Tag Archives: Live Chat

Get More Customers With A Retarget Customer Data Platform

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A customer data platform needs the right fuel to achieve growth—data from sales systems, customer loyalty data, insights from programmatic advertising, and advanced analytics all help. Ultimately, the way to lift conversion rates requires significant first-party data. 

Why First Party Data Should Be The Core Of Your Marketing Strategy

If you ask most marketing teams, they’ll say they are drowning in data from analytics tools. The burden gets even more significant when you factor in customer insights from third-party data. That’s why your customer data platforms need to emphasize direct interactions with customers (i.e., first-party data).

To make the most out of your marketing activities and get better retargeting results, you need the proper foundation in place first. With the right marketing technology, it is far easier to focus your advertising campaigns to achieve better click-through rates and increase conversion rates.

Gathering Your First-Party Data For Retargeting

Fulfilling your business strategy is easier when you can make Facebook ads, email marketing, and overall digital marketing deliver more results. Effectively gathering first-party data into a centralized database makes it easier to provide personalized experiences.

To build accurate customer profiles, look at the data you already have, like purchase history, insights from your legacy systems, and other data points available in your marketing automation platform. These data points are vital to building a company’s first-party data foundation. However, there is much more high-quality customer data you can gather.

4 Marketing Opportunities To Gather And Use First Party Data 

Online events and community experiences give you an unusual way to transform anonymous visitors into potential customers. To achieve this feat, your tech stack needs to be equipped with marketing automation tools like Arena Personas and live chat. Once your email systems and preferred marketing solution are ready, it’s time to engage your target audiences. 

1) Offer Online Experiences To Potential Customers

Using marketing campaigns to gather today from various customer segments is easier when there is a value exchange. Every single customer should get something out of interacting with your company like a community experience, pricing (e.g. discounts), early access to products or useful insights.

For example, you can use Arena live chat to deepen your customer relationships by running engaging online events. As you add more engaging experiences, customer acquisition cost may go up for a period of time. In the long term, providing customers live event experiences can raise customer retention.

Instead of attempting to understand the desires of anonymous segments, tracking user engagement in different types of online activity (e.g. chat and website use) leads to more actionable insights. Let’s break down how gathering first-party data with an online experience can help.

E-Commerce Business Use Case

For example, B2C customers may react with excitement in a chat session during a livestream event. To see how this information could be used, consider e-commerce brands. They may be considering launching 10 products over the next quarter but  can use this insight to improve the results of product launches. By observing the chat and related behavior patterns like website clicks, you can estimate demand for products (e.g. “Hey, we noticed over a hundred people wanted the new blue shirt!”). 

With this insight in mind, there are at least two ways you can get more business. First, you can run a targeted campaign to your current customers and reference your chat experience (e.g. “We saw that many of you are excited about our new linen blue shirts! Order by Friday and you’ll get 10% off!”). Second, you can then make changes on your advertising platform to emphasize the new shirt. 

2) Create Campaigns For Your Current Customers 

Marketing campaigns often focus on bringing in net new customers and prospects. In addition to that objective, it’s important to engage your current customers. In many respects, it’s easier to  execute data-driven personalization is to focus on customers. Unlike anonymous website visitors, customers have signaled what they value with their buying behavior including offline purchases. Let’s illustrate this use case for enterprise-level companies in the software industry. 

B2B Enterprise Use Case

Selling complex business software often feels like a Herculean task. Achieving business success often requires a full team of sales professionals like account executives, sales development representatives and others. Further, the marketing team is constantly working hard to collect customer stories, optimizing online advertising campaigns and more.

In this context, it’s vital to make the most of your customer base. For example, you might have a significant percentage of customers on a mid tier plan while your goal is to emphasize the top tier enterprise plan. In that case, you might offer online experiences showcasing the success of users in the top tier plan and encourage them to share their success stories. For instance, enterprises users might rave about the analytics capabilities and native integrations available in your top tier plan. Running a live event where customers have the opportunity to share their experiences with each other is powerful!

There are some downsides to this type of campaign. It requires significant insight into customer behavior. It’s vital to know your customer satisfaction levels so that you shine a spotlight on your most delighted customers. This type of campaign also requires significant collaboration between sales and marketing. Fortunately, solutions like Arena Personas make such marketing efforts easier to arrange. 

3) Get Better Lookalike Audiences

In Facebook advertising, it has been a common practice to create a lookalike audience by uploading your customer list. Facebook then uses its customer match capabilities to find more people who are similar to your current customers. This approach to Facebook advertising isn’t your only option. What if your target audience isn’t on Facebook or Facebook campaigns aren’t producing satisfactory results? The first party data you gather can help you to market more effectively.

The downside to relying entirely on an advertising platform for lookalike audiences is that you are dependent on their database. If some or many of your customers are not active users on Facebook, retargeting via the Facebook pixel may not work well.

The alternative is to build your own lookalike audiences. With a large enough audience, you may be able to pursue granular segmentation in a custom audience as shown in the following example.

Individual Audience Factors

Every purchase is ultimately made by an individual, whether they are buying as a consumer or at a company. Therefore, it is usually wise to start with these factors.

  • Age: understanding the typical age profile of your ideal audience helps you to decide which channels, creative and offers to use.
  • Gender: it is helpful to know if gender differences are relevant to your market.
  • Geography: contrast the geography of your website visitors to your ideal customer profile.
  • Interests: find out the topics, publications and media your audience likes. If you offer online event experiences like virtual conferences, look at registration records to see 

B2B Audience Factors

If you are focused on appealing to B2B audiences, the following customer attributes are important. 

  • Industry: to minimize confusion, use a standard industry classification like the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
  • Company Size: use number of employees or revenue as a filter. 
  • Technology Stack: If you offer technology products or services, knowing the customer’s tech stack is helpful. For example, does it matter if the customer uses Salesforce?

Is Your Audience Segment Too Large?

Audience segmentation can become less useful when the audience becomes too large. IF you end up with an audience segment with millions of individual customers, it may need to be narrowed down. Leverage feedback from the sales team and customer service to narrow the list. They may be able to help you identify the customer attributes associated with the most valuable customers (e.g. people who tend to move through the customer journey quickly).

4) Lapsed Customer Engagement

When a customer cancels their account or stops buying for a long period of time, all hope is not lost. In many cases, you have a good chance to reengaging lapsed customers with a retargeting campaign. To build this type of audience segment, it’s important to choose who to include and who to exclude.

Start by defining a lapsed customer. For simplicity, let’s define a lapsed customer as a prior customer whose last purchase was six to twelve months ago. Once you have that list, it’s vital to filter it further using your customer relationship management data. Specifically, you want to exclude customers who complained or experienced significant problems. Reengaging such former customers is much more challenging and may require more guidance from the sales team.

Now that you have your audience segment prepared, prepare a custom advertising campaign. B2C companies often find that a simple “we’ve missed you!” style message with an incentive (e.g. 10% off coupon) is an effective way to bring back customers. For B2B campaigns, communicating new features or capabilities can help. Even better, reengage lapsed customers by inviting them to an online event.

The Final Ingredient To Successful Retargeting: Leverage Market Awareness

Once you choose one of the ideas from above to execute, there is one more critical point to consider: market awareness. The three part market funnel – top of funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of funnel – gives us a good framework. Let’s pair the market funnel concept with the audience segmentation we covered earlier.

1) Top of Funnel

In the top of the marketing funnel, most prospects have little to no understanding of your product and how it might help them. This is the marketing equivalent of cold calling. The advantage of top funnel marketing is that you have the greatest opportunity because this segment is always the biggest. The disadvantage is that you usually need to be more patient.

With a top of funnel focus, leveraging the “Offer Online Experiences To Potential Customers” strategy makes sense. In this case, your primary marketing campaign would focus on inviting prospects to an online event. After the event, you would follow up with retargeting campaigns to offer an event recording or other assets to give people a reason to opt in to your marketing.

If you use events, use our how to promote your virtual event guide to get more attendees.

2) Middle of Funnel

Also known as the evaluation stage, the middle of the funnel is an intermediate step in the customer journey. In this stage, the potential customer has some awareness of what you offer. It’s now up to you to nurture the prospect further. In contrast to top of funnel, you likely already have some prospect or customer data in place so you can start off with a retargeting campaign.

Consider adapting the “Create Campaigns For Your Current Customers” concept to middle of the funnel campaigns. Highlighting your current customers via an event, case study or interview is a powerful way to prove your credibility. Using your customer data platform, identify prospects who have interacted with your brand in the past 3 months (e.g. attended a webinar, participated in a live chat etc). Once you have identified this audience segment, create a marketing campaign to emphasize your case studies.

3) Bottom of Funnel

Converting leads at the bottom of the marketing funnel depends on your business model. If customers make an online purchase, a campaign offering a deadline and incentive is often a good bet. For B2B or enterprise sales, running marketing campaigns may not be your best best. Instead, it may be more effective to collaborate with the sales team to find out what type of campaigns they want. For example, highly customized and targeted direct mail campaigns may be the best way forward.

