What is Brand engagement?
The term “brand engagement” describes the development of bonds between customers and brands. These attachments, which could be rational or emotional, eventually lead to brand loyalty. This strengthens the brand and enhances the customer’s experience.
There are two types of brand engagement:
- Internal brand engagement occurs between a brand and its close stakeholders, such as employees.
- Brand awareness, also referred to as external brand engagement, occurs when the general public interacts with a brand.
Brand management includes brand engagement as a crucial component.
Internal brand engagement vs external brand engagement
Two different kinds of brand engagement exist. Each has a unique impact on your brand and business.
Internal brand engagement
Have you ever participated in a work event, received work supplies, or engaged in “team-building” activities?
All of those were tools for internal brand engagement.
The term “internal brand engagement” describes partners, suppliers, intermediaries, and other stakeholders’ bond with a particular brand. It assists in maintaining everyone’s alignment with the stated mission or business objectives and goes hand in hand with forming a company’s culture.
When your brand is well-developed, it permeates your entire business and offers numerous advantages. Brand engagement helps in the following –
- Increases staff performance
- Reduces staff turnover
- Creates a unified corporate culture
- Keeps the business focused on its objectives or core values.
- fostering community
- creates the company’s story
- involving a brand externally
External brand engagement
When most people hear “brand engagement,” they picture external brand engagement. It entails customer interactions that promote brand loyalty and emotional attachment.
Touchpoints are where consumers interact with your brand as they come into contact with it. These are merely chances for a communication. Your brand’s common touchpoints include:
- Social media presence on a website
- actual store
- Public advertisements Online reviews
- recommendations from others
Often, you can find these by mapping out the user journey. Brand engagement occurs when you set up touchpoints to improve how your customers interact with your brand.
Examples of effective brand engagement
According to research by Salesforce, a customer needs an average of six to eight touches before they are ready to purchase. They will interact with your brand often, giving you many chances to build brand engagement.
There are many chances for brand engagement, but these four are the most prevalent ones:
Social media participation
Around 90% of people make purchases from businesses they follow on social media, and usage of social media as a whole has increased significantly in recent years. As a result, it ranks as one of the top locations for launching brand engagement campaigns to draw in and retain your audience.
Different types of media will perform better on different social media platforms, but they can all be used to raise brand engagement. Try one or more of the following whether you use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or another platform:
- Giveaways, promotions and freebies
- Posting questions, tests, or other content that prompts discussion.
- Using original hashtags to gather user-generated content
Discount coupons and codes
Everybody loves to save money. Discounts, coupons, and vouchers are simple ways to increase customer engagement and make customers happy to shop with you.
According to some research, customers are more devoted to brands that readily offer discounts. This is because discounts and coupons imply that you are thinking about the customer’s interests rather than just your own business. There are several options for coupons or discounts.
- When joining a loyalty programme or newsletter.
- On special days like birthdays or anniversaries.
- After spending a certain amount
Interactive marketing
Although we’re accustomed to viewing advertisements as one-sided communications, this is only sometimes the case. You can promote brand engagement from the very first touch, whether through clever advertisements that persuade viewers to engage in an activity or interactive displays that keep content dynamic.
In a few concise but clever ways, signage, advertisements, and other materials can all serve as vehicles for brand engagement. Consider:
- Making quizzes that pique curiosity and interest.
- Request that viewers participate in a scavenger hunt that takes them to an actual store.
- Evoking a solid response, like laughter or rage, to establish an emotional connection.
Live events
Live events can significantly increase brand engagement when used effectively. Live events are a great way to establish a personal connection with your audience by requiring attendees to be in a specific location at a specific time and giving off an air of exclusivity. For precisely this reason, about 77 per cent of marketers continue to use them as the foundation of their digital marketing strategy.
Live events in 2023 can mean something other than physical events, though they sometimes do. In addition to demonstrating a commitment to social responsibility, virtual events are a great way to expand your brand’s reach outside of your immediate area. Live events that increase brand engagement include the following examples:
- Web conferences or webinars
- Dinners, auctions, or charity events
- Live demonstrations or in-store real-time online shopping, especially when it’s human-guided
5 top tips for improving brand engagement
Brand management includes brand engagement as a crucial component. Getting it right entails expanding your brand, attracting new audiences, and providing your staff or customers better services.
There are a few things you must do, though. Make certain to:
- Create a journey map for customers or staff. You can optimise your brand by clearly understanding the path your users take when they first discover it. Additionally, you’ll notice touchpoints, some of which might be particular to your company.
- Decide on your metrics in advance. Have an engagement strategy, and be aware of the metrics you need to track to gauge success.
- Real-time observation of behaviours You’ll maintain sensitivity to shifting consumer or market demands by emphasising real-time observation strongly. You can speed up experience optimisation by doing this.
- As much as you can, personalise. Did you know that 80% of consumers desire a customised shopping experience? Employee engagement is also raised by personalisation by as much as 30%.
- Together, raise brand engagement on the inside and outside. Refrain from concentrating on one and ignoring the other. An appealing brand to work for will have motivated employees who will contribute to the success of your brand.
