So, Google’s definition of ‘brand engagement’ is the following: the process of forming an emotional or rational attachment between a consumer and a brand.
And whilst that is the clearest, direct answer you will get, it doesn’t consider the term’s complexity.
It has to do with people, emotions, and behaviours.
And that’s not all, folks.
Brands must engage in all sorts of outreach — discussions, experiences, advertising, etc., across all touchpoints and platforms, both traditional and digital, real and even imagined.
That outreach requires engagement as well – albeit most of the time that “engagement” entails counting: time spent on your channels; awareness raised; tweets/DMs sent or website visits made.
They’re not useless, but they’re also not the most super accurate indicators of brand engagement. Engagement is the method use d to get the consumer to engage with the brand, yes. But, real emotion-led brand engagement is a whole other story.
Below we’ll delve deeper into what real brand engagement means to me.
So let’s get going.
Table of Contents
Why is brand engagement SO critical?
In a one-liner.
Gaining attention and even recognition for a brand does not guarantee interaction with the brand.
Consumers should see the brand as satisfying their expectations as the perfect ideal in the market where the brand competes.
Therefore, the ultimate goal is to engage with the brand and actual, emotional connection with the brand.
When brands do this, consumers naturally act positively toward the brand. This is the actual bottom line.
Why?
Because genuine emotional involvement is substantially correlated with good consumer behaviour.
This leads to high customer retention & loyalty.
This, in turn, boosts sales.
And this, in turn, leads to greater levels of profitability.
“Oh, that’s a difficult way of phrasing it!” you might think, but the reality is, engagement and people’s behaviour towards companies is a complex paradigm.
We are dealing with real people, emotions, and behaviours at the end of the day.
So in my opinion, once you see it from a human POV, brand engagement is purely emotional and personal.
Brand Awareness vs Brand Engagement
So let’s battle this out, shall we?
The degree to which a brand is recognized by potential customers and accurately linked with its specific product is brand awareness.
In the case of a small business, brand awareness may not achieve iconic status (for example, asking for a Kleenex instead of tissue or Pampers instead of a diaper), but success is measured in simpler forms.
This might imply that:
- Customers are aware of your company’s reputation
- When a user on social media comes across your ad in their feed, and they know it’ll be entertaining or funny or sad etc
- Customers prefer your brand over others, even if there are cheaper alternatives
- Users searching for your company name or other branded phrases on search engines
On the other hand, brand engagement is more profound than just knowing a brand’s name.
Brand engagement is the process of building and sustaining a commitment to a brand from its customers.
This is one of the most crucial marketing objectives for any company.
It enables businesses to communicate with customers on a continuous basis, increasing brand loyalty.
The three main unique points of brand engagement are:
- an emotional commitment to your brand
- a relationship-driven by interactions between your brand and its customers
- creating a sense of belonging and community that your customers feel.
Up until recently, attaining ‘brand awareness’ was the holy grail of marketing.
It’s all about ‘brand engagement’ nowadays.
Brand awareness refers to a person’s acquaintance with a particular brand, whereas brand engagement refers to an emotional or rational commitment to a specific brand.
The mobile revolution has radically changed the purpose of the brands, turning it into a two-way street between companies and customers.
Brands should strive to strengthen their client interactions continuously.
Thanks to the world wide web and the diffusion of news, it has never been easier to exchange thoughts, reviews, and experiences with fellow online users.
So, let’s have a look at our four tips to improve your brand’s online engagement!
4 Tips To Increase Brand Engagement
Let’s cut to the chase – here are my personal favourite four tips on how to increase your brand engagement online:
- Hold giveaways, contests, and polls
Companies can use these content forms to boost engagement, attract new clients, and increase sales. People appreciate both engaging content and receiving gifts.
You can also modify your marketing campaigns to improve employee engagement with your brand by offering giveaways of your product or service.
It’s a win-win situation for both sides.
Giveaways are particularly popular among emerging businesses since they help raise brand recognition and attract new clients. In exchange for an incentive, encourage users to join your mailing list or share your brand with their friends.
It could be a discount or a free trial. Who doesn’t love a freebie?
- Encourage user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is material created by your brand’s audience.
It’s incredibly successful since it helps market your business, increase brand awareness and engagement, and reach out to new potential clients, and it outperforms any company-created content.
People have faith in one another.
UGC may take several forms, including photo and video reviews, comments, contest participation, and freebies.
Businesses encourage their customers to develop new ideas and compete for a prize for the most inventive. Analyse your audience and the most promising channels to succeed this plan.
Your material could even go viral if you use hashtags on Instagram and Facebook.
- Personalise communications with customers on different online channels
Personalization is the key to establishing long-term customer connections.
Customers will not be loyal to your brand if you don’t know anything about them and treat everyone equally.
Take advantage of personalization and segmentation to approach each user separately.
The first method allows you to send customised messages to customers based on their personal information. Name, gender, nationality, birth date, address, and other personal information are examples.
Brands may divide their customers into segments and target each segment with highly targeted offerings via segmentation.
You may construct segments based on demographics, interests, preferences, stage of the buyer’s journey, purchase behaviour, and other factors.