Use Arena Personas To Get More of The Right Data

Data driven personalization campaigns and advanced audience segmentation all depend on having high quality data. To help companies get more of the data they need to grow, use Arena Personas. It’s the fastest way to collect and import first-party data into your customer data platform. Then you’ll find it far easier to run retargeting campaigns across the marketing funnel.

60 Virtual Event Ideas For University Students

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The days of sitting in a boring classroom are over, thanks to the rise of remote learning. Universities and colleges need to innovate to keep students engaged. These 60 university virtual event ideas will give you plenty of inspiration. Also, read this insightful How Stanford, University of Pennsylvania & Caltech Students Run Virtual Events article recently published by Arena.

Keep reading to discover ideas and examples from creative students and universities across the country. Whether you’re looking for a way to learn life skills like cooking, network with alumni or spend an afternoon creating music with friends, you’ll find something for you in this guide to online event ideas for college students.

Download the free ebook: Online event ideas for colleges & universities that work

Once you see an event idea you like, explore Arena’s solutions for education for the following steps on how to bring your event to life with technology.

60 University Virtual Events Ideas

1. Share documentation of previous university-wide lectures

Learning must always be at the student’s reach. If your university keeps records of previous guest speakers who made notable declarations, you can share them with your student body to keep their thirst for learning going. Keep them engaged by hearing them out through a follow-up discussion.

2. TED Talks School Edition

The concept of this virtual activity is to share bite-sized learning that is powerful enough to motivate students through tough times, for example. Some can also nominate a video clip to be played and make a thorough explanation of how the message of the clip got through to them.

3. Spill the Tea

This is a phrase commonly used by young students today when they want to get more information about a certain topic that catches their interest. It may not necessarily be a tea though, attendees can have their hot drinks like coffee, cocoa, or hot milk. The activity is as simple as picking one hot or pressing topic and allowing everyone to discuss their opinions in turns.

4. Lunch and Learn

This activity is somewhat similar to “Spill the Tea” but on a different setup. Instead of hot drinks, students can talk about interesting topics while having lunch and learn from each other.

5. Amateur Podcaster’s Corner

We are sure that in every group of students, some have an interest in voicing their opinions or talking about a certain topic over a mic, recording it, and sharing it with their peers. With this virtual activity, listeners can participate even when they are doing household chores.

6. Alumni Networking Activity

Keep not just your students engaged but also your pool of alumni. Through this, they will be able to network with your students and bring with them possible employment opportunities for your current enrollees. Students can also learn valuable insights from someone who has something in common with them, your university.

7. Workshop on Hosting Webinars

Many of these ideas involve technologies for hosting webinars and virtual conferences. To keep your students engaged, allow them to cast their ideas out while teaching them how to manipulate this technology on their preferences.

8. DIY Tutorials

It catches students’ interest if they can learn a simple skill aside from the lessons they learn from formal classes. A simple tutorial on how to do stuff that they will enjoy will also make them thirsty for more learning.

9. What-Grown-Ups-Do lessons

Adulting may be an informal term to call it but there surely is a lot of learning to be unlocked in conducting these lessons!

10. Master Chef lessons

Now that all of us spend most of our time at home, students can easily get bored. Help them appreciate the joy of cooking their meals instead of opting for microwaveable food. Simply livestream your creations, take the most “Instagrammable” picture of the food, and leave them asking for more.

11. Financial Literacy TV

Saving money is way beyond chasing discounts and coupons! Whether it is your students’ program or not, financial literacy is vital for them to acquire wealth. Teach your students the basics of saving, investing, and other financial instruments which we bet they will thank you later on.

12. Coping with COVID Groups

Besides the relatability of this topic, the long-lasting effect of the pandemic needs to be addressed among your students. Use this program for them to share their experiences and how they are coping with the pandemic.

13. Socratic Philosophers Group

The concept of this group is more of a Q&A discussion among the students where they can discuss their thoughts about life. Consider facilitating this with a Philosophy or Ethics professor and make your students appreciate Humanities on a deeper level.

14. Get-Psyched!

Let students know themselves more by administering personality tests to them. Nothing ever interests people more than knowing themselves better.

15. Learn a New Language Group

It is said that learning a new language improves the confidence and intellect of people because they form new connections now and then. Engage your Linguistics Department and help them teach students from other program languages that interest them.

16. Social Awareness Group

The pleasure of helping out others is the same as with the helpers. Volunteerism is a good value that your university can inculcate your students. Simply form objectives and together, a small effort of every member will go a long way when everyone does.

17. For-Cause Celebrations

Every month, you will find days of “international affairs” that are celebrated. Take part in these movements to keep your students abreast of what is happening in society. Celebrations like Earth Hour, Pride Month, World Youth Day, and a lot more can be an avenue for their engagement.

18. Virtual Museum Stroll

In learning more about our history, you do not anymore need to step inside an actual museum and glance at the richness of our heritage. With this program, you will be able to take your students on a virtual tour of museums.

19. Journaling Sessions

Little has been said about it, but keeping a diary has its benefits to us. By writing even some of the most menial tasks, it helps in storing and retaining information in our brain which makes it sharp. Pair this session with calming music to enhance the experience.

20. Indoor Jungalow

This concept is about teaching your students the hobby of gardening in their homes. Thus, the word jungalow. You can share gardening videos that will teach them techniques on taking care of plants and see them grow together.

21. Self-Awareness

Because of social media, students are bombarded with tons of information and sometimes, they can get easily distracted by all the noise. Help your students relax and get back to themselves through meditation.

22. Home Fitness Sessions

Encourage your students to get fit even at home. Collate exercises that are easy to do in front of their screen but will make them sweat. Through this program, you are helping your students maintain their physical fitness and mental sharpness.

23. Nest Incoming Freshies

Because of the many changes that are happening around them, a freshman will surely get anxious as they enter university life. Help them out by having currently enrolled students connect with them and share their own stories to break the ice.

24. Bark-ual Class and Meow-ferences

Let your students take a break from being in front of the camera all the time! Destress with the cuteness of every household pet and let them step in the spotlight for a change.

25. Virtual Career Fairs

After having the degree, most of your students are motivated to join the workforce. Open opportunities for them by inviting organizations and employers who are on the lookout for fresh talents

26. Community Playlist

All students have different tastes in music, but a generation mostly knows similar ones. Get them in tune with music by contributing to a playlist they all love.

27. Dance Classes

Showcase your student’s talent by organizing a virtual dance showdown when they take your dance classes. Everyone is invited, even the ones who dance on two left feet.

28. Movie Critique Sessions

Film students will surely have their day when they share their opinions on a popular or independent film. You can stream movies so all your students can watch them together and discuss the events afterward. No spoilers are allowed!

29. Fine Arts Classes

Now, where is my beret? Let your students unleash their inner artist by holding paint classes and other fine arts classes. To keep them engaged, you can post a photo of a scenic view or a macro shot of food that they will paint. Disclaimer: This can get messy!

30. Vlogger-of-the-Day Competition

There are so many interesting things everyone can share throughout their day. With this competition, you allow your students to document their day and make it exciting. Students, staff, and faculty members can join.

31. Virtual Theatre

Even the landscape of theatre and performing arts has changed in the post-pandemic scenario. Showcase your students’ creativity by holding an online drama performance or an open-mic comedic monologue. When it comes to creativity and imagination, the sky’s the limit!

32. Best Room Decor Competition

All of your students probably take their virtual classes in their rooms. Allow them to showcase their study space by holding friendly competitions like this where they will take their creativity to the next level.

33. Holi-daily Celebrations

It is going to be a holiday every day somewhere in the world. Engage your students by asking them to research the most absurd holidays in the world that they can find and discuss them.

34. Crochet Match

Do your students have a hobby that they can share such as crocheting? Surely, not all of us know how to do it but holding this friendly competition is good for learning and developing a simple hobby.

35. House Tour

It has become popular content for YouTubers to showcase their homes to subscribers. Well, students may have something unique in their home that they can share with the group such as a walk-in cabinet, a fishpond in the house, or a golden staircase.

36. Sudoku Challenge

Sudoku is a great game for stimulating the mind and making it more analytical. Students will benefit from this challenge while incorporating this into their lessons. Simply reward the fastest student to solve the puzzle.

37. Crosswords Challenge

If your students get dizzy with Sudoku because of all the numbers in the puzzle. It is time to introduce this game to sharpen their vocabulary. Another similar game you can try is crossword puzzles.

38. Pets of the University Photo Competition

It is time to show off those pets whether exotic or not in a photo competition. Let your students dress their pets and post their photos on social media to capture the engagement of the netizens.

39. Online Charades

Take some time off from draining lectures and play charades with your students to break the ice. Plus, there are apps online where you can generate words to make your charades more exciting.

40. Online Quiz Bee

There is so much trivia around us where students can learn. Get creative by assigning themes like history, politics, or just some memes. The winner gets to choose the next round’s questions.

41. E-Games Tournaments

E-Sports has gained momentum when the pandemic arrived. Now, there are a lot of recognized E-Sports that are played internationally. Challenge your students to an E-Games Tournament and reward the Champion. There may be newbies but take time to educate them with this kind of sports.

