For many clever content marketers, the dream is to have your content commented on, shared, and spread across the digital landscape like dandelions. You want to have others reblog it, talk about it in their own blog and others, and otherwise help your brand feel like it’s being listened to. A lot of you generate engagement by producing material you know will resonate, but have you mastered the art of post-engagement engagement?
There are quite a number of reasons that your visitors will actively engage with the content that you produce. You said something brilliant that your readers adore. You have written something very controversial. If you have written something that goes above and beyond, someone will be more than happy to tell you about it. Whatever the reason, those who engage with your content are more likely to purchase your products later on.
A streamlined content marketing strategy has both sales and marketing working to establish relationships with the target demographic. If someone responds to your content marketing, that’s an invitation to further engage with them and develop deeper (and mutually beneficial) relationships. With the transition to personalized and focused marketing, it’s crucial to follow up. Turn the tables here… would you take the time to create another response if you didn’t get a response the first time you commented?
The best responses for different kinds of customer actions can vary, but they do boil down into a simple principle. You want them to feel like they’re getting due attention for the effort they put in. This reciprocation will keep people coming back to your content after they’ve engaged with it. Reciprocation can take many forms and not all of them require personal interaction.
Blogs and articles
If your blogs have a comment section, responding to blog comments is one of the best ways to retain readership. It shows that you have an interest in maintaining the conversation. There are other tactics as well, like going to a commenter’s blog and leaving your own comments. Blogging is primarily about spreading information, so your responses should be clear, cogent, and as long as necessary to address the question. When you reciprocate by putting your information on someone else’s blog, you are placing yourself on their radar.
Social media
For social media engagement, the same principles apply. Their public engagement with you is an opportunity to publicly respond. So, if your visitor leaves a comment through your Facebook page, then you should talk with them directly. The same goes with Twitter, Pinterest, or any of the other platforms. If there is a lot of response or you realize that you need to clarify a point more, it might be best to put those responses in your blog and respond to your engagers all at once (maybe mentioning them in the posts!).
Landing Pages
Your visitor has converted! Having someone convert and interact with your landing page is only the first step. Have you placed them on an autoresponder mailing list to provide follow-up information that might be able to further help them? When they do convert, have you taken the time to send them a letter or otherwise make it known that they are appreciated? That little bit of appreciation can go a long way to truly cementing relationships with your customers. A bit of post-engagement engagement can inevitably bring more sales and more value from that customer.
One tactic that people use on their thank you page is to upsell the offer. The logic goes that if the information is fresh on the person’s mind, they are more likely to give you another sale to coincide with the first.
Emails
How many times have you received an email from an interested reader, only to allow it to languish in the box? They might have a question, a comment, or something that they wish to expound upon… and you might be prone to leaving it hanging. I think that happens to the best of us. We work very hard to respond to every email as soon as it comes into the box, preventing that. Letting an email sit for a day is fine, though going several days without responding is not. There does come a point where your visitors are going to lose interest or believe that they don’t matter to you. Don’t give them that chance.
Following through with the customer is incredibly important to developing conversions. We have gone beyond the broadcast mentality to the point where it takes a personalized, refined, and clever approach to get through to the visitor. When it happens, though, it’s amazingly worth it… a conversion that you personally worked on ushering through feels incredible.
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