You may increase customer engagement with a highly relevant offer at the perfect moment via segmentation.
- Organise virtual or offline events
Events are a surefire way to get your company’s name out there.
Brands may use events to generate new leads, raise brand awareness, educate leads, and enhance external or internal brand engagement.
This is made possible by webinars, seminars, conferences, thought-leadership events, workshops, and other online and offline activities.
You may promote your next event with a variety of marketing techniques.
Create a landing page, send an email invitation, and promote events on social media.
While recovering from a global pandemic, if hosting an offline event is not feasible or safe, do not fret. There are always options to host virtual events to boost external brand engagement further!
How to measure brand engagement
I know that data and numbers aren’t super accurate indicators of what genuine brand engagement means and involves. However, data and measurements can back up qualitative, subjective claims and statements regarding brand engagement.
Measure these crucial indicators to get a clear view of your brand engagement strategy’s efficacy and be prepared to enhance it.
Check out how to measure brand engagement below:
Google Analytics
Take advantage of analytics tools such as Google Analytics to track user activity on your website and certain pages.
It provides brands with accurate and trustworthy statistics on their website’s user behaviours.
You may learn about how people use your site, their interests, the devices they use, the traffic channels they utilise, and even real-time users. T
This data will give you insight into the most popular pages on your site and how visitors interact with them.
Social Media Engagement
Everything is determined by the channels you employ and your short-term objectives.
Monitor the number of shares, reposts, hashtags, and mentions if you devote all of your time to social media.
Choose the appropriate time periods to get a clear sense of your strategy’s performance.
Email analytics should be monitored if you communicate with clients via email campaigns.
Email open rate, click-through rate, and conversions are examples of these KPIs. Of course, there are many other factors to consider, but these three have the most impact on your brand engagement. Your email open rate reflects the overall amount of interaction and how well your subject line indicates the email’s content.
The click-through rate reflects whether you successfully created a relevant and appealing offer for your subscribers. The conversion rate indicates how many users completed the required activity. It determines whether or not your email marketing efforts are practical.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You can also keep an eye on branded search phrases and high-quality backlinks. Track links with Ahrefs and Google Trends to see how frequently your brand is discussed.
Some good examples of customer brand engagement
Below are some of the most beloved brands and examples of how they’ve used consumer brand interaction to evolve brand loyalty while boosting a brand’s customer engagement base and retention, leaving customers wanting more!
Netflix
Netflix’s focus on personalising client experiences is one of the reasons why they are such a compelling example of consumer engagement.
Netflix has provided an on-demand experience that is unique for each viewer by extensively investing in algorithms and audience data.
There are now ’33 million various versions of Netflix,’ as its director of worldwide communications says.
The key takeaway: To learn from this customer interaction example, research your consumers’ actions and preferences to go beyond their wants.
You can learn how to evolve and better sell your product by analysing the behaviours of your present clients.
IKEA
IKEA’s attempts to replicate the in-store experience online are among the most exemplary customer engagement examples that retail organisations can benefit from.
‘People desire personal connection… it’s what we’ve always done,’ says Gillian Drakeford of IKEA.
IKEA was an early user of technology like video chat and augmented reality to provide the most significant online customer experience for their consumers.
Customers may engage with IKEA whenever it suits them, for example, with their mix of in-store and online appointments for kitchen design.
The key takeaway is to use a customer care platform to integrate the in-store experience online to build an omnichannel approach to customer interactions.
Apple
One of Apple’s most successful customer engagement strategies is altering how customers see their technology compared to their many competitors in the market.
To do this, Apple first produced stylish and user-friendly devices before evoking an emotional response from their target audience.
Instead of emphasising the characteristics of its goods, Apple has always emphasised their benefits.
They’ve even positioned their items as a lifestyle symbol, portraying themselves and their clients as distinct.
It’s a challenging customer interaction example, but it effectively generates evangelical devotees.
The key takeaway: Focus on offering a tried-and-true product and an emotionally gripping marketing technique to learn from this customer interaction example.
Uber
Another excellent example of building brand engagement is Uber’s utilisation of loyalty benefits.
Uber Rewards, launched in 2018, allows consumers to accumulate points that can be used toward future purchases, whether they’re calling a cab or ordering food.
Uber successfully gamified their offering by implementing a rewards tier system, resulting in more devoted clients.
The key takeaway: Make it a point to fix customer concerns while incentivizing your services regularly. Consider what is customary in your sector, then consider whether you can change it.
Regardless of size, company or product, there are three fundamental characteristics that each brand has in common regarding client interaction.
- These brands demonstrated a willingness to listen to their customers to maintain client engagement.
- In the face of shifting views and behaviours, each brand adapted.
- Each company gave shoppers a compelling incentive to come back again and again.
In conclusion
These firms’ customer engagement examples show how to drive continuing interactions between your brand and your audience by rethinking and renewing their approach.
It’s proof that offering your customer base a product experience that surpasses all others is the most effective method to get them thrilled.
What is your favourite example of consumer interaction, and how does it motivate you and your brand?