42. Most Creative TikTok Competition

There is a lot of #challenges in the TikTok app nowadays. Encourage your students to post their most creative TikTok content and you will be surprised at how they manipulate the app because it is the younger generation’s forte.

43. Digital Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt game may not always be physical, but it can translate to the digital space as well. Take your students to a hunt over clues to answer your cryptic puzzles.

44. Baddest-Joker-Takes-it-All Contest

A good joke is funny, but a lame one is funnier! Let your students tell their corniest jokes and see who gets all the laughter.

45. Lip-Sync Battle

Be on a search on who among your students is the most musically inclined person by hosting a Lip-sync battle. No inborn talent is required, just good coordination between lips and lyrics.

46. Your Holiday Your Rules Contest

Remember the most absurd holiday competition we have just discussed? Well, it is time for your students to make their holiday based completely on them. It can be about traditions, the birthday of famous personalities, or certain university events. Let the whole campus vote on it to engage the community.

47. Co-Curricular Elective Groups

Besides the program of your students, give them a chance to learn more about topics that interest them. Who would have known that an Engineering student is interested in Humanities unless these programs are hosted?

48. Career Counseling Sessions

To give your students a boost in enriching their career and their expectations toward work after they graduate, it is best to have your guidance counselors available for this type of situation. Through this, your students will get to know more about what awaits them after they finish their degrees.

49. Resume and Cover Letter Groups

Your students’ resume is their ticket to employment. Teach them to leave the best first impression to prospective employers with advice from professors and other lecturers.

50. Creative Writing Centers

For students who want a career in writing, it is important to hone their skills and teach them techniques as early as now. Creative writing is both an art and a science so they need to know the fundamental ways on how to write a masterpiece.

51. Peer Facilitators Group

This group is the student version of guidance counselors. Of course, because of limited manpower and somehow a big discord in the ratio of counselors against students, it is good to train their peers to help resolve issues that concern them be it academic, personal, or social.

52. Academic Advisors Guild

This group is intended to be a help desk for students who need assistance with the field of study they are currently taking. Because of several factors that affect students’ motivation, academic advisors are there to let them see the bigger picture and help them navigate smoothly with the end goal of finishing their degrees.

53. Student Awards Ceremony

It is time to recognize your exemplary and outstanding students and give them the spotlight. By hosting this kind of event, you can recognize student leaders from various recognized organizations, academic scholars, and other achievements from your student community that are worth recognizing. It will motivate your students to strive harder and inspire them to become active members of their community.

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54. Religious Services Group

As discussed earlier, a student may encounter several issues in the course of their life in the university and one of them is spiritual. Keep your students’ spiritual health in check by providing services from the chaplain or from various religious sects that are part of the student community.

55. Virtual University Fairs

It is time to open your gates to prospective students and show them how the student life in your university looks like to give them a clearer view of the big picture. This is also an opportune time to showcase your outstanding alumni and entice them to enroll in your school.

56. Virtual Summits

Host virtual summits for important university events like your foundation day and hold breakout groups depending on your student’s interests and inclinations.

57. Live Concert

Admit it, we all miss going to a live concert since the pandemic started. Take advantage of today’s technology by holding live virtual concerts in the comfort of your students’ homes.

58. Online Photo Booth

Explore filters from social media apps with this online photo booth and you will find out that there is so much to discover there.

59. Code Breaker Games

Challenge your students’ mental capacity by solving complex questions as a group. Since there is a lot less physical requirement for this game, your students will get their brains to the test. The group that wins the most rounds gets the prize.

60. The Criminal Files Case Solving Games

Tickle your students’ imagination by making a hypothetical situation of a crime and make them collaborate to solve this mystery crime team-building activity.

How To Engage Students More Deeply

Besides all of the examples mentioned above, you might also want to check out some Virtual Event Strategies For Universities To Keep Students Engaged and how to Enhance the E-learning Experience with Live Chat to enhance virtual classroom experiences.

By implementing technologies like the Arena Live Chat and Live Blog, you will harness the ability to provide a platform where your students can voice their opinions, comments, messages to one another, participate in polls, and much more. In addition, with the integration of the Live Blog feature, your presence in the digital space is felt even more.

By publishing content into numerous social streams in real-time, your university is sure to reach students on whichever platform they are on. Know more about the benefits and strategies in holding successful virtual events by downloading our FREE E-book today!

And, in case you haven’t yet, you should check out how Pecege Institute leverages Arena Live Chat to allow students to engage in real-time with their teachers and classmates.

Agency Reporting: all you need to know

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It’s common for agencies to create reports to improve communication with their clients, help them identify and achieve their goals, and attract new business. By learning how to create effective agency reports, you can build a better relationship with your clients and scale your agency by attracting new prospects. This guide is designed to help you understand what agency reports are, why they are important, and what to include in an agency report.

What is an Agency Report?

Agency reports are detailed reports showing data that’s been collected from reporting and monitoring tools. This lets agencies see what’s working and what’s not working and take actionable steps to improve their business. A common purpose of creating agency reports is to show investors and clients how well an agency’s strategy is working. 

Why are Agency Reports Important?

A report conducted by HubSpot indicates that 23% of agencies fail to meet client expectations and goals. One way to solve this is through effective reporting. It’s important to create reports that use data to tell a story to communicate opportunities, strengths, and your agency’s value. It should give you an overview of what you’ve done over the past week, month, or year. 

Agency reports help you evaluate and optimize your own strategies, but they also help you sell your agency’s services. By achieving and demonstrating results through an agency report, you can show them off to scale your agency and attract new clients. It can also facilitate transparent communication with existing clients by showing them exactly what results you’re getting for them. 

What to Include in an Agency Report?

An agency report should include sections for goals, key metrics, and value added.

Goals

Start by working with your client to identify your shared goals. Set both short-term and long-term goals and be specific. Goals should be clear and achievable, and they should always include trackable metrics. In this section, you can also include which digital agency tools you’ll be using to achieve these goals. If you need more information on goals-based reporting, check out this helpful article. 

Key Metrics

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When adding key metrics to your agency report, consider which statistics your client values most. If your metrics aren’t important to your client, it’s unnecessary to include them. You should also add metrics that align with your set goals. For example, include statistics relevant to customer engagement if your goal is to get the client’s audience more involved. 

Examples of important metrics you can include are listed below. 

It can also help to include non-qualitative metrics like social media reviews and customer feedback. 

Value Added

In addition to key metrics, make sure to include the value provided for your client. This is your chance to demonstrate how you positively impacted your client, and you should include everything you think is relevant. Show how your actions led to the desired outcome and how you will continue getting results for clients going forward. 

For example, if you helped a client run a successful online virtual event, demonstrate how you helped them prepare, manage, and achieve their desired outcome. You could mention how you helped them prepare a virtual events script, advertise their event on social media, and convert viewers during the live event.

By sharing these details, your current clients will see the value you provide and will be more likely to continue working with you. It also allows you to scale your agency by attracting new clients once they see the impact you’re having on other clients. 

Additional Tips for Agency Reporting

Once you’ve included goals, key metrics, and value added on your report, consider the following tips for better agency reporting. 

Create Frequent Reports

If you only provide your clients with an agency report once or twice per year, you’re missing the point. By publishing weekly reports, you’ll keep your client informed with the most up-to-date information. This gives you the opportunity to collaborate more often as new challenges arise, and it can make each client meeting shorter and less stressful. 

Use Reporting Templates

If you have multiple clients to generate reports for, use agency reporting templates to make the process more streamlined. Templates can be customized for each client, but they eliminate the need to recreate reports from scratch. This lets you focus on the important aspects of reporting while saving time on tedious tasks. 

Create Multiple Reports

Trying to include all reporting metrics on one document can create a tangled mess. Instead of cramming all your data, create multiple reports that categorize data by channel. While this step isn’t mandatory, it can make complex reports more readable, and it can prevent your clients from becoming overwhelmed. 

Include Future Plans

By including a section for next steps, you can show your clients how you plan to improve results in the future. This section is important because it allows you to connect the dots between previous results and future outcomes. This is especially true if your previous results fall short and you want to demonstrate how you can turn them around going forward. 

How Arena Can Help Your Agency

Before you focus on generating reports for your clients, you need to make sure you can deliver them results. Arena has software tools that will allow you to satisfy your clients and scale your agency. 

Arena Live Chat can be added to a website or live stream to improve engagement through surveys, polls, Q&As, and instant messages. Agencies can personalize live chats with GIFs, reactions, and emojis and add conversion cards to sell products and services. 

To post quick updates as a live event unfolds, agencies can download Arena Live Blog. This tool can share images, videos, text, and social media to viewers, and it comes with more than 15 customization options. 

Finally, Arena Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be paired with the Live Chat and Live Blog tools to collect user data from multiple touchpoints. With it, you can build unique customer profiles to understand their brand preferences, purchase history, interests, and live events engagement activity. 

Conclusion

Agency reports are a great way to keep clients informed and to attract new business. If you need help creating one for your agency, consider implementing the steps covered in this guide. Always include goals, key metrics, and value added in your reports. 


