Brand engagement is one of the most crucial and desired marketing objectives in the marketing plan of small and big companies. But how do you define it? So as I started working on this blog post, I decided to look up the term and see what the Internet has to say… The three most repeated descriptions of brand engagement were:
- “customer’s overall perception of a business”
- “an emotional commitment to a brand”
- “a relationship-driven by interactions between a brand and its customers”.
Here, at Easypromos we define it as the overall relationship between the brand and its customers. So to put it into simple words…
Brand engagement is when a customer interacts in any form or way with your brand or product. Share on XSimple, right?!
Different types of brand engagement
Can you think of different ways in which customers can interact with your brand? Let’s list some examples. Social media interactions, newsletter subscriptions, user-generated content, purchases, loyalty programs, website and shop visits, recommendations. Contacting you and using your product is also brand engagement!
Brand engagement is an important aspect for start-ups, but also for big corporations. Big and popular brands also rely on positive customer engagement. Good customer experiences lead to emotional relationships with the brand and a feeling of belonging. A survey conducted in 2017 revealed that 70% of Apple users wouldn’t even consider switching to another brand. Now that’s what we call real brand loyalty!
Brands should be on a constant mission to improve their customer relationships. With the development of the Internet and the spread of news, it has never been easier to share opinions, reviews, and experiences with fellow online users. Therefore, let’s have a look at how you can enhance your brand engagement online!
Giveaways to strengthen customer relationships and boost brand engagement in social media
In the age of social media, the word “engagement” makes comments, likes, and shares come running through your mind. If you’ve set up your social media profiles (if you haven’t, then go to do it right now!) you know certain posts attract more attention than others. Some brands make the mistake of sharing great pictures and videos, but they lack the effort of encouraging conversations.
A study conducted by ODM Group found that 74% of customers rely on social media to help with their purchasing decisions. And even though social media engagement is not a metric to determine how many people convert into paying clients, it is sometimes a great factor to convert potential customers. If someone interested in your product ends up visiting your social media profiles, they will be more likely to buy from your brand if they see that your brand engages in conversations with customers, gives back to the community and replies to questions asked in the comments section.
Instagram Giveaways
So to visualize it, here’s a great example of an Instagram campaign launched by Tombow. The brand was looking to boost its social media engagement over the Christmas season.
The organizers opted for a series of 12 giveaways to celebrate the tradition of 12 days of Christmas. Over a period of 12 days, they were launching daily Instagram giveaways based on comments. The rules were simple; the brand asked the participants to follow their account, and answer a simple question. The questions varied daily, and here are some examples:
- Leave a comment letting us know why you’d like to win.
- Let us know why you love using dot grid journals.
- Tell us what is your favorite Christmas tradition
This kind of questions got people talking! And this is how Tombow achieved its highest-to-date social media engagement!
Another way to increase your social media engagement is by asking the participants to mention their family or friends in the comment section. You can, for example, say “To participate, tag a friend who would also like to win!” or “Tag the person you would like to share the prize with!” This will automatically attract more attention and participants entrants for your giveaway!
What would be the ideal prize? Anything from your range of products or services! In the end, you’re trying to promote your brand.
Find out more about the campaign launched by Tombow, and discover the Easypromos tool to transparently draw random winners of your Instagram Giveaways.
Photo and Video Contests to collect user-generated content and build brand loyalty
User-generated content is powerful. Hootsuite found that customers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to the content generated by the brand itself. Sometimes you might be in luck and have some of your loyal customers share pictures or videos of them interacting with your brand. It could be anything, pictures of your merchandise, or products being used.
But what to do when you want to gather appealing pictures or videos? Or maybe you’re looking for content with a specific product or theme? Photo and Video Contests are the answer!
Let’s take a look at this photo competition organized by a keffiyeh producer (keffiyeh is a kind of scarves popular in the Arabic countries). The brand wanted to promote their products so they decided to ask their online community to share content with their product pictured.
The incentive involved in the promotion motivated the audience to join the competition. The lucky winner got to visit Jordan!
To facilitate the participation process, but obtain more participants, the organizer enabled entries from Twitter and Instagram, so the interested users could join the competition by using a specific hashtag and brand mention. In this case, the chosen hashtag was #KeffiyehChallenge.
