Activating the Engagement OS
02.09.2022
By Jon Paul Potts, SVP, Strategic Solutions and Claire Carroll, Senior Strategist
Activating the Engagement OS
How brands can earn the engagement of their customers
Over the last two years, there has been a fundamental shift in our value systems, our behaviors, our work, our play, our communities, our economy, and where and how we consume information. As we emerge from the pandemic, it’s important we recognize people behave differently. There are some who have a fear of missing out, while others have a fear of going out. An entire generation of people have been trained on how to live and learn online. And the opportunity for real human interaction is valued more than ever.
As a result, marketers have rapidly transformed their channel mix to develop alternative ways of influencing their key audiences. These changes have been driven by the evolution of audience needs and expectations – audiences who have all become digital natives, who expect personalization in all communications, and who have high expectations of your audience engagement programs.
What is at stake? Earned engagement – planning for and measuring how we earn the attention of our key audiences in a radically changed experiential landscape. At InVision, we have been working with our clients to not only achieve differentiated levels of earned engagement, but to create a system that delivers it: We are designing the new Engagement Operating System, the Engagement OS.
Helping your audience engage on their terms
From an experiences perspective, we’ve learned that audiences are harder to reach and difficult to keep them engaged. People are more selective in the events they choose to attend.
Providing value above and beyond anything we’ve done before is now required to attract and regain their attention. Our approach must allow for engagement on their terms.
Customers and employees alike expect accessible and customized experiences that reflect their personal and business needs. In this time of transformation, brands must build a new Engagement Operating System to meet their audiences’ evolving state, using six key pillars of engagement:
Engage audiences on their terms: Audiences are all in different places in their journey. Every event plays a different part in the relationship with your brand, and each touchpoint must work together to ensure we are presenting the right engagement opportunities at the right time.
Communicate differentiated value: We are now in an age of customer-centricity. Consumers are making purchase decisions based on values. Brands need to offer accessible, differentiated value in a way that can reach audiences that are constantly weighing the options of access with cost, channel, and delivery.
Foster community and offer a sense of belonging: Following a sustained period of isolation and audience disengagement, the sense of belonging and community we offer will be more important than ever before. It is imperative we reduce the focus on the purely transactional aspects of experiences; rethinking the connection between the brand and its community will enable marketers to elevate their experiential portfolio’s quality, value, and appeal.
Personalized experiences and content: Where we begin to earn deep engagement is when we offer our customers “content in context,” built for them and their unique needs and pain points; where we curate experiences aimed at specific audience segments and personas.
Offer seamless connectivity: Experiences that blend our digital lives (over-indexed for two years now) with our human, in-person lives (which we are all eager to return to) will lead to exciting new possibilities. Technologies such as XR, AR and VR – core parts of the emerging Metaverse – will continue to evolve in marketing elements, offering increased depth of engagement to brand experiences and events.
Build a better EX to drive an optimized CX: Optimal business outcomes cannot be achieved before first building a solid foundation of engaged employees who understand and embrace your brand’s mission and vision – and are clear on their specific role in delivering against that vision. When your employee engagement foundation is strong, it is like fuel for your Engagement Operating System, driving excellence in your customer experience—to the tune of 89% greater customer satisfaction and 60% greater customer loyalty (The Hay Group).
The payoff
The Engagement OS is not one “thing” or a single tactic, rather it is a framework. It aligns the brand and audience and provides multiple ways for audiences to learn, connect and reach meaningful decisions with your brand—from digital touchpoints to in-person experiences, and everything between. At InVision, we are building the Engagement Operating Systems that allow our client’s key audiences to meaningfully connect with the brand in a significant way and drive desired business outcomes.
To learn more about the Engagement OS and how it can help your brand best engage your audience, contact your InVision account director or info@iv.com