Retaining customers takes more than just high-quality products and a smooth user experience. Customers buy — and continue to buy —  from brands they’re emotionally connected to. In fact, 70% of emotionally engaged consumers spend up to two times more on brands they are loyal to (source).

So the question is, how do brands create emotional connections with their customers? While there’s not one simple answer, there is one method that stands head and shoulders above the rest: storytelling.

Keep reading to learn four different ways to build stronger connections and retain more customers through storytelling!

1.     Tell your customer’s story.

When we have an emotional connection to a story — whether it’s fact or fiction — it’s likely because we relate to the story’s characters. The same concept applies to brand storytelling. Elicit an emotional response by making your customers the hero of your stories, or by giving them a hero they can relate to.

Start by considering your ideal customer’s needs and pain points. Why would they buy a product you sell? What problem do they need to solve? Then, create content that illustrates these needs and pain points as part of a narrative.

Let’s pretend you sell sales prospecting software— although it may be tempting to produce a video showcasing the various features of your product through a screen recording, instead, we recommend telling the story of the typical user. Perhaps you show a day in the life of a sales rep who isn’t meeting quota, then using your product, you show the same sales rep hitting his goals without a problem.

2.   Humanize your brand.

With so many options available to the average consumer, brands often become indistinguishable from one another. As a result, customers have no real attachment to one particular brand over another.

Through storytelling, however, you can help your customers understand more than just what they’re buying, but also who they’re buying from.

We recommend placing an emphasis on your actual staff in your branding materials. Feature your employees on your social media profiles, highlight their accomplishments, even celebrate their birthdays and personal milestones.

One example leveraged by companies all over the world is using storytelling techniques within advertising and marketing content to depict the story of your company— how it started as a small team of individuals and grew into what it is today. Although this example has clearly been done before, everyone’s origin story is different. Telling your own story will set you apart from similar companies and humanize your brand in a way that other marketing tactics can’t.

3.    Show your company’s values.

Studies show that only 13% of consumers cited frequent interactions as a reason they have a relationship with a specific brand. Although this statistic may come as a relief to marketers who are frankly tired of the fight to get in front of consumers, it also poses more questions than answers. If interaction doesn’t contribute to customer relationships, what does? According to 64% of consumers, that answer is simple: shared values (source).

Whether through video or a written narrative, discuss the values that drive your brand. Beyond selling products, what does your company stand for? What positive change do you want to make for your customers, and for the world at large?

With that being said, resist the urge to manufacture values for the purpose of increasing customer retention. Brands often latch on to trending social issues and hot-button topics not because of strong values, but because they want to cash in on some favorable attention. Your customers know the difference between genuine virtues and virtue-signaling, so make sure the brand stories you tell are honest and authentic.

4. Promote user-generated stories.

Customer retention hinges on two factors above all else: trust and authenticity. And, it’s been proven time and time again that customers trust user-generated content much more than traditional marketing content. In fact, 92% of consumers trust other customers more than they trust advertising from brands (source).

Retain more customers by encouraging your existing customer advocates to tell their own stories. While this might seem like a difficult task, there are plenty of ways to involve your customers beyond simply asking them to talk about you. For example, you might interview a lifelong customer about their experiences with your brand. Then, transform the interview into a narrative-driven case study.

The best part about user-generated content is that your customers are probably already creating it— search social media for your brand name, hashtags associated with campaigns, or posts your company is tagged in. You’ll be surprised by how many customers are already telling their own stories about their experiences with your brand!

Final Thoughts

Of course, no matter how great your branding is, you’ll only retain customers if they truly love your products. But, given how crowded the ecommerce space is, forming meaningful connections through brand storytelling can be a brand’s competitive edge.

Sam Holzman is a Content Marketing Manager at ZoomInfo, a leading B2B contact database that helps organizations accelerate growth and profitability. He regularly covers topics related to sales, marketing, and recruiting and likes to write about sports and travel in his free time.

The post 4 Ways to Improve Customer Retention With Storytelling appeared first on cleverbridge.

Why is it wrong to write product descriptions like that?

First, they don’t give any added value to customers. Prospects don’t want to know every spec of a product and read a description as if it was written by a manufacturer; they want to know what’s in it for them.

Second, they don’t address your customer personality and the tone of voice they’d like to hear from your brand.

And third, such descriptions look and sound the same. They don’t help your ecommerce website stand out from the crowd of competitors.

There’s also another catch:

Even if you write product descriptions with the best ecommerce copywriting practices in mind, you still need to craft a countless number of them. It leads to the problem we all know as content duplication, and that’s what Google algorithms hate so much.

To avoid Google penalties for duplications, don’t plagiarize and rewrite product descriptions from competitors. Don’t use the same expressions over and over again because you think they are “words that sell.” Don’t stuff descriptions with the most obvious keywords in the hope of high rankings. Avoid common grammar mistakes and remember to check every text for plagiarism before publishing.

Long story short, consider the tricks of writing original product descriptions that would please both customers and search engines.

Here they are:

1. Watch Your Language

When you write dozens of descriptions, there’s a temptation to use general terms for every description to complete it faster. All those “world-class,” “top-notch,” “innovative approaches” and “the best solution on the market” with “cutting-edge technology” tell nothing about your product.

Forget about them. Use facts, figures, and numbers wherever possible to increase your credibility.

