Engaging leads and customers on a mass scale is far easier now, thanks to the digital age, but it can also be overwhelming. With so many channels to pursue, and so much to measure in the process, it can be difficult to know where to start.
Below, we have taken a look at some of the key fields for digital engagement, and some of the things you can do to make your strategies successful.
Social Media
Social media comes in a wide array of shapes and forms but all of these are united by one common element; they are all tailor made for excellent engagement opportunities. But how can you tell that your social media engagement strategies are working?
To understand this, you need to choose your metrics. Twitter likes and retweets give your brand the opportunity to reach whole new sets of eyes and ears, greatly increasing your scope for engagement. Facebook likes and comments help you to build up a picture of which sort of content is connecting with your audience, and to then develop a conversation around this.
In essence, social media platforms provide a vast toolbox for connection and interaction. It is up to you to ensure you are using it to the full. Connect with fans, reach out to those who have had a bad experience and try to put it right, share useful content, identify the key pain points which are antagonising your clients, and research who the market leaders are and what are they up to.
Individually, these are decent strategies; combined, they form a formidable arsenal for social media engagement.
Email Marketing
The discipline of email marketing is a perfect case study for the differences between engaging and merely contacting. By sending out an email – or a large group of emails – you are certainly contacting leads, but are you engaging? Maybe not.
First off all, you need to consider open rates. Are the recipients opening your emails? If not, why? Try changing the subject line or other content to see what works.
Next, examine clickthrough rates – is the content of your email impelling customers to click? How long is it taking them to click – are you experiencing more responses in the first, second or third hours following the delivery of the campaign? What about opt outs and bounce rates? If these are too high, you need to rethink the form and content of your emails, as well as the quality of the leads in your database.
Remember that each email should be crafted with a specific goal in mind, which should be clearly defined. Are you aiming to secure a sign up or opt in, or are you in search of a direct lead conversion? The language, content, and structure of the email must be geared towards this.
Website
Your website is more than just a sleek-looking online extension of your company. If deployed correctly it can be a highly effective inbound marketing and engagement tool.
To get the best out of engagement on your website, you must support inbound engagement with outbound campaigns; for example, great content on your website, with a link to a landing page from your email marketing campaign.
This will deliver a diverse array of visitors, some who will spend time browsing between pages within your website, and others who will leave after one click. Keep an eye on this – leaving after a single click is known as bouncing. It is a clear indicator that you are attracting the wrong type of lead to your website and harming your SEO credentials at the same time. Don’t despair, however, simply ask yourself why this is happening and put it right.
Aim to increase the time that visitors spend on your site and increase the number of repeat visits they make. If you can make these numbers move in the right direction – through great content, a clear and easily-navigable layout, and through excellent products and services – you know you are succeeding at online engagement.
Of course, sales and conversions are a big part of the endgame. Craft a streamlined and easy to follow route from your homepage, content pages, landing pages, or elsewhere, directly to product and eCommerce pages, and maximise conversion rates.
Monitoring engagement helps you to better understand your customers and what they want. Are you taking the necessary steps to achieve this?
Here at Swift Digital, we can assist with engagement scoring to make sure your campaigns are a success! To find out how your business can get the best out of Swift Digital’s platform, contact our Sales Team today on 02 9929 7001.
