To be sure your content is working to achieve your business goals, you need to add measures to track and evaluate your audience engagement. This way, you know what you need to improve in your business strategy.
For example, if you have a high bounce rate, if you know how to write an SEO or search engine rich article to get the viewers but not provide enough or the right value to them to keep them around. This will tell you that you need to understand what your target audience is searching for or actually needs.
The following are 4 strategies designed to help you keep track and increase audience engagement.
FREE Download: 5 Step Content Strategy
How To Increase Audience Engagement
1. Keep Track of Your Metrics and Analytics
WordPress websites and most social media platforms provide analytical information for free that you need to take advantage of.
The metrics that are important to take notice of to ensure your audience engagement is healthy includes:
- Average session duration – How long they stay around shows you have content or value they need.
- Bounce rate – A high bounce rate indicates they’re not staying around to view your content.
- Number of returning visitors vs. new visitors – A vital factor to determine retention of your audience. Having a lot of return visitors is a positive sign that your content is engaging. A healthy number of new visitors compared to return ones is also important to compare to ensure you are still attracting new ones too.
- Number of shares or likes – This one is self-explanatory. High shares and likes to indicate you are providing the right materials.
2. Build an Email List
Just because your customer made a purchase or joined your Facebook group doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build an email list. This is your second chance to show them that you are valuable enough for them to return.
Not only that, if they’re willing to provide an email, you likely have valuable content to offer them. This gives you a clear insight that your company objectives and strategies are working.
3. Always End with a Call-to-action
No matter what kind of content you have, you need to end with a call to action. Crafting a good CTA is one of the most important marketing strategies ensuring that you get what you want from your customers.
Never expect them to know what to do. Make it as clear and obvious as possible. If you want them to buy it, tell them to purchase it. If you want more viewers, ask them to watch and share the video. Studies have shown that calls-to-action increase conversion by nearly 121%.
4. Create Live Events
Get your audience together to start a conversation and enjoy each other’s company through live events. Use this time to ask important questions and conduct a survey or poll to get them more involved. Doing this ensures audience engagement and gives you the metrics you need to be sure you are successful right away.
Using Content To Increase Audience Engagement
In the end, if you want to increase audience engagement, you need to ask for it, push out valuable content to the right audience and continue to track and evaluate your progress. The biggest culprit to low audience engagement is interacting with the wrong audience to start with.
Your written, visual and oral content all need a hook to get the attention of your audience. Find the hook that is right for your audience and be sure to include one for each piece of content you develop for your brand. A clearly defined approach to how you handle the content side of your business will make your life easier. Download the free checklist, The 5 Step Content Strategy to discover the key content marketing tactics used by the most successful online entrepreneurs.