What is brand engagement? strategies to improve brand engagement in 2023
A perfect brand image and brand engagement strategy are the two most important factors in your branding strategy. But what exactly is brand engagement, and how you can improve brand engagement through marketing?
Brand engagement refers to the process of developing a closer relationship with your customers. The thing is the type of loyalty you inspire will result in an audience that is committed to any form of marketing with your brand.
Why is Brand Engagement important?
Developing a strong emotional connection with customers has several important benefits. Let’s take a closer look at them.
- Customers Engagement
This is the initial and most obvious advantage of increasing brand engagement. A well-thought-out strategy, combined with a set of effective techniques, will allow you to interact with users on social media, messengers, and through email campaigns. As a result, you’ll be able to create a fantastic community around your brand.
- Allows Businesses to Increase Customer Retention & Loyalty
You will undoubtedly be rewarded if you attend to your customer’s needs and preferences, solicit their feedback on your brand, and strive to provide a positive user experience. Customers will reward you with their loyalty. As you know, selling to an existing client is much easier than selling to a newly acquired lead.
- Increases Sales
This advantage stems from the preceding point. The level of customer engagement has a direct impact on sales. Users buy solutions to their problems, not brands’ products, so the goal is to persuade a client that working with this brand will provide them with the benefits they seek.
- It Makes it Easier to Improve Products & Services
If a company can establish trusting relationships with its customers, it will not only increase sales but also gather valuable feedback. Customers are delighted to assist their favorite brands in growing and improving. As a marketer, you can conduct customer interviews through various channels and techniques. Surveys, polls, quizzes, feedback forms, and so on. Customers who provide feedback may be rewarded with a discount or other offers.
- Increasing the Size of the Cart and Sales
Showing that your brand can meet consumer needs increases the likelihood that they will engage with you and spend. According to research, more than 60% of customers believe brands should care more about them, and they are willing to spend more if they feel valued.
- Increasing Your Competitive Advantage
Why do customers prefer your brand over competitors? It’s not just because they know about your brand, but also because of your reputation. When your company has a reputation for excellent customer service, it has a competitive advantage over other companies that may have a well-known name but no associated reputation for strong customer relationships or brand values.
Strategies to Improve Brand Engagement in 2023
Your only limitation in terms of Internet marketing opportunities is your imagination. Today’s wide range of channels, content formats, and tools allows every brand to find the best fit for its target audience. In this section, we’ll share tried-and-true methods for increasing brand engagement.
- Hold Raffles, Contests, & Polls
These content formats enable businesses to increase engagement, attract new customers, and increase sales. People enjoy both interactive content and freebies.
Giveaways are especially popular among young businesses because they help to raise brand awareness and attract new customers. In exchange for an incentive, encourage users to join your mailing list or share your brand with their friends. It could be a special deal, a discount, a free trial, or anything else of value.
Contests operate similarly. Instagram polls are popular because they help brands increase customer engagement in posts and stories. Users are more likely to interact in this manner because they read stories first. Furthermore, it makes customers feel important and allows brands to identify their most active customers.
- Event Planning
Event marketing is an effective method of brand promotion. Events assist brands in acquiring new leads, increasing brand recognition and awareness, educating leads, and increasing engagement. All of this is made possible by both online and offline events such as webinars, seminars, conferences, thought-leadership events, workshops, and so on.
You can promote your upcoming event using a variety of marketing tools. Send an email with an event invitation, create a landing page, and promote events on social media.
- Personalize Customers Communications Across Channels
Personalization is essential for developing long-term customer relationships. Customers will not be loyal to your brand if you know nothing about them and treat everyone the same way.
Use personalization and segmentation to approach each user individually. The first tool enables marketers to send targeted messages to customers based on their personal information. This information may include a person’s name, gender, country, birth date, address, and so on.
Brands can use segmentation to divide their audience into segments and target each segment with highly targeted offers. Segments can be created based on demographics, interests, preferences, buyer journey stage, purchasing behaviour, and so on.
