The Changing Face of Audience Engagement
When you create a blog post, or promote a product, what’s your goal? When you seek any kind of audience engagement, are you seeking more likes? More comments? Are you hoping for your audience to purchase something? What is it that motivates you to do what you do?
For a moment, take the perspective of the person on the other end. You receive a crazy amount of pitches every day. They want your attention, your money, or more. Of all those vying for your attention, which ones leave you feeling used? Which ones leave you feeling that your feelings don’t matter at all? On the other hand, which ones leave you feeling important, or understood, or valued?
Contrived or Real
While the messages are sometimes disguised as caring about you or your situation, most of us can tell. Like an empty “I love you” from someone who doesn’t, the hollow and contrived concern lacks authenticity. So what does it take to connect to and retain the loyalty and attention of our audience? For me, a recent experience is quite telling.
I was shopping for a new vehicle. And of course, in today’s internet-driven economy, a good deal of my shopping was online. I knew what I wanted, and was willing to look well beyond my local area to find it. What I found was a lot of indifference, cold sales people, and little if any concern for me. In fact, after a lengthy search, I’d found only one target that met all of my list of wants. It was perfect in every way. But it ended up a no-sale.
Even in the early stages of communication, I could tell it was about zero percent about me and 100% about getting what they wanted. Which was a sale, and getting my trade for the lowest possible price. They’d apparently never heard of terms like empathy, problem-solving, and an old-fashioned term called “customer courtship.” I was a sale, a commission check, a mark on the sales manager’s board. I don’t want to name names, but it was one of the two major national resale vehicle chains. Pssst. I hope you guys are reading this . . . because I won’t ever be back.
I ended up buying from a dealer who was the complete opposite. Where I was made to feel valued. The engagement was like a friendly negotiation, not a sheep getting shorn. So I’ll be back. And, I’ll send lots of referrals their way.
What Lasts and What Doesn’t Last
Hopefully, we all want to stay in business for a long time. While I know there are the get-it-while-you-can types who open up shop, milk the customers, and leave as quickly as possible, it’s counter-productive on its face. If you do that, you have to continually start over. And over.
Similarly, those who are only in their game to extract as much as possible are likely to find long-term success tough to maintain. This isn’t a new concept. Abraham Lincoln said “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” For a short time, an audience may tolerate prices that are too high, value that is questionable, or profits that are obscene. But in the long run, they won’t. A good example is the current flap around astronomical pharmaceutical profits.
So what are some of the things that drive continued audience engagement? What is it that the audience wants and will keep coming back for? Besides a generous dose of authenticity and empathy, all you have to do is look inward to find the answers. What you want, they want.
In “Driven To Delight,” author Joseph A. Michelli sums it up in four areas:
Customers Crave Simplicity
They want to interact with you or your company quickly and efficiently, but also know they’re not a disposable part of your monthly business cycle. So there’s a need to stay up with today’s technology, yet stay focused on the reality that you’re dealing with real, feeling, human beings.
Customers Like The Familiar
We live in a world where there’s ever-increasing demands on our time. And it takes a lot of it to seek out and develop new ties. So your audience wants to feel confident in knowing that you’re both someone that they can trust and that you’ll be someone they can return to and rely on tomorrow.
Customers Want Old-School Service
Having had their fill of shoddy products, disappointing services, and disconnected purveyors of all manner of “stuff,” they want far more. Not more of the “stuff,” but more of the feeling that tells them whoever deliverd it to them cares about them. That they’re doing it not just to peddle a thought or product, but because they give a damn.
Customers Want You To Be A Star
Not surprisingly, those with whom we deal are kind of like our Mom or Dad. They want us to succeed. They want to be able to point to us and say, “yeah, that’s my kid.” Imagine substituting yourself, your business, in place of “kid” and you’ll know exactly what this is about. It’s warm fuzzies, times two, from them to you. Because you gave it to them, first.
Driven To Delight
Michelli’s book is an inspiring look at how Mercedes Benz focused on making its customer experience second to none. If you have a notion to create nothing less than great audience engagement, it’s a must-read.
There will likely always be the short-sighted cons and impostures among us. But if you want a long-term relationship with people who get a smile on their face when they mention your name, you’ll have to get to know your audience and show them how much you care.
Even more than that, it should be obvious that the magic ingredients to great audience engagement are a universal elixir. It’s all about what all of us want. To be heard. To be understood. And to be valued. It’s the same ingredient that makes for good friends, good marriages, and good leadership. Help yourself to a good, strong dose.
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