It can be hard to make your brand’s voice heard in today’s noisy, ad-driven, digitised marketplace. Consider your own experience and think about the ads that scroll by in your social feeds. Can you remember what any of them were actually about? How many of them were successful in making you click through and make a purchase? What about the generic, unpersonal emails clogging up your junk folder?
Are you wondering how your brand or service can make a memorable impression amongst the noise and cultivate long-lasting brand loyalty with customers? The answer may be a strategy known as engagement marketing.
This article gives an overview of what engagement marketing is, how effective it is and the different methods of applying it to your next trade show or event.
What does engagement marketing mean?
Engagement marketing is a strategy that builds stronger relationships with customers by creating meaningful, personalised interactions and experiences over time across a variety of channels. Customers are no longer satisfied with a transactional relationship with brands. They want to feel valued and understood, and equally they are more likely to invest in brands that they see value in.
The basic thinking behind engagement marketing is simple; the more engaging your content, the longer a customer is likely to spend interacting with your product or service, and the more relevant and useful it will appear to them.
And the more time customers spend engaging with your products, the more you can glean about their interests and purchasing habits, making it easier to deliver relevant, targeted content and messaging to help secure sales and transform one-time customers into long-term advocates.
Engagement marketing should begin with a customer’s very first interaction with a product or service and continues long after purchase or commission. While a short term goal of engagement marketing is brand activation, the ultimate goal is to cultivate long-term trust and awareness, ultimately turning customers into brand advocates.
While a digital engagement strategy is crucial for maintaining a connection with customers, with the increasing competitiveness of the online world, it may be that the best way of engineering that crucial first interaction is at a physical event such as an exhibition or trade show.
So, is this a strategy you should consider implementing in your own business? Read on to find out more about the effectiveness and different types of engagement marketing.
How to improve the efficiency of Engagement Marketing??
Done right, engagement marketing can be highly effective in generating leads, sales and achieving long-term brand loyalty, turning customers into advocates. As with any marketing strategy, a clear plan of action is required for engagement marketing to be effective.
It is important to have an understanding of who your customers are before engaging in an engagement marketing strategy so it may be a good idea to have buyer personas clearly mapped out so you have a good sense of the kind of marketing your customers are going to respond to.
For effective engagement marketing a few key principles should be considered:
- Make it relevant: Customers need to recognise that what you’re selling is going to make their lives better. Any communication with them should be relevant and educational. This will also help to establish you as a brand to be trusted. If you expect customers to spend time engaging with your brand you need to make it worth their while.
- Make it personal: Effective engagement marketing recognises the individual behind the customer. Communicate with your customers in a way that shows them you recognise them as a person first and understand their individual needs.
- Make it memorable: An interaction or experience that goes above and beyond a customer’s expectations is sure to leave a lasting impression.A custom stand at your next event is a great way of providing a unique experience and winning over prospective customers and clients.
Now lets have a look at how these principles can be applied to some of the different forms engagement you can implement at your next trade show or event.
What are the common types of Engagement Marketing?
1. Exhibition booths
Exhibition booths give potential customers the chance to experience an in-person interaction with your brand and interact with the people behind the brand on a much more personal level than online marketing affords.
An exhibition booth is a great opportunity for customers to become immersed in your brand and offering without the risk of being distracted, and give you the chance to provide them with a truly personalised experience.
Face-to-face interactions with customers such as those that take place at events and trade shows can help provide valuable initial insights to your business about what customers respond to. A custom exhibition stand is a great way to create a memorable customer experience and leave a lasting first impression.
For more information on how we can help you stage your next exhibit and make your brand’s presence stand out in a crowd, explore our custom exhibition stand options and take a look at our post on experiential marketing.
2. Product displays
Product displays let potential customers get up close and personal to your offering, allowing them to directly experience all of the features themselves and get a first-hand understanding of how the product will solve their problems or enrich their lives.
The ability to give customers a personal walkthrough of your product not only ensures that the experience for them will be a personal and memorable one, but will also help to cement that all-important consumer confidence and trust. UCON can help you design and execute a truly engaging custom product display.
3. Event merchandise
Giving prospective customers something tangible to walk away with is an effective way of successful brand activation, cementing your brand’s presence and recognition in their mind. Event merchandise is also a great way to incorporate some educational content marketing about your product or service. Remember, providing content that is relevant for your customers is a strong technique for achieving engagement.
UCON has a range of event merchandise to complement your next display including brochures and pamphlets, clothes, stationary and much more.
Effective engagement marketing requires both online and offline channels to be truly successful. If you can combine a highly engaging personal interaction at your next trade show or exhibit and follow it up with a cohesive, cross-channel digital approach you will be well on your way to executing a successful engagement marketing strategy.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is here to stay, but it is a highly competitive and overpopulated landscape and the power of stepping out from behind the screen and meeting your customers face-to-face can’t be overstated. Putting a face to your product or service will make you more memorable to customers, so that the next time they think of a product or service in your industry, yours may well be the company that they remember. First impressions matter. UCON Exhibitions can help you stand out from the crowd at your next exhibition or event. Explore the full range of exhibition display services that can be used for your success.