It’s also important to build reports frequently, use reporting templates, break up reports, and include next steps. If you need help getting results for your clients, consider adding one of Arena’s software tools. To learn more about Arena, click the link below to speak with an expert. 

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What 5 Virtual Event Producers Learned in 2021

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The outbreak of the recent pandemic forced event producers to transition from in-person events to virtual events. While there were many roadblocks, successful event organizers were able to overcome the obstacles and continue hosting events virtually. This guide covers what five companies learned about the transition from in-person to virtual events. 

What Event Producers Learned

Event organizers need to keep learning how to optimize their virtual and hybrid events. The quick shift to virtual forced organizers to learn how to adapt quickly. Below are the most important lessons that Arena customers learned from making the transition to virtual. 

Hybrid is a Strategy, not an Event Type

Grip published a webinar that positioned “hybrid” as a strategy instead of just an event type. Its research indicated that interest in hybrid events is declining, and that 63 percent of event producers lack a clear strategy for hybrid events. 

The company emphasizes that, “Hybrid is not an event type, it’s a strategy and the best hybrid strategy is omni-channel, where organizers use different channels to engage attendees in different ways.” It stresses the importance of completing an objective at every touchpoint instead of completing all objectives at every touchpoint. 

It suggests that instead of creating hybrid events, organizers should create a combination of in-person and virtual events. It suggests that on-site events should focus on creating and building relationships, while virtual events should be short and focused on building brand awareness and educating attendees. 

Virtual Events can Improve Employee and Customer Connections

TV1, a company focused on live experiences, engagement strategies, and brand activation, has adapted to hosting virtual events. It learned that virtual business conventions can be created in a way to keep employees and attendees connected and engaged. 


While in-person events bring people to a physical location and make networking seamless, virtual events can do this too when set up properly. While helping Bayer host its first virtual convention for its pharmaceutical unit, TV1 was able to keep attendees and organizers engaged online. 

It emphasized it was important that “the experience did not overlook the dynamism and connections that are so common in the presence and that it engaged employees so that everyone was ‘on the same page’.”

It did this by integrating with Zoom and using augmented reality to facilitate training and using interactivity features to keep attendees engaged. It also enhanced the virtual event by using television logic, gamification features, enhanced scenography, and content transmission strategies. 

Virtual Events are Great for Training Employees

WorkCast discovered virtual events can be used to effectively train employees. The company writes on its blog, “Gone are the days of full-day staff training, complete with awkward icebreakers and trust falls. Instead, more and more businesses are using webinars for training purposes.”

Webinars allow employees to take ownership of their own career development, they improve efficiency, and they give companies more flexibility. They can be used to onboard new employees, provide continuing education for teams and individuals, and provide external training. 

WorkCast identified that training webinars are more accessible than traditional training methods. Employees can customize their training and complete it at their own pace. Webinars also let employees use voice-to-text software for taking notes, download transcripts for recordkeeping, and add subtitles to eliminate language barriers. 

Virtual training can be completed faster because it doesn’t require traveling to a physical location. It’s more cost effective than hosting an in-person training. It can also use Q&As, surveys, and polls to increase engagement. 

Cloud Engagement Platforms Enable Much More than Virtual Events

Cloud Conventions recognizes the scope of cloud engagement platforms (CEPs). CEPs don’t simply enable virtual events; they combine state-of-the-art digital marketing technology with collaboration features that encourage networking and interaction between attendees. 

Cloud Conventions used a report by Wainhouse Research to break down CEPs into three primary use cases. The report titles them “Webcasts”, “Interactive Events”, and “Virtual Hubs”. Webcasts require the least amount of technological complexity and costs, while virtual hubs require the most. 

Webcasts are used as an “online megaphone” to broadcast content. They offer limited attendee engagement options, maximum presenter control, and they’re best used for product launches and lead-generation webinars. 

Interactive events are used to combine collaboration and content streams. They’re typically one to two hours in duration, they enable sponsor promotion on-screen, and they’re used to increase attendee engagement and networking. 

Virtual hubs are online destinations that let attendees engage in multiple ways. They serve as the gateway for hybrid events, and they offer distinct online communities and can be used for online conferences. 

Virtual Events can Enhance Live Sporting Events

Sotic has learned that digital channels and virtual events are great ways to engage live sporting event attendees. Sotic has a video solution that lets brands tell their story, link to specific athletes and events, integrate with their video provider, and monetize their content. 

The company recently partnered with a rowing website to enhance the experience of their audience. It introduced its “Live Boat Tracker” to let fans follow live rowing races from the website. It also let viewers track insightful data like distance from leader, stroke rate, and speed. 

How Arena can Enhance Virtual Events

Arena’s software is trusted by thousands of companies including Swoogo, Grip, TV1, WorkCast, Cloud Conventions, and Sotic to improve their virtual events. Consider adding one of Arena’s tools for enhancing your own virtual event. 

Arena Live Chat

Live chat is a tool that lets attendees respond to polls, ask questions, and interact with your brand and other attendees during virtual events. By adding Arena Live Chat, brands can seamlessly integrate live chat capabilities with their virtual events. The feature lets online attendees provide feedback and share ideas virtually instead of needing to be physically present.

Arena Live Blog

Live blogs let virtual event organizers share quick updates like images, text, video, live scores, maps, and more as an event unfolds. Live blogs can provide important event updates, share ideas, present interviews, and keep attendees informed about speakers. Organizers can use Arena Live Blog to quickly improve their virtual event experience. 

Arena Customer Data Platform

Arena Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be integrated with Arena Live Chat and Live Blog to understand customer behavior and interests. Companies are finding it harder to understand their customers because of the heightened restrictions on cookies and data privacy. A CDP can solve this problem by building customer profiles and collecting data from different touchpoints. 

Other Resources

For those who want to learn how to create a superior virtual event experience, check out our guide. 

For more information on what to say during a live event, we have an eBook with live event scripts. 

If you want a comprehensive guide on how to get the best results using live ecommerce, check out our free eBook. 

Conclusion

The recent shift from on-site to online events has caused event producers to adapt quickly. Grip learned that “hybrid” is a strategy not an event type. TV1 learned that virtual events can improve both employee and customer engagement. WorkCast capitalized on the benefits of training employees virtually. 

Cloud Conventions recognized the several benefits of CEPs, and Sotic used virtual live streams to assist in the sports niche. For assistance with your virtual events, consider adding Arena Live Chat, Live Blog, or CDP. If you want to learn more about virtual event trends in the upcoming year, click the link below. 

CDP and the Metaverse: how to control your data

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Before you launch your first metaverse project, there is a critical question you need to answer. How will you control metaverse data?

3 Reasons Why To Control Your Metaverse Data

Controlling your data in a metaverse environment is vital for a few reasons.

It won’t be easy to get feedback to improve customer service and future metaverse projects without control over your data. By controlling your data in this new area, you can stay competitive with future expectations.

  • Data and Security Compliance. 

Your customers expect you to protect their data. At a minimum, you should fulfill local regulatory requirements like California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or GDPR. Even if those laws do not directly apply to your company, it may be worth meeting those requirements to protect your requirements.

Finding success in marketing requires a commitment to testing and innovation. By tracking what works and what doesn’t in your metaverse, your continuous improvement efforts can continue.

Now let’s look at some of the data you might want to control in the metaverse.

Four Types of Metaverse Data Should You Protect

The specific kinds of data you put into the metaverse and get out of it will vary depending on your approach. A company that creates or uses a persistent virtual world such as Roblox will manage a significant volume of data. In contrast, a company offering a virtual metaverse event once or twice per year will have far fewer customer data profiles to manage.

Your metaverse experience will require a variety of types of content to engage customers. For example, you might create images and videos. For live virtual events in the metaverse, you may create a virtual event script. You might create metaverse content in-house, work with consultants or agencies. Before putting your content into a metaverse environment, get clarity on copyright and intellectual property first. For example, do you retain rights to the content, or are there any limitations to keep in mind?

  • Customer Data And User Data

You may welcome several kinds of users to your metaverse environments: customers, potential customers, and partners. Given the effort required to track users effectively, it is probably wise to focus on customers. The best approach is to use a platform like the Arena Personas. It makes it easy to track customer activity across multiple platforms, including website usage, interactions with sales, social media, and more.

Protecting analytics data related to your metaverse events and environments is essential. For example, you might offer a series of metaverse events aimed at different audiences like small business owners vs corporate executives. At a minimum, track time usage metrics like how long users stay in the metaverse environment. Further, track how many of your users interact with your metaverse offerings. Low usage rates may suggest that your approach to the metaverse may not be appealing.

Qualitative data is meant to capture any other kinds of feedback you may receive about your metaverse environment. For example, users may use Live Chat on your website to ask technical support questions. Keeping track of these questions and feedback is essential. If users struggle to access metaverse content, it is wise to respond to that feedback so you can keep improving. Further, you may also get comments on social media and email about your offering. These comments may give some valuable insights worth reviewing with your team.

How To Control Metaverse Data Step By Step

Use the process to control your metaverse data so that you achieve your business goals.