You can provide a highly relevant offer to a customer at the right time by using segmentation. If a user adds an item to their shopping cart but does not purchase it, they will be added to a corresponding mailing list and will receive an abandoned cart email.
To increase sales, provide them with a discount or free shipping. Triggered emails can be sent automatically in response to predefined events such as cart abandonment.
- Promote User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content is created by your brand’s audience. It is extremely effective because it promotes your company, increases brand awareness and engagement, and reaches new potential customers better than any other type of content created by the company. People have faith in one another.
UGC can take many forms, including photo and video reviews, comments, and participation in contests and giveaways. Brands frequently allow their audience to generate new ideas and award a prize to the most creative one. Analyze both your audience and the most promising channels to make this strategy work. Hashtags on Instagram and Facebook will aid in the virality of your content.
Design Brand Engagement Strategies Which Stand Out
Brand engagement is important for all companies, not just household names, in all market sectors. The methods and metrics discussed here can assist businesses in successfully providing the goods and services that their customers value. Experts at RewardPort can help you devise unique strategies based on your brand persona and customer psyche.
Creating a connection with customers, soliciting feedback, and being responsive to their needs will result in repeat business. Additionally, word-of-mouth promotion and customer loyalty result from the ultimate customer experience. So, set your objectives, choose your path, and let the experts drive you to your destination.
What are Brand Strategies to Increase Engagement?
Brand engagement refers to customer loyalty and attachment to brands. Consumer engagement, which increases business sales, is at the heart of marketing strategy.
Customers who are highly engaged are more likely to make larger purchases. Furthermore, highly engaged customers are more likely to share information about your company and products through their social networks. Their devotion generates word-of-mouth advertising, which is a surefire winner for any company looking to increase sales.
Brands make the right decision when they prioritize value creation over revenue generation. As a result, customers are completely satisfied because they are getting the best deal possible.
Brand Engagement vs. Brand Awareness
Both phrases are part of the foundational ideas of brand marketing. Brand engagement strategy suggests that any brand should pursue a number of goals in order to be successful. They consist of brand equity, advocacy, brand engagement, brand loyalty, brand identity, and brand image.
When developing your marketing strategy, brand recognition comes first. It calls for marketing initiatives designed to increase brand recognition. The ability of prospective customers to distinguish your brand from rivals and remember your items is essential. In other words, your brand should be the first to occur to people’s minds when they have a need for a product they haven’t used before. To do this, brands heavily invest in advertising on a variety of platforms.
Increase brand engagement as soon as you’ve raised brand recognition. In order to make a purchase, they must be intrigued by your business. So, allow them to communicate with you through a variety of methods and make them know that you value their feedback. More sales will result from a stronger relationship with your audience and more brand engagement.
How to Increase Customer Engagement?
You’ve probably noticed that major brands and businesses encourage their customers to leave product reviews on their official social media pages.
Customers can always share their opinions and experiences through testimonials. This is a critical component of a successful customer interaction strategy. If your services are good, encouraging consumer feedback will help your brand’s positive reputation spread organically and interpersonally.
Practice the Four-I Strategy
- Involvement: Make your audience an active participant in your campaign to increase engagement with your brand. To help clients feel more connected to your brand, your business should promote various benefits and rewards programs.
- Influence: People look for advice from celebrities and influencers they respect and want to imitate, especially in the social media age. Work with the people who your potential consumers most admire to sway them.
- Interaction: Two must dance the tango! In this case, the adage is entirely appropriate. Brands and customers must interact for any business to succeed. Additionally, contact will increase customer and brand trust.
- Intimacy: Engage in direct communication with, and outreach to, customers at various levels and via a variety of channels. By doing this, you’ll be able to understand what your customers are thinking and meet their wants.
Consider the Value of Mobile Apps
The online brand marketing strategies that businesses use have drastically changed as a result of the rise of smartphones.
Top businesses and brands not only have expert websites but also have mobile applications that are easy to use.
