4 ways to measure if you are engaging your audience

If you’re a business trying to market yourself to your prospects and customers then the chances are that you’ve done a lot of research about how best to engage with your audience. Whether this is via social media, email marketing or other platforms, you should be successfully engaging your audience by building brand awareness, market engagement and lead generation, resulting in increased sales. However, many firms struggle to achieve a quantifiable return on investment.

How do you know if your audience is watching?

You’re probably doing everything in your power to take on board all the key tips floating around the internet – you’ve used photos, befriended your followers, shared relevant content and hash-tagged until you were sick of it. But despite how many different platforms you are using to try to reach your target audience, or how many tips you have put in place, it’s no use if you can’t measure whether your efforts are having an effect or not.

Although you might see page-views rising, unless these are converting to sales, it is a waste of your effort. You need to be engaging with real people, having real conversations, and ultimately seeing results. One quality lead is better than 1,000 automated followers.

Measuring engagement

Engagement with customers and potential customers is often viewed as even more important than the number of sales. It is vital to come up with a clear idea of what engagement means for your business and recognise that it’s not an end, but a means to an end – i.e. Engagement results in a particular outcome for your business. This comes in many forms, but here are 4 ways to measure whether you are engaging your audience:

#1 Income from sales

If engagement is resulting in conversions and bringing in money, you are doing it right. It’s that simple. Some forms of engagement are “top funnel” marketing strategies that result in increased brand awareness but don’t impact on lead generation initially. If you need to increase conversion, then consider refining your outreach to “low funnel” strategies such as email marketing.

#2 Increased sales leads

Sales leads are just a valuable result of successful engagement. Even if it doesn’t result in immediate sales, sometimes the relationships result in clients that stay for longer. This makes your engagement effective in the long-run, rather than just producing some short-term, individual effects.

#3 Generating conversations

Examining customer feedback can give you an insight into whether you have created a positive or negative impression of yourself. Your campaign may not generate a huge financial return, but if it generates conversation about your brand, product or services then this can help to create lasting relationships, as well as engaging interest from new customers. Regardless of the financial impact of a campaign, if it generates conversation and interest in your brand.

#4 Business partnerships

It you’re being approached about potential business partnerships, then the chances are that you’re engaging well with your audience. It shows that the content you are sharing is relevant to your industry, and creating a trustworthy name for yourself.

Why engagement is important

In order to eventually generate those relationships and sales, it’s important to get engaging with your audience now. If you need help getting started, take a look at some of our previous blogs such as:

3 Social Media Tactics to Increase Engagement

How to build a PR strategy without paying the earth

How to Get the Best Results from your Email Marketing

Author: Steve Pailthorpe – Follow us on Google+