1. Create A Customer Data Inventory

While you may have multiple types of participants – customers, prospective customers, and influencers – in your events, it makes sense to focus mainly on customer data. The answer is simple. Ultimately, your business goals are likely mainly focused on customer loyalty, customer service, and revenue. Therefore, it makes sense to focus on controlling and managing customer data.

To build your customer data inventory, start with the following examples.

  • Customer Orders and Invoices.

Customer purchase activity gives you rich insights about which products are most popular with which customers. You can also use this data to identify your “VIP” customers by purchase activity.

  •  Customer Relationship Management.

Whether you use Salesforce or another CRM, these tools give valuable insights into customer interaction. For instance, a B2B company might want to identify and invite multiple stakeholders to a metaverse event (e.g., executives, technical experts, procurement, and more) to maximize engagement.

Track which customers are interacting with you on social media. If you are active on multiple platforms, consider focusing on the top 2 platforms with the most followers.

The questions customers ask during live chat sessions can offer valuable insight. This data should be collected and protected.

Website analytics and usage data can provide insights on which content and products customers are most interested in. Protecting this data is worthwhile because it helps you optimize your marketing efforts.

2. Classify Your Customer Data

It takes time and energy to protect customer data. Therefore, it makes sense to focus your effort on the customer data that is most valuable. At a minimum, verify that you meet legal standards applicable to your company and jurisdiction. Some industries like healthcare and financial services may have additional data privacy and security requirements to meet.

 After legal considerations are considered, look at the value of your customer data. You might emphasize live chat data logs from a marketing perspective because the questions help you create more effective marketing. When you first start customer data classification, it is best to keep your system simple with a few categories. You might use the following categories: Very Important, Important, and Minor Importance.

3. Identify Relevant Data For The Metaverse

In the previous steps, you created a company-wide inventory of your most significant customer data assets. As you develop your metaverse engagement, it is essential to identify which data will flow in and out of the metaverse. As a starting point, consider the following.

  • Customer Engagement Data
  • Questions
  • Product Data. Specifically which products generate the most interest in terms of purchases and inquiries.
  • Survey Data. Check if you have a recent customer satisfaction survey data set to reference.

In addition to the above data examples, it is vital to consider data flows. You will probably have data flow into the metaverse, and data flow out of the metaverse. An example of data outflow from the metaverse would be engagement data, such as which virtual experiences draw the most interest from your audience.

4. Test Your Data Tracking Capabilities With A Metaverse Sandbox

Testing your customer data with a metaverse sandbox is an excellent next step. A sandbox is a testing environment where you can see if your systems and processes are working effectively. You might ask a handful of employees to create dummy customer accounts and then interact with your company’s assets in the metaverse. Following the event, verify if your customer data platform was updated based on metaverse user activity (e.g., measure which users logged into the metaverse).

If data is not flowing out of the metaverse into your customer data platform, it is vital to quickly diagnose and fix that problem.

5. Update Your Privacy Policy and Procedures

Once you have a functioning link between your customer data platform and the metaverse, it is time to assess your approach to privacy. Your customers may ask how you will protect their data if they use your metaverse experience. Protect your company reputation by reviewing and updating your privacy policy to cover metaverse experiences.

In addition, discuss user privacy safeguards with any third parties you work with to create metaverse experiences. Once the privacy policy is updated, create training materials for your customer service support to address privacy questions if they come up.

6. Launch A Metaverse Experience

Your next step is to launch your first metaverse experience with live customers. When you first get started with new technology, plan for additional support. For example, you might want to add additional technical support staff to your live chat to help users. After your metaverse experience ends, send out a survey to users to gather their feedback.

7. Put Your New Metaverse Data To Use

Finally, evaluate the new data you have generated from your metaverse event. Start by checking the fundamentals like whether customer data profiles were updated to reflect participation in the metaverse. Second, look for additional insights like which aspects of the metaverse experience generated the most engagement. Based on these insights, you can make better decisions about your next marketing campaign.

The One Must-Have Technology For The Metaverse

You might think that virtual reality headsets are required to offer metaverse experiencers. Such hardware can help, but it is not required. The critical technology is a customer data platform! Without a CDP in place, evaluating whether your metaverse experiences are generating ROI will be very difficult. Click here to find out more about Arena Personas.

All You Need to Know About Content Moderation

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If you are about to, or now managing an online business platform, you might have known already or have been researching about the world of content moderation. Also, you must have heard this popular opinion – the online platform kind of business is not that easy. 

Well, yes sure! It is not, but if you have the right strategy to operate it, alongside ways to overcome possible problems related to it, as well as the knowledge of some other factors that should be avoided and considered in order to get that fast and efficient result, then you are good to go. But if you don’t have any, don’t worry! We got you covered! 

What is content moderation?

There are millions of content online, but not all of them are effective nor meet readers’ expectations. This is where content moderation comes into place. In simple words, content moderation is the process of screening, approving, or removing user-generated content based on some guidelines in order to establish clients’ trust, and maintain compliance with regulatory requirements.

There are lots of reasons why content moderation is important. First, it screens content that is submitted by a certain user to know if the posting guidelines are being violated. Second, it is an effective way for a business to keep a positive reputation which guarantees a decent relationship with clients, thus advances higher accommodation and satisfaction among users and clients.

What is human moderation?

Human moderation or manual moderation is another type of moderating content, however, the one behind it of course – human. Human moderators manually monitor and review clients’ or users’ posts on a particular online platform. 

Moreover, human moderators also ensure the protection of all users or clients from scammers, anomalies, or any type of harassment that occurs in social media. They are also responsible for maintaining the quality and standards of a particular social media platform.

What is automated moderation?

Automated moderation is an automatic process of moderation that automatically determines any-user generated content. In this kind of moderation, contents that are being rejected or published are done based on the pre-defined guidelines by a highly intelligent computer bot that closely monitors the system 24/7.

Automated moderation resolves any physical or psychological stress from human moderators as it can minimize the response time, improve the quality of service, save time, and increase cost quality outcomes.

How important is content moderation in enhancing customer experience?

Utilizing social media platforms is an effective way to connect with customers regarding a particular business you have to offer. With social media, you can create customer service and build strong customer relationships without having to meet them in person. 

In line with this, effective and efficient content moderation can help you know your customers better, engage with them in real-time, establish customer loyalty with your brand, and achieve user retention as it offers good credibility of the event.

Nowadays, every brand is always active on almost every social media platform. In line with this, content moderation is of great help in monitoring social media accounts, comments, images, and videos, as well as categorizing and indexing business offerings.

Content moderation can also help you with online reputation management. Your online reputation is very important for the success of your business. As you might have known, whatever people post or publish online regarding your business, true or not, all have a significant influence on your business reputation. 

And, content moderation can help you fight against harmful content, address clients’ criticisms, and most importantly, feature important and helpful feedback from customers.

Content Moderation in Building Relationships with Customers

As have mentioned above, content moderation can help you build strong connections with your clients or customers. You can use content moderation to make your customers feel satisfied with your services offered by personalizing your responses, as well as keeping them in the loop with any timely news like product updates. With this, the strong relationships you have with them can help you achieve repeat and referral business.

What are the things you should keep in mind when moderating content?

There is a wide range of factors to consider with content moderation. This is very important in order for you to achieve the content that best suits your business. These factors also depend on what platform or site you are using. However, regardless of what site, platform, or business you are having, these are the top 7 things you should keep in mind, or better – do!

  1. Select the best content for your business

There is no one else in the world who knows your business better than you. You know best what your products and services are as well as your users or customers. So, you can use these to help you create the most outstanding content out there that best meets their expectations.

  1. Choose the best content moderation to utilize for your content.

With the best content you have, choose the best content moderation method to utilize. Aim to stand out amongst others. You can do this by using the best content moderation method that is not only suitable for your content and business but also fit your platform’s specific needs.

  1. Always make your content personalized to your customers’ needs.

When your customers feel special, they usually go back to you over and over again. With this, it will drive your repeat and referral business, which often results in more positive business outcomes. That is why, when creating content, make it as personalized as possible, moderate it according to the needs of your customers as this often results in increasing engagement which will lead to more loyalty and conversion rates.

  1. Moderate all your content consistently

Whether you are running your online business via Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms or sites, it is very important for you to make appealing and pleasant content that will surely attract new customers or retain your existing customers. This can be done by moderating your content in a consistent manner. This means that you have to be very meticulous in choosing the right format, images, videos, and other visual factors that will be incorporated into your content.

  1. Establish concise rules and regulations

Establishing concise rules and regulations is one of the most important things to do when moderating content. Therefore, these rules and regulations should be clear for all who are involved in moderating your content, be it from the data analyst to the human or automated moderators.

  1. Utilize all your resources

Every content moderation tool and equipment matters, right? This is why you need to utilize them in the best possible manner. Sometimes, you might see yourself overwhelmed with the available resources in the market, some are paid, some are free.

In this case, it’s very important for you to consider these resources carefully, prioritize the ones that offer innovation and growth as these often boost success to your online platform business.

  1. Quality over quality

Sometimes you have a lot of ideas, and you want all of these to be utilized. This often happens to almost everybody, but always remember that quality is more important than quantity. Quality content builds your customers’ trust, resulting in acquiring more revenue and success for your online business platform.

