Increase Customer Acquisition and Retention through Employee Engagement
A lot of attention is paid to marketing strategies, channels, and tools with little consideration given to the “front-liners” or the human aspect. This has led to many campaign failures and much financial waste. Pay attention to those responsible for execution and see your acquisitions and retention grow.
The emergence of marketing technologies has greatly impacted the effectiveness, efficiency, and ease of deployment of marketing processes. However, just as technology does not constitute customer relationship management (CRM) (The Dangerous Myth: The Assumption that CRM is Technology), marketing goes beyond platforms, tools, and strategies..
The success or failure of any campaign largely depends on those who are saddled with the responsibility of execution. Agreed, technology, strategy, multi-platform applications and so on are the veritable ingredients of any sound marketing activity; however, the individuals who manage orders via the website, make the cold calls, handle emails and social media accounts, are perhaps the most important component of the mix.
Employees play a critical role in the consumer journey irrespective of the channel, be it traditional or digital. They process and deliver orders, respond to requests, manage complaints, conduct direct marketing and retailing and so on. Consumer experiences at these touchpoints have significant impact on their decisions at various stages. These play a major role as to whether a lead is converted and a customer is retained. Therefore, employee conditioning is crucial to achieving marketing objectives and, by extension, broader organizational business goals.
Simple Ways of Engaging Employees to Drive Marketing Goals
- Evaluate
- Educate
- Motivate
- Compensate
Evaluate
Needless to say, there is a need for continuous staff performance evaluation to measure individual contributions to marketing goals. Examine lead and acquisition flows to identify points of attrition and ascertain whether these are due to human, technical, or tactical deficiencies.
Educate
To achieve success, your staff must be well informed about your marketing objectives. They need to know what you are trying to achieve and how you intend to achieve it. This requires thorough training and periodic re-training in order to sharpen their performance across their specific areas of engagement, particularly for those found wanting during evaluation.
Motivate
Members of your team must be regarded as an important component of your marketing program regardless of how insignificant some of their roles may seem. That is, you must give them a sense of belonging that suggests they are valued and are responsible for the success or failure of the programs. In this way, you will gain or earn their commitment and convert them to staunch ambassadors
Compensate
It is common knowledge that well-remunerated staff are usually more productive. Reward performance and see effort redoubled while results soar. However, be mindful to manage the resulting competition in a manner that will foster cooperation and not create conflict.
