments
Read more

Align Your Brand With Others: A Tip for Women Entrepreneurs

“Aligning yourself with a similar type of business can be a powerful way to expand quickly,” writes Karen E. Spaeder at Entrepreneur . Alignment has long been a tried and tested marketing technique that can also build powerful relationships with others. When you align yourself with another brand or business, you say to both of your audiences, “What matters to one of us matters to both of us. Thus you can attract each other’s potential clients. Alignment doesn’t have to take place online. For example, if when you shop at your favorite clothes store, you receive a “percentage off” voucher from a different store, those two stores are being aligned. The implication is that if you like one store, you will also like the other. As famed marketing expert and bestselling author Seth Godin writes, “Alignment isn’t something you say. It’s something you do.” Here are two easy ways to align your brand with another brand: Choose a social cause to openly support: If there is a socia...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media in Africa for Women Entrepreneurs

Accessibility to social networks may be limited in Africa, but a reported nine percent of the population who do use social media often view it as important and empowering. Given that access to cell phones is widespread in the continent, use of social networks and messaging apps is increasing by the year among businesses, customers, schools, and students . In fact, the 2014 “Emerging Nations Embrace Internet, Mobile Technology” report from the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project (as quoted in ventureafrica.com ) reports that about 78 percent of Africa’s internet usage is for social media. No wonder female entrepreneurs doing business in Africa are using social networks to support each other. In the first of this series of posts for women entrepreneurs looking to use social media in Africa, we’ll review some of the main social networks, as well as how women entrepreneurs are using them.   Social Networks Popular in Africa Facebook long dominated social networking in A...
Post a Comment
Read more