Customer Interaction

Your interactions with your customers are vital to your business success. Customer experience can make or break your business. That is why you as the business owner have to make these interactions as smooth and flawless and possible. 

There are various ways for you to engage with your customers, you can do this through Live Chats, Live Blogs, posts, tweets, comments, etc. Regardless, when interacting with them, you should be timely when responding to their inquiries, make it personalized, maintain positive emotions when commenting, reposting, and retweeting, and most importantly, always include available links for FAQs in your content.

Conclusion

Nowadays, the online platform business is very competitive. Therefore, you should moderate your content for you to stand out amongst the others. Always think ahead, know the strengths and weaknesses of your business, and engage with your customers frequently in order for you to be able to know them well, alongside their weak points and needs. Try also to utilize the tips mentioned above. 

Additionally, you can also utilize Arena when engaging with your customers through Live Chat, Live Blog, and other Customer Engagement ideas. Arena is easy to integrate, perfect for conversations, community chat, as well as ratings and reviews.

Are you ready to drive more revenue to your business? 

Now, try the Arena for free!

Customer Engagement Strategy Using Live Chat

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Today customer’s expectations from a brand have risen from mere marketing of freebies and discounts to a brand’s ability to relate with the “human element”. To earn loyalty, customers want the brands to interact with them and prove their worth in this cutting-edge consumer market.

What is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement in simple words is the relationship between a customer and a business. To ensure customer engagement, companies work towards creating a relationship with their customers to improve brand awareness and brand loyalty.

Customer engagement is crucial to a brand’s interaction with its customers. A highly engaged customer will be more aware of the brand’s vision and mission, and will likely become part of the loyal customer base.

What is a Customer Engagement Strategy?

Customer engagement strategy is defined as the tools businesses use to build strong and engaging relationships with customers. It also involves anticipating customer’s needs, solving their problems and helping them achieve their goals.

An effective customer engagement strategy builds long lasting impressions in the minds of consumers. It also increases awareness of the brand and improves customer engagement. 

The key to a strong customer engagement strategy is to introduce technologies that favor user interaction, user retention on the page, sales, and user participation with the content.

Some of the famous brands like Coca Cola, Starbucks, Rogers Media, Super Bowl, and Apple are renowned around the world for their inspiring and effective customer engagement strategies. Let us take a look at a few of them.

1. Coca Cola

When it comes to marketing, Coca Cola is usually ahead of the game. In 2012, Coca Cola launched a marketing campaign called “ShareACoke” where the company’s logo was replaced by some of the most common names of people in the US. Adding a name to the bottle spoke to the consumers on a personal level and thus became a powerful marketing strategy. 

Within the first year, people shared more than 500,000 photos via the #ShareaCoke hashtag. The campaign became consumer driven where highly active users on social media channels began sharing their pictures with friends and family. 

Thus consumers were acting as creative directors for the brand itself which led to a high engagement on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

2. Starbucks

Starbucks sets a great example of establishing strong customer engagement strategies every year. “My Starbucks Rewards” program was launched in 2009 which allowed Mobile Order & Pay feature where customers would order ahead of time and pick up their orders in the store. This allowed them to cut lines and order through convenience of their phone.

In addition, the rewards program also allowed consumers to check their balance, make use of their star points and earn free coffee refills or food items.

Starbucks doesn’t just limit its marketing projects to social media but also to a wider digital audience. In one of the campaigns called Starbucks’ Love Project, the company collaborated with several artists such as Dave Matthews, John Legend and U2 to create “All You Need Is Love CD.” 

In participating Starbucks locations, customers would get a free CD with a purchase of $15 or more. They were then invited to upload their video to become part of a massive sing-along. Thousands came on board!

3. Superbowl

We are all familiar with Superbowl — the iconic game that generates one of the biggest days for advertising in the US! Companies can learn amazing lessons from the way Superbowl advertisers harness the power of customer engagement in their campaigns. Many organizations even utilize the pre-gaming screen time to start advertising their products and services ahead of the game. 

For example Uber’s pre-gaming marketing featured #UberPuppyBowl; hashtag and promoted the chance for select Uber offices to enjoy a 15 minute cuddle huddle with puppies in select Uber’s offices.

Today with the rise of social media, organizations are leveraging the power of both the mainstream as well as social media platforms to advertise their products. During last year’s Superbowl, Avocados From Mexico’s advertisement featuring Molly Ringwald didn’t receive as much traction as they were expecting.

However, the brand took to Twitter’s live-tweeting responses for the rest of their ads and the halftime show, garnering more attention than their original ad!

Creating a Compelling Customer Engagement Strategy Using Live Chat

User interaction, retention and participation are key elements in creating a compelling customer engagement strategy. This helps improve sales and builds long lasting impressions. 

One of the tools that can help you create a compelling engagement strategy is the live chat feature. Companies are now utilizing live chats during webinars, online conferences, live events and for free ecommerces. 

A live chat feature improves customer experience, builds stronger branding, and helps you gain a competitive edge over your competition. 

Whether you work with small or large businesses, in 2021, you absolutely need a Live Chat tool as part of your marketing strategy. Although live chat feature has been around for a while, companies are now proactively using it on their websites and social media platforms.

Here are some of the strategies you can use to improve your customer engagement through live chat features.

Create Positive Brand Perception

Brands all around the world strive to create a positive perception for their products and services. Live chat can be a useful tool to help you achieve that perception through real-time user engagement. During your brand’s live event broadcasts such as webinars, fashion shows, conferences, concerts, or stand up comedies, you can use the live chat feature for your viewers to engage not just with the content but also with one another in real-time.

Live chat provides you more opportunities to make meaningful connections, which will further promote your brand perception and awareness. There is a power in the ripple effect that a good word of mouth can cause!

Improve KPIs

When working with live chat tools, companies need to understand how to improve their KPIs to ensure positive results. Technologies such as live chat tools can be forefront in creating real-time engagement for your brand. 

When customers interact with an event on your website, they might pose questions about a product launch or may generally be interested in knowing more about your brand. Ensuring the interaction doesn’t stay one-sided, you can take that time to answer the questions for the viewers.  

In addition, you can improve your KPIs in other productive ways too. For example if many customers are asking the same questions over and over again, it is a better idea to include an FAQ page on your website.  

Create an Online Community

Live Chat feature is not only about consumer and business interaction, it is also about consumer to consumer interaction. During live webinars and online events, you can set up a live chat where the viewers can interact with each other. A great example of live chat interaction can be seen on YouTube live videos where viewers communicate with one another by every second.

Other companies like Daily Telegraph, City Gates, CA, Bridgend College, Fox Sports have been using the live chat feature creatively on their social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Provide a Personalized User Experience

When interacting with a brand, customers look for a personalized experience that can address their demands. A personalized real-time experience increases customer satisfaction and improves the perceived value of your brand.

Rather than treating your customer as a transaction or another name on your email list, approach them as human beings who have goals, interests, and preferences. Through a carefully tailored experience, you can help them achieve those goals.

Increase Your Revenue

According to an eMarketer survey on the attitude towards US online buyers who used live chat showed that 63% users were more likely to visit a site again. And 62% of the respondents who engaged through a live chat feature said that they were more likely to purchase from the site again.

Having a live chat feature on your website can have a significant impact on your sales. Using a chat tool during a purchase can influence your customer’s decision to continue with the purchase.

Conclusion

Companies all around the world use multiple tools to improve their online visibility, user experience and sales. Many argue that a positive customer experience is pivotal to success of a business and we couldn’t agree more.

According to a study by AMA Access on how B2B marketers are leveraging live chat to increase their sales, the research found that throughout the customer journey, companies can use live chat to improve: 

  • Marketing awareness by 29%
  • Conversion to create sales suspects by 39%
  • Post-sales customer support and engagement by 39%

Try our freemium Live Chat tool Arena to stay on the top of your marketing game, implement effective customer engagement strategies and produce happy customers!

Customer Engagement Tips to Improve Sales

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Sometimes, all you need to grow your business is more sales conversions. If you are already getting enough traffic, converting them to sales may be enough to give your business the boost it needs to move ahead of the competitor. That is exactly what improved customer engagement can do for you. 

What Is Customer Engagement? 

Customer engagement can best be described as an ongoing interaction between a company and its customers. Practically, it refers to your company’s ability to keep up a conversation with your customer in the most efficient manner throughout the customer lifecycle. 

Customer engagement entails frequent and effective communication with the customers. It is achieved when the communication channels offered by the company is accepted by the customers. Its effectiveness will be measured by the results the continued conversation yields. 

Every business needs a customer engagement strategy to survive. In a competitive market, the ability of a business to connect with customers and keep the conversation going is critical to survival. With the right strategies and tools, customer engagement brings satisfaction to businesses and customers. 

Why Is Customer Engagement So Important? 

Customer engagement is critical to business growth. In the very beginning, it helps to transform traffics into leads. The right customer engagement tools, like Arena Live Chat, will help to convert most of the leads into sales.