Customers may use these applications to get a bird’s-eye perspective of all the goods they can buy, give reviews, rate the goods, and ask inquiries. There are many of applications that also compare pricing for a certain goods.
Post high-quality material on social media for digital marketing
More international firms are using social media and search engine optimization to strengthen their bonds with current customers. You should first create top-notch interactive content if you want to encourage your users or consumers. Strong content will spread more often on social media and among friends, enhancing the reputation of your brand.
Why engagement matters?
There are more channels for communicating with customers than ever before. This means that businesses have several options for attracting and retaining customers. It also implies that competitors have access to the same opportunities.
Brands must actively work to connect and interact with consumers at every opportunity in order to increase consumer engagement. Be consistent with all of your consumer engagement strategies. Create great end-to-end customer experiences from the first interaction all the way through the brand journey by crafting messages that are consistent with the brand and relevant to the target audience.
Provide customers with a consistent and great experience, and you’ll gain their involvement, loyalty, and trust.
What Brand Engagement Would Look Like Post This Pandemic
Let’s just agree to the fact that the road ahead for most of the brands, big or small, is punctuated by the novel Coronavirus. And everybody is hustling to find new ways to engage with their customers during this pandemic and get their businesses back on track. Zara owner closing down on 16% of its global outlets and investing in online platforms is one such example.
One of my favorite quotes is from Abraham Lincoln. He said, “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” So my dear marketers, hold on to that perseverance for a little longer, and keep hustling, because perseverance with the right technique will help you reap the benefits.
Here are some simple quick tips about brand engagement that will help you gain just the right velocity for your brand during these tough times:
1. Get your online presence right, if you haven’t already
Online marketing is expected to play a bigger role in the longer run. Pay attention to mobile first approach for your websites and apps, as an average Indian is spending around 4 hours a day on their smartphones. Your customers, in all likelihood, would choose a brand that provides a better user experience.
Inditex, parent company of Zara and Massimo Dutti among other brands, is investing $1billion over the next three years to improve their online presence and an additional $1.7 billion on upgrading its stores to become more integrated with its online platform by deploying advanced technology solutions.
“According to research conducted by Qualtrics, when it comes to brand communications, Indians are more interested in the operational impact of COVID-19 compared to sales and promotional marketing.”
2. Keep your business information up to date
Update your customers about your operating hours. You may also want to update your address on Google. When updating your customers about the measures of cleanliness, sanitization and precautions you are taking, try not to overwhelm them with unnecessary information. They are probably already flooded with a lot of information. Try to provide them with helpful information only.
3. Set clear guidelines as per World Health Organization (WHO) protocol
Make sure that your customers, especially existing ones, know about the safety measures your brand has undertaken so that they don’t shy away from engaging with you. Target new customers with the help of precise targeting techniques. Organize free webinars to solve their queries. Host virtual events with your channel partners.
4. Use multichannel to communicate with them
Now is the time to go that extra mile with the communication strategies. Be creative yet relevant with your message. Use relevant influencers to reach your target audience.
“The top three messages respondents wanted to hear were how the business is responding to the crisis (75 per cent), the impact on the distribution (48 per cent), and information on products and services (48 per cent).”
5. Reward customers who regularly interact with your brand
Regardless of whether the customer made a purchase or just interacted with your brand, try rewarding them with some bonuses in the form of loyalty points or just a personalized message saying ‘thank you’ and offering them a discount coupon on their next purchase. This will indeed be a delighting experience for them.
6. Be Sensitive
The last thing you want when engaging with your customers is to sound salsey. Nobody is interested to know the reasons to buy your product. But they may be looking for solutions to their problems. Try selling solutions and not products. Provide them with ‘at-home brand user experience’. Try spreading some joy. This will help build a long term relationship with them.
RewardPort specializes in loyalty marketing programs, corporate loyalty card, dealer incentive programs, dealer loyalty, channel incentive, distributor incentive program, B2B loyalty programs, customer loyalty cards & marketing partner programs. Get a free consultation today.