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Engagement is something that every business wants to increase. Marketers use quantitative strategies and analyze data to figure out what tactics are successful for their company and what has a minimal impact. There are many techniques that increase engagement, which makes it more difficult to determine what exactly leads to this.
This blog will explain how to engage users to differentiate your business from the rest and how interactive content is beneficial in this area as well.
What is Engagement?
While there are multiple interpretations of the term “engagement,” it is clear that it is a positive term. All companies want to engage their audience. In marketing, engagement is used to explain the meaningful connections and interactions made by the users with the business. These are customers who are loyal and buy what the business is selling.
There are different levels of engagement as well. For example, likes on a social media post are small measures of engagement, whereas a user following a post to the website and then making a purchase is a larger measure of engagement.
Interactive content and Engagement
As B2B users increasingly rely on their own research and analysis to make purchasing decisions, it is important for businesses to have interactive content available. Content has become a crucial part of the buying process. Providing an interactive content experience will keep B2B users engaged with exceptional content at every stage of their journey. It effectively captures attention and allows users to explore and discover pertinent information through well-designed, digestible content.
They can engage with the content and find the information they are seeking at their own pace. This optimizes their experience as it allows them to create individual connections and realizations with content and sheds light on how products or services can be the right choice for their business.
70% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did a year ago.
- DemandGen Report
content Distribution
If you want to have high engagement with your content, it is crucial that you share the content in the right places. People need to see your content in order to engage with it.
It is important to not only have remarkable content, but also a strong distribution strategy for that content. This will provide you with the most steady sales leads from your content.
Interactive content needs to be posted where the proper audience will find it, otherwise, they will not want to engage with it. If it is in the correct location, users will be more interested and more likely to follow along with the content and spend more time examining and interacting with it.
The right distribution places include those that are relevant to your audience and have room for growth. This is further explained by Foleon's Customer Content Strategist, Adrie Smith, in the webinar below.
Click here to view the full webinar.
tell a good story
When creating content it is beneficial to have a good story to tell. This allows the audience to gain a better understanding of your company and the main point of your content as well. It is necessary to eliminate all confusion, as it will lead to lower engagement with the content.
When it comes to B2B strategies, the most popular way to tell a good story is by using the mountain or the "hero's tale." First, the mountain structure portrays tension and drama in a story. There are obstacles, tension grows gradually, and then a conclusion is issued. Another structure is the monomyth structure, which is compared to folk tales. This structure leads the engaged users on a journey, shows them the advantages of risk-taking, and exhibits the new wisdom that is developed.
These are just two examples out of many storytelling techniques. Stories can have a powerful effect, as they represent your company and speak to the audience.
style your content correctly
The style and design of your company's content must be done correctly and in a way that matches the brand and what the brand stands for. Consistency is key! Brand logos, typography, and color are new style techniques that can be used to appeal to your audience and should fit the brand’s identity.
When designing a style for your company’s content, do so strategically. Style differentiation within your content, such as the use of different colors in online documents, will help the audience keep their place, stay on track, and get the most out of the content. For example, the pages on a specific topic can be all the same color, and then when the content switches to a different topic, the color can change as well. This organizes the content, shows where changes within the content are, and allows for easy navigation of the content.
Having content that is aesthetically appealing and pleasing to the eye will also be beneficial to your company. Users like to look at things and the appearance of your content is important. It must be easy to read and follow and should include related images. If the background color of the content is dark, then the text should be a lighter color and vice versa. The style of the content represents the image of the brand, which is why it is important to be careful and thoughtful when styling your content.
make use of typographic hierarchy
Typography is a useful tool to organize the format and layout of your content. It can be used to highlight a specific part of the content, allowing it to stand out more to the users. By enlarging the heading, a quote, or a percentage, for example, will draw attention and be more likely to stick with the users.
Vincent van der Laan, Creative director at Foleon, explains more about this in the webinar.
sources: Foleon.com
