What’s Driving The Client In Customer Engagement?

Whenever we build engagement on behalf of brands, our goals are clear. We’re trying to ensure that the brand’s clients remain committed. We want to make sure that even if they’re not ready to buy now, when they are ready to buy, the brand is the first service provider they think of and the only one they consider.

But what’s in it for the client? What prompts them to engage with a brand, and what keeps them connected and invested in the relationship? What drives the client during customer engagement?

Engagement works on two levels. Clients engage externally when they take a pro-active role in the brand’s activities. They take action and those actions bring them into direct contact with the brand, even if they fall short of buying and paying. They can take part in interactive videos and campaigns, try simulators, learn through online activities and work through tutorials. They interact with the brand and the first result of that interaction is in themselves. They learn, they improve, they understand.

Another kind of engagement, though, works internally. It’s passive. Clients might watch a video that explains the brand’s services or that provides expert information about the industry they feel they should know. They might download and read an ebook or agree to receive a newsletter, enriching themselves each week with valuable knowledge.

The effect is unconscious but it’s no less powerful than active, external engagement. It happens every time someone uses the information a brand provides, and it kicks in every time they see the brand’s logo and feel a sense of familiarity and trust. It happens all the time they have a relationship with a brand, a relationship that remains at the back of their minds ready be translated into a decision at the appropriate time.

Both those forms of engagement are powered by the same combination of factors.

Be Relevant, Be Needed, Be Clear!

First, the relationship has to be relevant to the client’s life.

When we’ve worked with financial firms, creating explanatory videos that teach financial planning, we knew the content we created fitted the clients’ lives. They needed to better understand the financial products offered by the brand, and the information we gave the clients allowed them to deal with the brand better educated and with more confidence.

But that relevance extends beyond the client’s relationship with the brand. The information we provided covered more than a single need. Every time the client opens the financial pages of a newspaper, he or she uses the information we supplied. Whenever they discuss investments at a dinner party or think about how to save their income, they feel again their relationship with the brand.

The client’s engagement is driven by a combination of the brand’s relevance to their life and their need for that relationship.

And finally, the engagement has to be built in a language the client speaks. There’s no shortage of material that explains financial services. But content only engages when it’s not just informative but also enjoyable and interesting to consume. It has to chime with the client if it’s to be used and form a strongly engaged relationship.

Unlike brands, clients aren’t looking for engagement. But when they receive it, they benefit from it and those benefits, whether accepted actively and externally or subconsciously and internally, drive the engagement forward.

To learn more about customer engagement in content marketing and what it can do for your business, contact us at contact@astelo.com.

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