Updated: Jun 22

By Philippe Guinaudeau, CEO

From brand awareness to brand engagement: the necessary steps - Part 1.

This four-part series of articles gives you the knowledge you need to develop and implement effective brand engagement initiatives.

Customers are getting more aware and attentive about what they buy and where they purchase it, which is now common knowledge. It's a fiercely competitive world out there, so breaking through to be noticed is crucial; and once that moment arrives, interacting with your brand is the first step toward success.

Brand engagement by customers is crucial for organizations looking to create loyal, long-term client relationships, increase the number of sales they make to existing customers, and improve their reputation in the target market. Brand engagement by customers is critical to a company's success because it creates opportunity to deepen the business-customer relationship and establish long-term loyalty based on mutual progress. Brand engagement by customers is part of a bigger user success strategy that aims to assist you understand exactly how your customers interact with your brand, products & services so you can provide a tailored experience that will help them become evangelists.

To truly be successful at brand engagement by customers, companies must create enduring relationships that encourage customers to return, remain loyal, and serve as brand ambassadors.

What does brand engagement mean? Brand engagement is when the customer is interacting with a brand directly; this is the key to creating a possibly long-term relationship. Interacting with and engaging customers leads to more regular purchases from your brand and provides you with vital information about your customers. Finding ways to interact with customers in between purchases strengthens their emotional bond with your brand, allowing you to keep and expand your business in a sustainable manner.

When customers believe that engaging with your brand benefits them just as much as it benefits you, you build a sense of reciprocity that keeps them emotionally invested in your brand. Customers that are engaged and satisfied will provide you with four major advantages:

• Engagement keeps your brand in front of customers' minds, lowering the chances that they'll choose a competitor's product or service. Yes, more engagement encourages clients to prefer your brand over competitors', luring them across many channels. For that matter, PWC indicates stronger revenue growth for organizations that use digital outreach strategies, while Bain & Company discovered that engaged consumers spend 20% to 40% more than other customers. Conclusion: it boosts sales and profits.

• Customers that are engaged believe in your purpose, products, and promises. They will continue spending with your brand over the years. Customer engagement leads to improved satisfaction and retention, as well as increased sales through brand loyalty and more frequent transactions. Conclusion: it boosts loyalty to your brand… and higher-value engagements, more frequently.

• A clearly defined engagement strategy also helps you to recognize and understand the customers main pain points when using your products/services, so that you can address those efficiently and keep customers around. This means learning more about your customers' opinions and preferences and their interactions with your brand. Conclusion: you know more of your customers and their interactions with your brand.

• When customers feel that they get just as much to gain as you from engaging with your brand, you cultivate a feeling of reciprocity that keeps them emotionally engaged with your brand. Engaged, satisfied customers will also become advocates for your brand, and they will recommend new customers. By staying engaged and providing engaging content to your customers, you are actually maximizing the value they receive from your brand, which creates loyalty. Conclusion: it develops word-of-mouth advocacy for your brand.

We'll go through the following topics in this four-part series of articles:

• What is a brand engagement strategy? – Part 2 -
• How to create brand engagement? – Part 3 -
• And how to measure engagement? – Part 4 -

This course gives you the knowledge you need to develop and implement effective brand engagement initiatives. These articles will also show how, through our BrandTrends service, we can incorporate your ideas into the development of such a strategy.

Stay tune for Part 2.