How exactly would you define customer engagement? Is it measured by those pinpoint moments when a user chooses to interact with your brand by, say, commenting on a blog post or Liking your Facebook page? Or is true engagement only delivered when a user takes the next critical step along the customer journey by say, picking up the phone to place an order or sharing your status update?
Some might argue that the greatest skill in content marketing, indeed in any aspect of marketing, is to know your limitations – to be aware that regardless of how much research you’ve conducted or many personas you’ve created, you will never know everything about your end user. After all, your intended prospect, the B2B buyer, is an individual – a human – whose behaviour can’t be entirely predicted.
In a recent post on the Hubspot blog, CRM expert Paul Greenberg defined customer engagement as: “the ongoing interactions between company and customer, offered by the company, chosen by the customer”.
The thrust of the post is that marketers should move away trying to make decisions for their buyers, Relinquish control. Let them choose.
How to be flexible with content
One of the most common concerns we hear from marketers is that they can’t be sure that content is prompting prospects to take the required action. This might boil down to something as simple as the desired action not being made clear enough.
Engagement will also be affected by how users interpret content based on where they are in the buying process. Naturally, marketers will want to plan content strategies and align content to fit different stages along the customer journey. And it would all fit together neatly if we could predict the action customers will take next based on a logical, pre-defined and linear progression. The challenge lies in the fact that your audience wants options. They want choice.
A question of choice
One way to offer choice is with your content format. Once your prospect has engaged with your latest blog post about security systems, for instance, offer them links to engage further with a client testimonial video or an infographic conveying break-in rates with various security devices installed. Their choice will enlighten you about their intentions and what buying stage they might be at, a useful gauge of how to best target them next.
Another option is to offer hyperlinks within a blog post that offer different perspectives on the topic, this time with no indication of content format. Again, this should offer telling insight into purchase intent and the degree of urgency for learning more about your product or service.
Flexibility offers marketing insights
Letting go of the degree of control you have over prospects’ engagement with your content can seem daunting, to say the least. In fact, allowing users greater choice in how they interact can greatly enhance your control as a marketer by offering cutting edge analysis and behaviour insights. Remain flexible and be prepared to serve up a range of content formats and you might be surprised by the impact content has on your marketing performance
Photo: Simon Blackley