Promotions aiming to collect user-generated content encourage brand engagement. The interested participants interact with the brand and content while participating in the competition. Let’s also add that you because of the integrated entry forms you get to obtain new leads for your future marketing purposes!
Do you want to find out some more about successful Photo Contests? Check out this success case of an annual Photo Contest organized by Miss Diving Specials.
Photo and Video Contests to promote brand values and generate engagement
Don’t worry if you don’t have a product that your audience can easily photograph. If you’re a service provider, ask your audience to share pictures with a different theme. Ask them to share pictures of their favorite spots in their city, or the best holiday experiences they’ve ever had! Contests to collect UGC are also great to promote your values. So if your brand is a retailer of vegan and cruelty-free beauty products, ask your audience to share pictures of their pets on World Animal Day! This is great to raise awareness and promote your company culture. But the most important thing is to reward their participation!
Photo and video contests are great to build brand loyalty and trust. By sharing the best user-generated content on your social media pages you will also increase your audience’s feeling of belonging with your brand.
Gamification will entertain your audience and create a positive customer experience
One of the most recent trends in digital marketing is gamification. Gamifying your marketing strategies is a great way to engage your audience with branded content. Mini-branded games are perfect tools to expose the audience to your corporate image, but also to complete a variety of different marketing objectives. Let’s have a look at this Match It game launched for Valentine’s Day.
Devonshire Hotels & Restaurants wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day with their online community, so they gave them a chance to win. All the users had to do was complete a challenge and register for a random prize draw. The lucky winner got an overnight stay in one of the brand’s hotels.
The Match It game by Easypromos allows you to fully personalize the game so it can match your branding or current campaign, and users look for connections between the images to pair them.
The main advantage of using games in your marketing campaigns is that your audience is constantly exposed to your brand (logo, products, branding colors, etc.). Playable promotions create rivalry and entertainment, which increases engagement and converts more customers. Entertaining and high-quality content also boosts brand awareness through word-of-mouth, as people like to comment and share interesting promotions with their friends. Also, in order to enter the prize draws users have to leave their contact deals, which brings you new leads to target in the future.
Are you planning to gamify your next marketing campaign? In this website, you can find out more about gamification, fully adjustable mini-branded games and learn how they can increase brand engagement and help you achieve other marketing objectives!
How does gamification enhance brand engagement? Throughout the whole time of game playing your audience is being engaged with your brand. They get entertained (sometimes also educated), they get a chance to win, and the overall customer experience is definitely positive! They might even visit your social media pages or website in search of new promotions!
Discount codes and vouchers for newsletter subscribers
Newsletter subscriptions and website visits are also types of brand engagement. Offering exclusive discounts and offers to your subscribers is a great way to increase the number of people receiving your promotional emails. If a user visits your website it is very likely that they’re considering a purchase, therefore they will be more likely to convert into paying customers if you offer them some sort of discount. This is where you might want to add a popup window informing about a discount code or voucher for subscribing to your newsletter. The visitor won’t mind leaving their email address if they get to save some money!
Another way to motivate a bigger audience to subscribe to your newsletter are giveaways for your subscribers!
Here’s a fantastic example of a travel blogger who launched 13 giveaways to celebrate the 13th anniversary of her blog. The main aim of the organizer was to gain more newsletter subscribers. So to motivate more people she decided to give away 13 different prizes.
Find out more about how the travel blogger used Entry Form Giveaway app to convert followers into newsletter subscribers.
However, if you want to give a chance to win to all newsletter subscribers – not just the new ones – you should use the List Giveaway!
Boost brand engagement at events, conferences, and seminars
Are you about to organize an event and want to dynamize the audience? You might be wondering what is the best way to keep your audience engaged at a conference, seminar or team-building activity. It is quite common to see bored and expressionless faces after a couple of hours of constant talking. So the answer to your question is… with a Live Giveaway by Easypromos! Ask your audience to take out their phones… and you’re good to go!
This is the perfect tool to distribute merchandise and any other sort of gifts you might think of, the best thing is that you can draw winners of different prizes at the same time. Sound and visual effects will add to the positive experience and the event attendees will definitely seem to be more awake! The audience will be left with a fantastic experience and it will keep people talking for daaaays!
