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In many ways, modern marketing has shifted away from a product-centric approach to one that is customer-centric instead. That’s one reason why more brands are integrating engagement marketing strategies into their customer interactions. Engagement marketing creates value for customers by speaking with them, not at them, involving them in the brand experience itself.
This article explains key aspects of engagement marketing and explores several tactics that help brands offer meaningful, interactive, and immersive experiences for consumers.
Key aspects of engagement marketing
Engagement marketing, also known as experiential marketing or participation marketing, prioritizes high-value interactions between a brand and its target audience. Instead of treating the customer as a passive recipient of a message, this marketing strategy works to understand customer needs, preferences, and desires, and then tailors efforts to meet those expectations.
Engagement marketing emphasizes the importance of:
- Authenticity, transparency, and honest communication to build trust and long-term relationships
- Experiences that invite customers to interact with the brand in a hands-on way
- Customer input and participation to engage them meaningfully and encourage brand loyalty
- Real-time interactions to encourage immediacy and immersion
Personalization is also essential. Effective customer engagement marketing tailors experiences to individual customers or segments, making interactions relevant and memorable. By using customization throughout various channels, the brand creates thriving communities and connects with its target audience on a deeper level.
Benefits of engagement marketing
Engagement marketing offers several benefits in our increasingly digital, highly connected world. Here are key reasons brands are turning to top experiential marketing agencies for help with engaging customers.
Increases brand loyalty
Engagement marketing allows brands to connect with consumers in a way that feels natural and less intrusive. This allows customers to opt in to the interaction, resulting in a two-way relationship, which creates a bond between the brand and the consumer.
Customers who have a positive experience with a brand are more likely to become brand advocates, spreading positive word-of-mouth and influencing others.
Provides valuable insights
When you leverage engagement marketing, you can gain valuable insights and feedback from consumers, which helps marketers make data-driven decisions and refine their strategies.
By regularly engaging with customers and building long-term relationships, brands stay attuned to changing preferences. Engagement marketing provides brands with the access to customers they need to obtain real-time feedback and quickly adapt based on what is important to their audience.
Supports customer retention
Actively involving customers through engagement marketing can lead to higher customer retention rates and increased customer lifetime value.
Just a decade ago, businesses often prioritized customer acquisition over customer retention. Today, we recognize the value of repeat customers. In a BIA/Kelsey survey, 61 percent of small business owners reported “over half of their annual revenue comes from repeat customers.” Plus, "a repeat customer spends 67 percent more than a new customer.”
Engaged customers have a deeper understanding of your brand, which can propel higher conversion rates as well.
Helps differentiate from competitors
Brands in saturated markets can offer unique and memorable experiences that shift the focus from sales alone. Interactive and engaging marketing campaigns are more likely to be shared by consumers, amplifying the brand’s reach through word-of-mouth, social media, and other channels.
Fosters community
An engagement marketing strategy can create a loyal customer base that feels connected to the brand. Effective marketers will then seek to create additional connections with other customers to create a community of people who reinforces the brand’s culture and values.
Strong relationships start with knowing your audience
In Twilio’s 2024 State of Customer Engagement Report, 81 percent of brands indicated that they have a “deep understanding of their customers.” However, only 46 percent of the 6,300 global consumers surveyed agreed.
Understanding the audience and customer is crucial for creating meaningful interactions. By knowing what the audiences cares about, you can:
- Deliver targeted content and experiences that engage
- Tailor messages to individual preferences
- Craft experiences that lead to long-term loyalty
- Know what content formats or channels are best for capturing your audience’s attention
- Identify and focus on high-value segments to maximize resources and impact
- Provide the relevance and value that builds trust
- Nurture communities that empower advocates and enhance customer engagement
Top engagement marketing strategies
Engagement marketing has a synergistic relationship with many marketing strategies. This section discusses the ways in which content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, interactive marketing techniques, event marketing, and even customer service can attract and engage your target audience.
Integrating several of these strategies together can be an even more effective route to engage with both new and returning customers.
Content marketing
Creating customer-centric, relevant content enhances engagement marketing impact. This approach means that you try to educate, entertain, or solve problems for your audience, which supports long-term relationships.
Blog posts and long-form content can help you to tell your brand story. Better still, the best content invites audience discussion to spark engagement. Your brand can have interactions with your audience, prompted by the content you develop, that speaks to their preferences or pain points.
Encouraging reviews, testimonials, and community contributions also invite audience participation and engagement. Plus, it can help you to understand customers - their preferences and pain points - to further customize your content delivery.
Asking for and posting user-generated content (UGC) can help create community and fuel social media engagement, which we discuss in more detail next.
Customer-focused social media marketing
Creating social media campaigns that encourage customer engagement through hashtags, user-generated content, and social media contests can help increase brand awareness and drive sales.
