What is an engagement calendar?

One of my projects is to plan a consumer engagement calendar. I’m a strong advocate of responsive, instantaneous and relevant two way communication with our consumers. Therefore, I was a bit concerned when I was asked to build a structure for our conversations over the course of a calendar year? Is that necessary or are we over thinking?

Plan for the predictable

As much as I’d like to just throw myself into interacting with consumers, I come to realize a smart marketer should indeed have a plan in mind to maximize engagement. Lots of our conversational subjects evolve around current events. Many current events cannot be predicted, but a lot of them can. For example, music and movie awards like the Golden Globe, sports events like World Cup, festivals like Fashion Week, religious holidays like Christmas, cultural events like Chinese New Year, etc. These are all emotional opportunities for companies to start relevant conversations to build and deepen relationships. We can plan this! We can create experiences for consumers!

An engagement calendar is one that maps all events to relevant brand related subjects. And all social media channels should sync with it. Of course, you may want to adapt the message slightly to fit with specific channels. For example you should not have the exact same status update on FB and Twitter. So what are brand related subjects? Think about how your products can enhance the experience for a particular event? If you are a wine maker, you may want to plan for relevant conversations around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and any other festive events. Beer companies are good at this. Recall how many beer ads you’ve seen during SuperBowl? It’s important to remember that all rules of engagement still apply. No conversation should be forced. It’s not about broadcasting. It’s about enhancing and adding value to consumers. Only start a conversation when you can add value, and have it with people who care.

Manage the unpredictable

Having that said, the calendar should not be a rigid one. Companies need to react to current events fast. How about sharing your point of view about the Haiti earthquake? What is your company stance on global warming? No one likes to talk to a boring person. Interesting people always have a point of view. Not everyone agrees with your viewpoints, but hey, that’s who you are. Who likes an eager pleaser?! Therefore, it’s useful to develop a clear personality for your company, and have clear idea what your company represents. Know what subjects you should react to and what not. Develop a clear set of rules of engagement. You may find it uncomfortable to present strong opinions, but that makes you stand out.

What are consumer engagement ideas?

 

 

 

Consumer engagement is a big buzz phrase in marketing, along with social media, social this, social that. My team isn’t going to miss the boat, and jumps immediately on the bandwagon. But what exactly are consumer engagement ideas? What am I suppose to put down in a brief to the agencies? I’m puzzled since we all seem to assume that everyone has a clear view on consumer engagement ideas. But I suspect, in reality, people only vaguely understand the concept… No wonder we have been getting so-so ideas from the agencies…

Marketers have long been aware of the importance of consumer engagement. Marketing not only needs to raise awareness, but it needs to engage consumers as well. But only in the past decade did technology enable massive deployment of such concept. Before the Internet, it was hard for brands to engage consumers at a massive level. The only tool was TVCs which is ‘one-way’ by nature. They are good for broadcasting, not interaction. Nowadays though, digital marketing lets consumers have real time interaction with brands. Lego invite consumers to design and publish their own Lego worlds. Nike let you design your own shoes. Twitter, Facebook and the likes let consumer ‘opt in’ to marketing communications.

What are consumer engagement ideas?

Consumer engagement ideas are those that encourage ‘repeated interactions (between brand and consumers) that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a consumer has in a brand’.

Repeat interactions - Engagement ideas must allow consumers to interact with and experience the brand, REPEATEDLY.

Participation - Brands and consumers need to be active co-creators of brand content. Marketing needs to provide opportunities for the audience to not only see but to do something. Consumers not only consume, but also prosume brand content in their own personal ways.

Relevance - They should not be average ideas for average people. Long tail exists! Marketers should create multiple ideas that appeal to various passion points. Target your communications to those influencers, and the rest will pick up on it.

Next steps for a marketer is then to set key measurement objectives. What are you trying to achieve with these engagement ideas?

1. Desired outcome - What actions you would like consumers to take?

Easy. TO BUY THE PRODUCT. Wrong. I’m asking what IMMEDIATE action you would like the consumers to take. Buying the product is the ultimate goal, but it takes many steps before a consumer would decide to buy your products. In between, there’re steps like: awareness, consideration, comparsion, overcoming barrier, etc

Examples of outcomes are: viewership, product trial, traffic to product pages, number of share/tweet/posts, number of content created by consumers, number of participation, consumers building communities around product, etc

Be mindful that you should view your ideas as a portfolio, and never cram too many outcomes into one single idea. Some ideas are best for raising awareness, while others are for trial. Think of the big picture, and map your ideas with other activities.

2. Level of engagement - Deep engagement vs Spike engagement

Spike engagement ideas are short-lived in nature. They create buzz around the brand. Consumers engage with the content by a) consuming (viewing) b) sharing (forwarding) c) co-creating (video responses, remixes, paradies, etc). These ideas are also generally more gimmicky, and based on creatives. They are more likely to be a one off idea. They often times get lost in the digital world in a few weeks, if not less. These ideas require less commitment from company management perspective. A good example is the ‘A hunter shoots a bear’ viral videos http://is.gd/fVpMU. Consumers view, forward and also build on top of the content. But these ideas only create a spike.

Deep engagement ideas are long-lived. They are an integral part of product consumption. They are engagement platforms. They promote brand loyalty and advocacy. They generate repeated interactions with consumers over a long period of time which is extremely important in building deeper relationships.  A good example is the Nike Plus. It creates a community around the product that lives on. These ideas tend to be more product centric, and requires continuous management from companies. Another example is the use of 4square to engage and reward consumers. Successful deep engagement ideas should target communities based on passion points.

Either type of engagement ideas are needed. They serve different objectives!

3. Selection criteria

You need to identify suitable selection criteria for your engagement ideas. Cost. ROI (measure against desired outcome, point 1). Technical difficulties. You get the idea. This should be an easy list to compile.

4. Tracking

Come up with tracking metric that measure the outcomes of your ideas. Be it simple viewership or more complex traffic to product pages, number of download, whatever.