Boosting Your Marketing Engagement

What sort of marketing do you do?

• Social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.
• Blogging
• Video marketing
• Email

What is the one thing that each of those need to be successful?

Engagement.

Every piece of marketing you produce must make a connection with your audience and that means thinking carefully about what you say and how you present it.

Here are 5 ways you can make your marketing more engaging.

1. Them not you

How many times have you seen a Facebook page, Twitter feed or email that’s all about the writer and not about the recipient.

Constant sales messages, promotions and pointless links are annoying. They don’t tell you anything about the company (other than they place their importance way ahead of anyone else’s) and certainly nothing about why you would want to deal with them.

By engaging and putting out messages that don’t involve selling – i.e. offer tips, advice and great information, you will begin to establish trust and give potential customers a reason to care about your brand.

That means focusing on what your customers want.

2. Questions

Asking questions is the best way to boost engagement. Although you can ask through social media platforms and surveys, a more intimate approach will work better.

Why not consider having a small networking gathering at your office for some carefully selected individuals? Perhaps a dinner or event (wine tasting?) will help you engage and get to know them.

Both approaches will not only give them a chance to get to know you better, they also offer valuable market research potential so you can make sure you continue to give your customers what they want.

3. Respond

Although asking questions is great, you mustn’t forget to answer them too.

With social media it’s very easy to get caught up in everything and miss the questions you get from your followers. There’s nothing worse than having your tweet, post, or blog comment ignored, so make sure you have someone manning those channels so nothing is missed.

If you get asked the same questions a lot, why not compile them into an FAQ page?

Just an idea.

4. Audience participation

The best way to drive engagement with the content you produce is to involve your customers in the creation process.

Use them as case studies or use their experiences to compile a blog post. You could even encourage them to add photos of them using your products to your Facebook page.

5. Don’t be a one trick pony

Written communications are all well and good, but don’t lose sight of the fact that people engage differently. Some may prefer audio or video content too, so offering a mixture will widen its appeal.

6. Be human

It’s widely believed that when you’re marketing your business it has to be very impersonal and corporate.

It’s a myth – the best way to engage with your audience is to inject some personality into the mix. Add a few personal updates and tweets to they can get to know you as a person.

As the above has shown, engagement is about getting to know your audience and customers. That kind of connection generates one of the most valuable commodities in business – trust.

How do you go about generating engagement? Do you use any innovative techniques? If so, leave a comment and share them with us.

Author:

Sally Ormond, copywriter and founder of Briar Copywriting Ltd. She also loves blogging, tweeting, cycling and the odd chilled glass of Pinot Grigio.