Customer engagement also plays a critical role in customer experience, which is an indispensable ingredient in customer retention. If a business is able to convert more leads into sales and make the right first impression, it will certainly lead to repeat sales. With several repeat business, the company can build customer loyalty. 

In summary, customer engagement is considered very important for the following reasons: 

  • It will help drive your sales conversion and help you sell more
  • It will help you reduce churn
  • It will help increase customer satisfaction and retention
  • It can help boost customer loyalty
  • It will help you win back old customers.

How Can Customer Engagement Specifically Help Drive Sales Conversion? 

To convince website visitors to buy a product, pay for a service, o visit a physical office, you need to engage them and convince them and build trust. That is the essence of a customer engagement strategy. Here are specific ways customer engagement can specifically lead to an increase in sales for your business:

  • It Will Keep Customers Informed 

Most customers need more information about products and services before making a purchase. Being able to engage them and get them informed improves the chances of conversion. Well-informed customers are more likely to become return customers, also. 

  • It Creates Brand Awareness 

Brand awareness drives sales, and customer engagement enhances brand awareness. When you engage customers, you will make them recognize your brand. It doesn’t take much, afterward, to establish brand awareness, which is always instrumental in purchases and contract renewals. 

  • It Helps Identify What Customers Truly Want 

Sometimes sales pitches fail because marketers are not really aware of what customers want. True engagement allows you to assess the true needs of the customers and help them figure out the best solution. Through customer engagement, you will be able to create customer value, which drives sustainable sales conversion. 

  • It Opens Up the Possibility of Larger Orders 

It is a known fact that engaged customers tend to spend more – there are actually many marketing studies that have confirmed this. Through customer engagement, you will be able to establish trust. Of course, the more your customers love you, the more they will buy from you. 

  • It Transforms Customers to Brand Advocates 

Never underestimate the power of informed and happy clients. They will most likely become your brand advocates, helping to spread the message and fetch you many more customers. Thanks to social media, it is a lot easier for your engaged and happy customers to refer your business to more people. Word of mouth and other channels still works. 

What Role Can Live Chat Play In Customer Engagement? 

Live Chat is an effective marketing tool that can play a significant role in customer engagement. Arena Live Chat, for instance, is an instant communication channel that you can add to your website to stimulate and generate real-time customer engagement. 

Live Chat is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to generate meaningful engagement. It is better than chatbots since it adds the much needed human factor to ongoing conversations with customers. 

Can Live Chat Really Help To Drive Sales Conversion? 

Yes, Live Chat can truly help to drive sales conversion. As we’ve established already, it is one of the most effective ways to generate meaningful customer engagement. Live Chat customer service will also boost sales conversion in the following ways: 

  • It delights customers 
  • It shortens the sales cycle 
  • It  facilitates upsells and cross-sells 
  • It brings some level of personalization to marketing 

What Can You Do To Optimize Live Chat For Engagement And Sales Conversion? 

Implementing Live Chat will undoubtedly help you to generate engagement and drives your sales conversion. However, to get the right result, you will have to make the right decision with your Live Chat service. The first important thing is to choose the right Live Chat tool. Over the years, Arena Live Chat has helped several businesses benefit immensely from customer engagement. 

In addition to choosing the right Live Chat tool, you need to customize your Live Chat to have the desired impact and bring the right benefits. There is a need to follow a protocol and create a template that is purpose-oriented. This is the only way to ensure that each Live Chat session with a customer is treated with the utmost regard. 

Success Stories With Arena Live Chat 

As hinted above, the Arena Live Chat has helped several businesses to record meaningful success in their marketing. One outstanding case is the success story of Rogers Communication. The giant Communication and Media Company used Arena to increase customer engagement by more than 64%. Live Chat Roger also helped the company to achieve 28% customer retention and many more benefits. 

Endnote 

Customer engagement is a critical aspect of marketing. Among many things, it can help to drive sales conversion. As we’ve discussed here, Live Chat can play a significant role in boosting customer engagement and driving sales. You just need to choose the right tools and implement them the right way to derive the full benefits. 

Are you ready to implement the best Live Chat service for your business?

Customer Engagement Strategies to Boost Businesses

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You have heard how important customer engagement is for so many times now. But what does having an effective customer engagement strategy really mean? Is it all about giving your prospects and customers a seamless experience with your products and services? Or is it all about keeping up to date with your latest offerings? 

Today, we will talk about taking your business to a whole new level by understanding in depth what customer engagement is and employing effective strategies that will make them advocates of the brand you are building this 2021.

What is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement is a facet of Marketing where external customers or companies interact with a brand through various channels – offline and online. Simply put, it is when a prospect or a customer “connects” emotionally with your brand. 

One of the goals of every marketer is to keep the customers engaged even after they have successfully closed the sale.

Besides growing your revenue and boosting your brand awareness, customer engagement is all about treating your customers like a gift that keeps on giving because according to a study, 84% of customers say that being treated like a human being and having their needs met by a business is crucial in their buying decision because 70% of buying decisions come from how customers feel at the time of their purchase.

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There are many factors to consider when we think about the statistics but if we provide a platform that will help our prospects feel that they are prioritized, then all the more that we can expect sales closures of your brand.

Customer Engagement Strategies

1. Give the best Customer Experience (CX) to your prospects

Putting your customers’ needs first will always bring good business. Once you get this part covered, it will deliver benefits to your business, like increased customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, and more positive reviews when it comes to word-of-mouth marketing.

Before implementing any automation for your business, try walking into your customers’ shoes and see if it answers their needs and if it leads them to your ultimate goal of making a sale.

2. Implement automation to increase productivity

As part of optimizing the customer experience, it is very important to implement features in your business that will make your customers feel prioritized with less amount of hassle on your part.

Using Arena’s features and technology like Live Chat and Live Blog where you can customize your brand’s responses to customer’s possible queries, publishing content real-time in a blog format are some automation examples that not only will it improve customer engagement but will give your customers a better walkthrough of your brand but will save you a lot of time and manpower requirements.

3. Collate data on points of interaction and customer behavior across your platform

The implementation of this strategy starts by asking the question, “At what point do my customers start inquiring and at what point do my prospects abandon the usage of my platform?”

There are tons of ways to gather these types of data and with the help of analytics, you will be able to pinpoint the instances on where you are going to focus interaction and where you are lagging for you to act. 

4. Offer personalized service

There is nothing better when customers feel that the products or services they use are meant for them.

As we have discussed earlier, customer engagement is enabling an “emotional connection” between the customer and the business with the intent of them not just continually purchasing but for them to become advocates of your product or service.

In observation of this strategy, companies like Arena help businesses ease out their operations by providing customers with Live Chat features that are easily customizable and will fit the needs of your target audience.

5. Take feedback seriously

In this day and age, we are able to deliver products and services to our customers even without seeing their faces. But that does not mean that we can slack off on resolving customer feedback, whether it is positive or otherwise. Because of this phenomenon, you must consider feedback as your friend.

There must be a reason behind customers not pushing through with the purchase. And it is our duty as marketers to identify what went wrong, in which part did we lack support, and how to further meet customer expectations. Just sending out short surveys will do.

Remember, feedback is a gift. Customers are not required to respond to our surveys but once they do, it is their message to us that there may be areas for improvement and they need to see changes. That is one characteristic of customer-centric service.

The Five Stages of Customer Engagement

Marketing practices today have changed a lot of decades before. And with similarity to a business entity, Customer Engagement also has a life cycle.

The intent of identifying the five stages of customer engagement will help businesses simplify which action plan to take and make it more manageable because not all business models are alike and customer engagement data can come from an infinite number of sources.

1. Discover

Before you get sales closures and make a lot of money, your product or service must first be heard by your potential customers. The initiatives of this stage include sending weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly newsletter of your latest offering, publishing current updates from the company, and so on.

This is basically the point where you cast your net to see which fishes will take interest in your offering.

Conceptualizing and formulating content for this stage proves to be both time-consuming and demanding of manpower, it is noteworthy though that companies like Arena offer services like Live Blog, among others, to further improve your level of customer engagement.

This stage also, is where you use analytics to track customer behavior and how they respond to every point of interaction you employ.

2. Shop

This stage will be realized once marketing efforts from the Discovery stage are effective. It indicates that your prospects are interested in your product or service and they find value in what you provide.

It is nice to know that customers visit your shop online and offline, but for us, marketers, identifying the source of that traffic is crucial to proceed to the next stage.

Once sources of traffic are identified, it is a must to push further the strategy to keep prospects coming. Afterward, evaluate both online and offline data together to further illuminate your actions as to how the customers are attracted to your platforms.

3. Buy

In this stage, marketers must be able to answer the question as to which part of the sale happens and as to which part of the sale is abandoned. Are there features to the sales process that are lacking in the platform? Are there common payment gateways that are unavailable when customers try to check out which leads to the fallout of sales?

With Arena’s Live Blog solutions, there are several ways to follow through with customers and improve customer engagement.

Using the Live Blog structure, Arena provides businesses with added tools that serve as points of interaction, retain customer attention on your page, and further allow user participation with real-time content.

