Strategies for Building Authentic Consumer Connections

There are millions of eCommerce brands worldwide. Getting customers to choose yours is akin to asking someone to search for a specific, individual fish in an ocean filled with a plethora of the same species. It’s difficult to accomplish. That said, there is a list of things you can do to set your brand apart — one of the most significant: humanizing your brand. At the end of the day, people connect more with brands that lean on what makes them human. 

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To foster authentic customer relationships that not only enhance brand awareness but also boost conversions, embrace these strategies to transform into a brand that resonates personally and deeply with your customers, garnering their affection.

Make Market and Target Audience Research a Continuous Process 

We can’t talk about strategies for humanizing your brand and building customer connections without mentioning the importance of continuous market and target audience research. 

You should do this before you define your brand and launch products and marketing campaigns. But your efforts can’t stop there. The market you’re in will evolve and your customers’ needs and interests are ever-changing. 

You must keep up with all of it to deepen your customer relationships and build a brand they can resonate with. 

To do market research effectively, you should first acknowledge any biases you may have that could impact your ability to assess market demand and trends. Examples of common biases include: 

• Confirmation bias: Using responses from customers to confirm a belief you already have. 
• Expectancy bias: Subconsciously influencing a certain response from participants in your market research. 
• Implicit bias: An attitude you may have about a specific group that you aren’t necessarily aware of.
• Recall bias: How you uniquely remember information. 

All of these biases can influence how you research your target audience and market. 

For instance, you may unknowingly exclude a certain group from your target audience because of an implicit bias. Or, you may not ask specific questions to a focus group because you’re only searching for responses that confirm what you’re already thinking due to a confirmation bias. 

You must work on getting rid of your biases so that your research is as accurate and full as possible. Gathering information from a diverse group of people and a range of resources will help you with this. 

After addressing your biases, move on to research. Search for economic trends on government and other trustworthy websites to see what’s going on in your market. What products are most popular? What marketing trends are surfacing? What about customer service trends?

For target audience research, leverage the data you already have about your customers. This could be the data you’re collecting on your website through Google Analytics. It could be the data you get from built-in analytics tools on social media sites. It could be your ideal customer profile. 

Make notes about what the data is telling you about your target audience. For example, if your audience engages with your short-form videos the most, this is an indicator that they’re connecting with this kind of content.

Any tools that you use to gather information about your target audience and the market should always be on to ensure you don’t miss any data that could inform how you build your brand and relationships with customers. 

Focus on Building Customer Relationships That Last 

One-time purchasers make a difference in your eCommerce company’s success. But it’s the returning customers that you want to focus on. Those lasting customer relationships are where the majority of your sales and conversions will come from. 

When you have a plethora of meaningful, long-term customer relationships, potential customers may see this as a sign that your brand is genuine and trustworthy. It shows that you’re offering something so good that people want to stay with you for years to come. 

Focus on customer retention and building lasting relationships with consumers to improve your business and brand reputation. All of this won’t happen instantaneously, either. So, be okay with nurturing customer relationships through every stage they go through. 

For example, keep sending emails periodically to customers who’ve signed up for your email list but have yet to do anything else with your business. They’ll eventually come across the right headline that prompts them to open your email and further engage with your brand. 

Familiarize yourself with the customer journey stages. Map out how your customers behave in each stage. And come up with ideas for moving the relationship along at each stage.

Maximize Your Social Media Presence

Social media is one of the best marketing channels to use to highlight your brand and build customer relationships. With a social media marketing campaign you can get creative with your content to show off what makes you unique. You can also have direct conversations with your customers to deepen your relationships. 

Implement these three tips to maximize your social media presence:

1. Get to Know the Platforms Your Customers Are On

Many marketers don’t pay this step nearly enough attention. They assume posting content regularly will be enough to crack the algorithms and grow a following. However, this just isn’t the case. 

It takes a lot more than posting to build a social media presence that represents your brand and entices your target audience. You must understand the platforms your customers are on and how to best use them. 

Each social media platform has different community guidelines. How you navigate each platform is different. The kind of content that performs the best varies from platform to platform. And what people do on each platform is different. 

So, doing the same thing across all of your social media platforms wouldn’t generate the results you’re hoping for. Study the above for every platform you’re on and devise a content and engagement strategy that respects what you’ve learned. 

2. Create relatable content

Originality is a big deal when it comes to creating social media content that stands out. 

But what might be more important is creating content your target audience can relate to. Make them feel something. Give them content that grabs a hold of their emotions and doesn’t let go. 

This may not be the videos with all the bold graphics and animations. It may not be the images of your staff or behind-the-scenes live streams. The content your audience relates to may be the simple posts about a challenge they’re experiencing. 

For example, let’s say you sell personalized gifts. Your target audience may struggle with finding meaningful gifts for family members. You could share a video about this pain point, highlighting how a personalized mug with a family member’s favorite saying is way better than one you buy from the store that everyone has. 

You could also tap into user-generated content (UGC) and customer reviews. Having real people detail their product and brand experiences is powerful for consumers. So powerful that it can sway them one way or another. 

Another idea for producing relatable content is influencer marketing. Your target audience already has a connection with particular influencers in your niche. Why not leverage the trust they have in these influencers to build your brand’s reputation?

Create great content. But ensure it’s relatable too. 

3. Engage with your followers and soon-to-be followers 

Posting relatable content on social media is essential. But it means nothing if you don’t engage with your followers. 

Think about it like this. If you were following a business and always showed that business support through comments and reposts, but never received a thank you or reply at all, would you continue to put in all of that effort? Probably not. 

Same deal with your followers. When they engage with you, engage with them if you want that engagement to continue. Every comment and message should get a response. Thank followers who repost and shout out your business. 

In addition, interact with people who should follow you. Go into your likes for each post and see who isn’t following you. Start with following them first. A lot of the time, that’s all it takes to get someone to follow you. When they do, that’s when you can start commenting on their posts and not come across as spammy. 

Conclusion

Commit to consistently using these practices, humanizing your brand, and building authentic consumer connections are sure to follow. By embracing continuous market research, focusing on nurturing long-term customer relationships, and maximizing your social media presence with platform-specific strategies, your brand will become not just a product or service provider but a trusted companion on your customers’ journeys, leading to lasting connections and brand loyalty.

If you’re looking for additional support with your marketing strategy, reach out to our Trellis team for a consultation on how to scale your eCommerce business.

Author bio

Charlie Fletcher is a freelance writer passionate about workplace equity, and whose published works cover sociology, politics, business, education, health, and more. Check out the full portfolio on https://charliefletcher.contently.com/.