The right social media platform can extend engagement marketing by driving real-time, direct interactions between brands and consumers. Live streaming, stories, and polls create immediacy and excitement while providing immediate feedback the brand can use to adapt future campaigns.
Social media platforms also offer targeting and personalization tools, which can promote continuous engagement. Through groups, pages, and hashtags, brands can gather like-minded customers, encouraging them to interact not only with the brand but with each other.
Social media influencers have powerful relationships with their networks, and can leverage that trust to drive customer engagement for a brand. When customers see someone they follow and respect giving an endorsement of products or services, they lend credibility.
For example, when Nike collaborates with fitness influencers to create content, such as workout videos or personal stories, featuring Nike gear, they can drive brand engagement with a new, niche audience.
Email marketing and engaged customers
Engagement marketing leverages the ability to segment audiences and personalize email campaigns to form and maintain relationships.
Email marketing platforms make it easy to use dynamic content. Drawing on email lists segmented based on demographics, behaviors, or preferences — and changing email elements (such as images, text, or offers) — makes possible a more relevant and timely interaction.
Emailing newsletters, videos, case studies, or personalized offers, also lets brands maintain ongoing engagement, keeping their products or services top-of-mind. Offering email subscribers exclusive content can create a sense of belonging that is a powerful motivator for brand loyalty.
Further, effective calls-to-action in emails can encourage interaction across multiple channels. These platforms also generally provide detailed metrics (such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates) to help brands understand what works and what could be refined.
Interactive marketing tactics
Interactivity is a key aspect of engagement marketing. The relationship between brand and consumer is nurtured through active participation and making experiences memorable. That’s where quizzes and polls, contests and giveaways, surveys, reward programs, and leaderboards play into marketing strategy.
Interactive marketing offers the immediacy essential to engagement marketing. Consider the potential of the following examples:
- A skincare brand might use a quiz to provide personalized recommendations of products tailored to specific skin type.
- A fitness app might use gamification to encourage users to achieve their workout goals by offering rewards for consistency.
- A home builder might use augmented reality (AR) to let customers visualize themselves in the model home.
- A food brand might run a recipe contest where customers submit their creations for a chance to win a prize.
- A food chain might invite customers to earn points via purchases which can be redeemed for free menu items or other perks.
Event marketing for immersive experiences
Event marketing is designed to generate excitement, build community, and create immersive experiences. Of course, it is a key strategy in engagement marketing.
Carefully crafting a brand experience lets you communicate values, mission, and identity in a direct, tangible way. More immediate than digital or traditional media, event marketing offers a unique platform for brand storytelling.
Events also bring together people with shared interests, which can strengthen a sense of community. Take Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). This showcase of new products along with workshops allows consumers to have hands-on experiences with the latest technology and interact with developers. It boosts the brand relationship while giving people networking opportunities — and enhancing customer engagement.
Event marketing also helps to generate buzz and excitement. Integrated content marketing and social media marketing increase anticipation before the event. During the event, influencers and UGC can amplify reach. After, articles and videos can work with word-of-mouth promotion and social media sharing to further amplify the engagement with the event experience.
Offering product samples or trials during events is another way to make memories. Plus, brands can often benefit from real-time customer feedback. At A Little Bird we often combine our product sampling tour stops with relevant events (e.g. Celsius at Tough Mudder events) to optimize engagement with the target audience.
Customer support connects to engagement too
Providing excellent customer experiences also plays into engagement marketing. Excellent customer support can accompany a brand’s marketing strategy, as agents (or even the AI chatbot) work to drive brand value and cultivate customer engagement. When a customer has a good experience, their trust in the brand increases. Engaged customers tend to be more likely to advocate for your brand, share reviews, offer testimonials, and join your brand community.
The more your customer interactions, even those that address complaints, meet or exceed expectations, the more likely you are to connect long-term with your consumers.
Measuring and optimizing engagement marketing
Tracking key metrics helps brands and their marketing partners optimize engagement marketing strategy. These include:
- Engagement rates (e.g., pages per session, time spent on page, average session duration)
- Customer retention rates
- Customer lifetime value
- Net Promoter Score
- Customer satisfaction
- Conversion rates
Regularly reviewing these metrics, and refining your efforts to ensure you meet your goals, can help your brand respond to customers’ needs and preferences.
Engagement marketing agency: A Little Bird
By prioritizing relationships and customer experiences with immediacy and interactivity, engagement marketing builds brand loyalty and drives business growth. Creating a more engaging customer experience can also help you connect with your target audience more effectively, which helps you to build a thriving brand community.
Partner with A Little Bird for your experiential marketing needs and a successful customer engagement strategy. Our community building strategies use design-thinking, strategic ideation, and multi-channel engagement to creatively connect with customers to turn loyal customers into advocates for your brand.