Sales and marketing are two essential departments in a successful business, perhaps even the most crucial – put, without a high level of customer engagement, there will be no sales. However, it’s essential to find a balance between push marketing and pull marketing.

Most customers do not respond positively to hard sales techniques, preferring instead an approachable company with whom they can engage. How can you then convert this interaction into sales? Here are four tips on how your company can turn customer engagement into sales.

1. Exclusive sales and discounts

One method of converting engagement into sales is to offer exclusive deals and discounts to members of your mailing list or subscribers, or followers on your various social media platforms. This creates a feeling of exclusivity for customers, as they are given additional perks that non-subscribers do not get.

Additionally, posting on your social media accounts whenever you have exclusive sales and discounts will help your company gain more subscribers, usually keen to receive a refund. However, if your company has a first-time subscriber discount, make sure that this is only compatible with the first purchase from an email account; otherwise, you might find that buyers continuously subscribe and unsubscribe to get the discount.

2. Produce engaging content

To keep buyers subscribed to your mailing list and social media sites, it’s essential to offer them engaging content beyond exclusive sales and discounts. This content should be relevant to the platform on which it is being posted.

For instance, a monthly newsletter consisting of behind-the-scenes updates, aesthetically pleasing Instagram posts, and exciting and thought-provoking blog posts.

By producing engaging content rather than a constant stream of promotional materials (which customers can find annoying), customers will see your company as approachable and exciting, and therefore be more likely to want to buy your products.

3. Employ engagement analytics

To maximize your marketing strategies’ success, you must analyze the outcomes of your campaigns. Doing this will enable you to see what was successful in driving sales, and what could be improved upon in future campaigns. Using engagement analytics will enable your company to view engagement activity across all campaigns easily and, therefore, drive sales follow-ups.

Additionally, as the data is frequently updated, you will be able to assess the immediate success of any marketing campaign, enabling you to adjust your strategy accordingly to ensure that your campaigns are maximized for success.

4. Research your customer base

Another way of maximizing your marketing is to ensure that you know as much about your customer base. Data shows that different demographics use different social media platforms, and as such, will respond differently to different types of marketing campaigns.

As well as analyzing engagement data from your company’s social media sites, you could carry out a yearly questionnaire to find out more about your customer base and your customers’ activities and behavior.