The goal of every marketer today is to create and establish brand awareness for their products or services. All you need is a bit of creativity so that the customer perceives the message exactly as the brand tries to convey.

Here are a few steps that will help you identify and connect with your audience better to increase customer engagement.

Step 1: Recognize your specific target audience

Having a well-defined target market is imperative in the planning and research phase of your business. Not having a clear understanding of who your customers are will result in the loss of resources. In order to connect effectively with your potential customers, it is essential to find ways to identify them through marketing campaigns and surveys.

Simultaneously, working towards the improvement of your product or service and searching for aspects that might be missing from your current offerings would make the marketing campaigns more effective and attractive.

Step 2: Figure out the criteria to identify your target audience

Do not make the mistake of marketing your product or service before you’ve defined your target customer. An audience can be sorted out based on an almost infinite number of demographic points such as gender, age, income, marital status, education, race, etc.

The goal of this step is to eliminate the irrelevant audience, so that your marketing messages are directed to a specific market, who are most likely to be interested.

Step 3: Identify your client’s requirements

As marketers, you should put yourself in the shoes of your target customers as often as possible. View your brand through the eyes of a layman and try to figure out your products drawbacks so that they can be eradicated.

Analyze your product and look for areas that consumers may find either objectionable or offensive.

Systematically identifying your customers expectations and raising the bar consistently, will enhance the company’s reputation and convert first-time visitors into loyal customers.

Step 4: Interact with your potential customers using the best channels

Put on your thinking cap! How do you connect to your target audience easily? There is no guaranteed way, but here are a few suggestions:

• Investigate! Find out who your competitors are. Research is the key! Just a tad bit of effort can help you run a successful campaign. Learn from the past mistakes of your competitors and find out which kind of marketing campaigns works for your industry and which does not. Think smart, work smarter!

• Advertisements? Target them! Ponder upon the ways information is generated to your target audience. What mediums do they use the most? Television? Newspapers? Social media? Radio? Targeted advertisements on Facebook and Google can be way cheaper than most methods. They can efficiently locate audience who most likely require your services based on their demographics, geographical location and browsing activity.

• Respond instantly on social media. Social media is another way to promote your company and keep your customers updated. Your online presence counts! Resolve issues as soon as a query is generated. Acknowledge every email, Tweet, Facebook comment and phone call. Customers always love prompt responses. Engage them further by posting attractive content and sit back and watch your business grow.

• Build a community full of trust & loyalty. In order to gain support it is essential for the foundation of trust to be strong. A recent research claims that more than 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. So start right away by posting user reviews online and sending out product samples to trusted bloggers for reviewing.
  Note: Customers associate well with names. So while responding, please use a name instead of the name of your company.

• Diligently publish original content. The content that you post on Social Media should not be self-promotional. It should focus on the benefits and usefulness of your product or service. Craft relevant and valuable content so that people relate to it and voice their opinions or share your point of view.

Step 5: Check your Feedback

Weigh the results to see how you have fared in reaching out to your target audience. Check for responses and reach out to them once their work is done. Be open to learning and the results will be far more effective than you expected.

Happy Marketing!