When it comes to excellent marketing tactics, customer experience (CX) ranks pretty high on the list of considerations. HubSpot’s State of Service Report 2024 aims to improve understanding of how CX impacts retention.
Marketers can take a lot of insight from the data and apply it to their work to attract and engage a target audience. Here are the top insights that apply to marketers and how to implement them into your work.
1. Get Personal
Around 78% of consumers say they expect more personalization than ever before. At the same time, marketers are dealing with a lack of data through things such as Google’s third-party deprecation coming in 2025.
Finding a balance between collecting information, respecting privacy, and meeting customer needs requires a lot of flexibility.
Marketers should collect first-party information whenever possible and be transparent about how they’ll use the details. Get personal by sharing offers most likely to attract the buyer persona for a brand.
2. Solve Their Problems
Every customer has a pain point that drives them to your website. HubSpot's State of Service Report notes that 82% of consumers want an issue solved immediately.
For example, if people want to know how to communicate better with others, you might release a video on Facebook that offers a role-play example and shares one tactic they can use that might benefit them.
Consider the problem that drives the user to action. How can you solve it for them? What can you offer them in your marketing that might provide part of the answer now so they feel the interaction was beneficial?
3. Find the Right Type of Customers
The customers you already have are 50% more likely to try a new product and spend around 31% more than new leads, meaning knowing how to attract the best leads who will turn into repeat customers is crucial.
While marketers aren’t the sole target audience of HubSpot’s report, they can learn a lot from the report on the characteristics of repeat buyers, allowing them to determine the best methods to reach people who will turn into regular customers. When you dig into CX insights, you'll better understand what repeat customers seek.
Marketing success requires more than just reaching your target audience, though. You must give them what they want and create an excellent user experience that stands out from the competition.
The right type of customers tell their friends about you and recommend your brand to others. They might share your social media posts, send traffic to your website, and refer family and friends to help your company grow from word-of-mouth marketing.
4. Tout Self-Service Features
The report reveals that more customers want self-service features to avoid waiting on hold or for a response. No matter what product or service you offer, hone in on how users can gain instant access to information and solve many problems independently.
One example might be a company that sells a flashlight with a long battery charge for storms. Unfortunately, turning it on is a bit tricky, and users often call with complaints that it's not working.
Marketers want to salvage the company's reputation and show the flashlight's benefits. They might create a video that shows someone turning it on and counting how many seconds they must hold the button down to activate it.
They could add articles to the website explaining that a common complaint is that the light is broken. However, here are the steps to take to turn it on.
Be transparent about the reason for the delayed start and how it benefits the user. With a bit of proactive marketing, customers will be more satisfied with their purchase and less likely to complain to others about the delayed start.
5. Use Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI usage is infiltrating even the smallest of companies as leaders turn to computers to write copy, respond to customers, and analyze data. Chatbots can increase customer engagement by 90%, improving brand impression.
You can also use AI to decipher an ad campaign’s effectiveness and gain insights about future marketing efforts. What machine learning has done for small businesses is give them affordable tools similar to what large corporations use.
6. Tap Into the Power of Unified Data
The report also points out that teams with unified data across the customer journey are 225% more likely to give their customers a personalized experience. Marketers can apply this concept to their teams to create more targeted messages.
Gather details from sales and marketing teams to determine what customers want and how to meet their needs better. Sharing data across departments gives you a better grasp of how to deliver personalized messages.
Learn From Various Sources
Marketers can gain insight from almost any customer report. CX is one of the most crucial aspects of attracting new clients and keeping the ones you have. HubSpot's State of Service Report 2024 explores what users want from interactions with brands and gives promotion professionals a good starting point for future campaigns.
Eleanor Hecks
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a prominent digital marketing agency prior to becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philadelphia with her husband and pup, Bear.