How to communicate with customers
Are you planning to make online shopping available on your website, change your delivery fees or run a sale or promotion on your site? Do you want to let your customers know about upcoming changes to your privacy policy or payment methods?
Not sure how, when and where to communicate the news to your customers to ensure everyone is made aware of the upcoming and any other future changes?
When it comes to staying in touch with customers and letting them know about changes to your business, it’s important to keep in mind that your audience uses different channels to engage with your business.
Since your customers have different preferences, you can’t rely on a single channel and expect to reach everyone. It’s why you have a website but also a blog and a social media presence on various social networks.
So, in this post we’ll walk you through a few effective ways to communicate changes and promotions to your customers.
Start with your website
There’s nothing as efficient and relevant as informing visitors and customers about changes or promotions while they’re actually on your website.
There are plenty of options to communicate with your audience on your website. These include popups and banners in the header and/ or footer, all of which can signal that something new is coming.
Let’s look at a few examples so you get a better understanding of how you can communicate with your customers directly on your website.
In a popup that they can skip or click to close, like in these two examples:
In a message in your header that’s either permanent, like in this example:
Or temporary, meaning where visitors need to take an action to let you know they’ve acknowledged it:
In the footer:
Depending on what you’d like to communicate to your customers, you may also need to link to a dedicated page where they can find more information.
For example, if you’ve changed your privacy policy or delivery fees, you can link to your dedicated pages where customers can learn more about what’s changed.
By doing this, you are giving visitors a chance to determine whether they agree with your new terms and want to keep using or buying from your site.
If you’re running a sale, make sure to also have promotional announcements and banners at the top of every page with the discount details.
Not sure how to add a banner or a pop-up to your site? Fortunately, if you’re using the 123 Reg Website Builder, you have the options to offers deals to all or specific customers as well as to add banners and pop-ups on your site where you can communicate news, changes or promotions to customers.
Send them an email
Email continues to be one of the most effective and affordable ways to keep in touch with customers and let them know about any upcoming changes to your site and business, or any discounts they can take advantage of.
Check out these email examples where various businesses inform their customers about promotions they’re running, products they’re launching or different changes they’re making to their privacy policies and terms of use.
If you’re not yet using email to stay in touch and build a relationship with your visitors and customers, now’s the time to get started. The following resources are packed with tips and examples to help you make the most of email marketing:
- Beginner’s guide to building your first email list
- How to write a great welcome email for new subscribers
- How to build meaningful relationships with customers using email marketing
Just make sure to use a personalised email address that matches your business and domain name. This shows customers you’re a legit and professional company that they can trust to do business with.
Use social media to share the news
If you have an active presence on the social networks that your audience is spending time online, then you should make sure to communicate your business and website changes and promotions there as well.
Your customers are already on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter every day. So, instead of waiting for them to visit your site to learn about a promotion you’re running or about a change you’re making, why not share the news with them on their social network of choice?
Another option would be to create a community or group on social platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn that focuses on your business and how you can be of help to your target audience. You can use it to engage with your prospects and customers, answer questions and concerns, share tips and exclusive discounts, and build a relationship with them.
Share it in a blog post
If you have a business blog (and we highly recommend it), that’s always a great place to share changes, news, updates and promotions you’re running.
When you’re writing a blog post, you not only get to chance to share the news but also have all the space you need to provide more information, add images and videos, and link to pages on your website.
Here’s an example of a blog post that announces a website redesign:
Host a webinar or a Google Hangout
While you may be a great wordsmith, some people are visual learners. So, if you’re launching a new product feature or want to communicate a new technique or way of working with your customers, you might consider hosting a webinar or a Google Hangout.
This gives you the chance to demonstrate how your new feature works or why you’ve decided to make a change in the way you provide your services. In addition, this provides you with the unique opportunity to get feedback in real-time as well as to answer any questions that your customers and prospects might have.
Give them a call
One of the advantages about being a small business owner is that your customer list is small enough that it allows you to reach out to them by phone and inform them about any upcoming changes and promotions.
This personal touch is usually greatly appreciated, especially if you’re a local business that your customers know well. In addition, it provides you with a good excuse to check in with everyone, get feedback and answer any questions they might have.
In conclusion
Technology today offers so many great ways to communicate with your customers online. So make sure you take advantage to stay in touch with them and inform them about any upcoming changes to your business and website.