Also, avoid an adjective overdose. It’s okay to use some to boost customer imagination, but too many adjectives confuse readers and slow them down.

What to do?

Use only one adjective before a noun.

Avoid the most obvious adjectives: chances are, your competitors will use them too. Choose emotional words that make readers feel something. Don’t describe the obvious. Why write what your product looks if you can show it in the picture?

2. Use Citations

First, they don’t count as duplications or plagiarism if you publish them with a proper reference. And second, they can serve as social proof for your consumers to buy from you.

Even if you have the best product in the world, people may not trust you. They need referral recommendations to decide if your product is worth their attention, and that’s where positive reviews or real feedback from real customers can help your product descriptions shine.

Add their feedback to descriptions, structure them as citations with a link to their profiles, and include their photos for credibility.

3. Tell Stories But Be Concise

Know that people often scan content online rather than read it thoroughly, so make sure your product descriptions are short, sweet, and easy to read. For that, combine paragraphs with bullet points and “need to know” aspects. It will give you room for creativity and original text writing, and enable you to convey valuable information to consumers.

To develop more ideas for product descriptions, use storytelling.

Our brain retains 70 percent of information through stories; they give us an emotional response and make us remember. Storytelling in descriptions would help you not only avoid duplications but also make your product stand out from the crowd of competitors.

4. Add Value

People don’t want to know about the description of the product as much as they want to know what’s in it for them. How can they benefit from it? What makes it different from others on the market?

Create value in product descriptions. Focus on your buyer persona, write with words they use, and think of your brand tone of voice: how would you speak to them if selling in a traditional store? Answer the five W’s in your text and show people what’s in your product beyond its specifications.

Writing “for everyone,” you risk duplicating tons of other ecommerce websites and making your descriptions vague. Sell emotions, not products. This will help you avoid plagiarism and differentiate your store in the marketplace.

5. Synonymize and Paraphrase

When you’re short on time and need to write 50-plus descriptions for products of the same category, it becomes challenging to stay creative and write an original text for each. The smart use of synonymization will save you.

Deploy ecommerce SEO practices, not merely replacing words with synonyms or changing the word order in original sentences to keep your content original and fresh.

The same goes for paraphrasing. Use rich vocabulary and expand or shorten phrases wherever appropriate. Think of LSI and long-tail keywords, and forget about marketing buzzwords and vague superlatives.

Summary

Check product descriptions via plagiarism checkers to see if you duplicate other websites by mistake, and revise them accordingly. Write an original text for every product card; treat your consumers like humans, not numbers.

Map your sales process to see what you can optimize on your ecommerce website to engage potential buyers. Consider split testing your product descriptions to understand what formats perform better. Don’t be afraid of A/B testing, but make sure to optimize for positive customer experience.

And sales won’t take long in coming.

Lesley Vos is a regular contributor to publications on business, marketing, and self-growth. More posts from Lesley are available here.

The post Secrets to Avoiding Duplications in Your Product Descriptions appeared first on cleverbridge.

Here are some of the most reliable and proven digital marketing techniques for the growth of your b2b ecommerce business.

A Cutting-edge Website

The first thing consumers do before buying a product is check the seller’s website. It’s pivotal that a company develop an interactive website that has the power to impress their customers. Include every necessary detail about your brand and product, as well as how you can differentiate yourself against your competitors. Some important must-haves for your ecommerce website, according to Brainrider.com, include measurement tools that support content engagement and funnel marketing leads into a database. This enables you to communicate more efficiently with your sales team and nurture qualified prospects.

Leverage LinkedIn for Prospecting

Paul Slack, the developer of “social media tactical wheels,” notes that B2B marketers are increasing their revenue from social media activities. LinkedIn is one of the best ways to reach the tough-to-get clients who would have otherwise not shown the same interest in you. With LinkedIn, you have the ability to connect with your ideal customer, build an organic relationship, and share valuable content.

Understand Your Target ‘Type’

Knowing the budget, interests, age group, strong and weak points, as well as the buying habits of your customer will make the path to success much easier. You will be able to make more informed and precise decisions regarding their business and create an effective impression on the mind of your target.

Laser-target Keywords

It’s much easier to attract traffic to your website with search engine optimization, or SEO. Make sure you’re providing blogs and informational content on your website leveraging long-tail targeted keywords, which contain modifiers or other additional words to your primary keyword. In fact, 70 percent of all web searches are long-tail. This is how you laser-target your audience and drive free organic search traffic to your product and landing pages.

Impactful Videos

Per research, videos are shared 1200 percent more times than text and links together. A company’s core message is far more digestible through a video than by reading text alone. As a highly engaging content form, videos can have a much more direct impact both intellectually and emotionally on your customers.

Engage with Your Audience – Give Responses and Take Responses

One bad review can overpower many good reviews in terms of customer perception. Understanding the flaws that customers see in your product or service can meaningfully move the needle on your company’s perception in the market.

It’s always advisable to reply to a negative review and assure future improvements. One way to take a more proactive approach is to track company or brand mentions by setting up Google Alerts. This way whenever someone mentions any of the submitted keywords, you’ll receive a real-time notification and can respond appropriately.

Inbound marketing specialist Lorenzo Gutierrez builds scalable marketing funnels for brands. Connect with Lorenzo on LinkedIn.

The post 6 Digital Marketing Tactics to Drive Your B2B Ecommerce Business appeared first on cleverbridge.