Marketers must as well be ready with follow-through solutions to customers that abandon their basket and robust outbound support to address customer concerns that will eventually lead to conversion.

4. Own

In other words, retain. Perhaps this stage is one of the most misunderstood and misinformed stages on the part of the marketer. Even sophisticated marketers do not really understand the depth of importance this stage gives.

At this stage, the marketer has to identify the level of attrition – usually from first-time or first-year buyers. In this way, we will be able to fully understand the triggers that discourage first-time buyers from becoming repeat customers.

Remember, a customer’s successful purchase is also an investment on their part. If there are concerns or issues that these customers encounter in the first-year purchase, surely, they will expect the same issues to arise on their second-year purchase unless these issues are resolved immediately by the business.

5. Advocate

Proficient marketers understand that customer engagement does not end when the prospect successfully checks out their purchase. Rather, it is an ongoing cycle of continuous information to the point where customers become loyal to your brand based on the metrics of loyalty that you will set.

In time, these loyal customers shall serve as your advocates and shall be the ones to help you out in your marketing efforts because who knows the customer experience better than those actually bought?

After all the exhaustive discussion on customer engagement and the effective strategies that need to be implemented in order to level up your business this 2021, it is undoubtedly a vital aspect of your marketing practices.

But knowing that there are platforms like Arena which offers technologies like Live Chat and Live Blog, among others, is assuring how the ease of implementation from this platform presents a huge and positive impact on the growth of your business this 2021.; Try Arena for FREE now!

Marketing: why you absolutely need a Live Chat tool

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Live Chat is a tool for instant communication between a brand and its customers. Moreover, it’s a business feature that will make your company convert more visitors and offer better service.

Whether you’re involved with big retailers or small brands, a Live Chat will help you connect to your consumers in the best possible way. Real-time answers are one of the reasons customers love to make deals with companies that offer this tool.

But there’s so much more you need to know about Live Chat, especially since one of the following year’s marketing trends focuses on providing a greater customer experience.

Since we’re on the subject, both things are highly related to each other — but I’ll get into more details later on. Here, I’m also going to tell you everything to understand how to use this feature and create a positive brand perception for your business, plus how to choose the best live chat software.

Just one more thing before you learn all about acquiring a Live Chat as a marketing tool for 2021: it will only take you as far as you’re willing to put your efforts. What does this mean? It’s worth nothing to work with this type of chat if you don’t create a strategy and work to see the most beneficial results it can offer.

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The growth of Live Chat

First, let’s start with some background on this tool. As I said, it is a communication tool, and its purpose is to connect brands with their customers. The concept has been around for many years, but only recently, companies started developing modern software that actually focuses on the customer experience.

Most customers prefer to make deals with companies that offer Live Chat. It’s more practical and convenient for them to talk, ask for help or support from the brand’s attendants.

Because of its many benefits, both for the brand and the customers, this feature has grown exponentially over the last few years. Even though companies still aren’t living the tool to its full potential, the process of adaptation has started.

In fact, many companies know this feature is important, they have a solution for their brand, but they also know they aren’t using it as they should to see the impact Live Chat can have.

Statistics that prove you need a Live Chat

Since it has gained much attention, companies wanted to learn some statistics and understand how important Live Chat really is. After all, numbers and facts are big helpers to make more intelligent and assertive decisions.

After gathering data from several business and customers, these are some examples of statistics that show how Live Chat is growing and making itself a must-have solution:

  • It’s expected to grow as much as 87% in the next months
  • 46% of consumers prefer Live Chat over other communication channels
  • B2B companies saw a 20% increase in conversions after they started using Live Chat
  • This tool is 50% cheaper than phone customer support
  • 79% prefer this channel because they get faster responses

Once again, I’ll repeat that: these numbers are only true if you work to make them that way. For example, customers prefer this chat because conversations are instant and faster than other means, right? So, if your customers are to think that way, you need to make sure attendants will be available to make real-time answers happen.

Do you see what I’m saying? It’s quite simple, really. Use it right, get the results. Leave it to chance, and you’ll be losing money.

How Live Chat and Customer Experience go together

If you haven’t made the connection so far, I will make it clearer for you: Live Chat IS customer experience.

What encompasses customer experience? Mostly, it is about the entire exposure and participation a person will have with your brand. From the first contact to closing a deal, every single moment is considered inside this experience.

And how important is CX? Well, I’ll recur to the statistics here one more time and there are two thing I want to show you:

  1. 96% of consumers say they consider this to be a deciding factor to encourage them into being loyal to a brand
  2. Businesses that focus on customer experience see a revenue up to 8% higher than their competition

CX is about increasing the customer lifetime value as well. The better the experience, the more long-lasting the relationship will be. This means that customers will either buy more frequently or make bigger purchases at once. Whichever happens, each customer will be worth a lot.

You probably know this already, but maintaining a customer is less expensive than acquiring new ones. So make sure to have a proposition to create loyal consumers.

Create a positive brand perception with Live Chat

As you may have noticed, offering good service is also related to how your company is seen through the eyes of the consumers. Are they giving you compliments or complaints? Are they recommending you? Are they coming back or making unique purchases?

Additionally, tracking consumer behavior is vital to understand their connection with the brand. If you know who looked at a product page, who added to the cart and gave up, and so on, you will know what kind of strategy to use as a follow up.

As you gather data, your whole team can analyze the information and have some insights on how to improve marketing, sales, and the customer experience itself.

Why do you need a positive brand perception?

I know this is probably a somewhat foolish question, but it needs to be answered. That’s because you must understand the benefits of having a good word of mouth.

Most decisions nowadays are made based on how your company is known in the market. If people give you good reviews, you’ll have higher chances of getting new customers. However, if your reviews are bad and full of complaints, people won’t think twice before turning to your competitors.

It’s all about increasing customer retention, attraction, and loyalty.

How is this related to Live Chat?

You’ve seen above how Live Chat and CX are part of the same thing. Which means, when you give customers a good service through this feature, it will pay off in customer satisfaction.

Once you get clients to be happy with what you give them throughout interactions, they will be more likely to talk you up. In reality, 89% of consumers say they would recommend a brand after a positive experience.

Hence, your brand will start getting recognition and be more attractive to make deals with.

What to do with your Live Chat to enhance CX and brand perception?

Simply put: you need to humanize your service. Create a real connection, asking and answering questions without sound like a pre programmed machine — one of the reasons why Live Chat is surpassing chatbots too.

Of course, you can use chatbots when your agents are so busy the response time will be longer. In these cases, your can program the bot to say “hi, an agent will be available in 3 minutes, would you like to wait or can I help you in the meantime?”.

Besides, you should always ask for feedback from your conversations. When problems are resolved, ask the customer if they can help you by answering a few quick questions about the service they just got.

This is good to see what worked, what needs to improve, and to get to know your consumer better as well.

Summing up: why you need a Live Chat for 2021

Now, I just wanted to make a short list that will give you all the reasons to acquire a Live Chat for your marketing plans for 2021. That is:

  • increase customer retention
  • enhance customer engagement
  • improve your marketing strategies with proactive service
  • increase your revenue by using Live Chat for sales strategies
  • give the best customer experience
  • improve your brand image
  • increase lead conversions

How to choose the best Live Chat software

“What do I need to consider to choose a Live Chat?” is a question that may have crossed your mind. And I will tell you what you need to know.

Features

What are the features the software has? Does it offer proactive chat? Does it have visitor monitoring options? Will your customers be able to use it through mobile? This is all important to ponder when you’re choosing a Live Chat solution for your business.

You shouldn’t go with the software that has more features. It’s necessary to check their quality and make your decision based on real facts.

Security

Will your information be safe inside this software? What about data from your customers? The last thing you want is a data leakage incident.

Make sure to be hiring a trustable Live Chat system.

Support

Since this tool is likely to suffer updates and renewals along time, you might encounter some difficulties to use it. Will there be a support team to answer your questions when that happens?

It’s very important to receive support. If they keep you waiting, it means you’ll be keeping your own customers waiting. And we don’t want that, do we?

Pricing

I wouldn’t say the price itself is the most important factor, but the cost benefit your chosen system has. Is it worth its price? How long will it take for the tool to “pay itself”? What’s the ROI for the software?

Have these questions answered, even if through projection, and put it to weight on your decision.

Customization

Not everyone takes this into consideration, but I find it crucial. Will you be able to put your own twist on the looks of the chat? Personalize colors? Use logo and create agent profiles?

Remember to learn more about this element before making your final decision. Keeping your brand’s image and visual identity on the chat is a matter of consistency.

Reports

Is the software you have your eye on checking all of these items? Here’s one more you need to rock off: team productivity reports.

To understand how your service is going, what needs to be done and who needs more training can be read in monthly reports the Live Chat system can offer you.

That is, considering the software you chose actually offers this feature.

How about you give a chance to Arena Live Chat?

At Arena, we can offer you everything that has been talked about and even more. To learn more about our solutions, simply go to our products page.

However, if you are already interested and ready to start reaping our Live Chat’s benefits, go ahead and start your free trial period. You’ll have up to 14 days to learn all about our tool, how to use it, and see how fundamental it is to your business.