Engagement Reimagined: 8 Lessons for the New Experiential Landscape
04.21.2021
By Jon Paul Potts
Engagement Reimagined: 8 Lessons for the New Experiential Landscape
With vaccinations in full swing, and COVID case numbers seemingly going down, brands are looking ahead to what comes next…Life after the pandemic. While we are all eager to move on and forget the last 12 months, there are some valuable lessons we have learned that we can carry forward to make our audience engagement programs better than ever.
These eight key takeaways will shape the experiential landscape going forward:
Foster customer centricity: Your strategy and execution should all be grounded in your customers’ needs. Break down existing siloes in your organization, and integrate the marketing organization’s efforts around the customer—not around internal budgets or business turf considerations.
Get your engagement tech stack right: Conduct an audit of current and new digital technologies, mapping capabilities and features against business, audience and exhibitor outcomes. Establish a digital experience ecosystem, hooked into your CRM, with scaled-up digital talent to support and nurture it.
Establish a digital community destination: Go beyond creating digital moments to host sustained digital communities. Give key audiences 24/7, single sign-on access to your people, your content, your demos, and more. To deliver the content and connections that fuel the strongest and most dynamic communities, focus on people and experiences, not platforms or technology.
Prioritize data capture: Leverage data-driven insights to redefine deep audience personas and map new attendee journeys across both online and offline/in-person experiences.
Deliver content in context: Connected campaigns are designed to consistently deliver the right content at the right moment—when the customer is most curious about that content. Design the channel accordingly, whether that is via email, a blog post, a download, a virtual event, or post-event curated content, based on insights into your customer behavior derived from your CRM and your digital community.
Take a mobile-first approach: With over 3.5 billion people on smartphones worldwide, content optimized for smartphones is paramount. It is the most heavily used personal device brands can target.
Untether your audience: Experiences leveraging Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality environments lend themselves well to moments of interactivity, exploration, curiosity, and playfulness—SXSW on your smart TV is a great example, or TED Talks via Alexa speakers.
Find your brand purpose: And pull that purpose through your experiential ecosystem. Optimize the employee experience, communicate your corporate values and why they matter, and help employees and partners understand how they drive innovation and decision-making in your organization.
Over the last year, we have all learned a lot about our audiences, the changing nature of engagement, and the new tools now available to brand leaders and event planners. Applying these lessons will result in more meaningful and impactful brand engagements. To learn more, contact your InVision account director today or info@iv.com.