The Top 5 tools That Boost User Engagement
Engagement is one of the primary marketing values. Because engagement can mean so many different things, this statement is as clear as mud to many businesses and organisations. Worse, there are some events and business strategies that don’t employ any engagement tactics at all, because it’s assumed that engagement is something that happens naturally, without any forethought.
Well, it doesn’t.
Whatever you do, if your activity involves interaction with people, you have to work hard at getting them interested. Technology makes the world crazy competitive, and your target audience can easily switch to another product or service if you don’t fight for their loyalty.
In this blog post, we’ve listed five of the best customer engagement tools that will help you keep your audience’s attention.
Why you need these tools
There is a very powerful statement that was made by Andrew Carnegie that goes like this: “You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.” That’s the perfect explanation of why engagement matters; your users simply won’t get the most out of a value offer unless you make them care about it.
Here’s what effective engagement tools can do for you:
- Listen to your audience. Engagement is a perfect channel for collecting feedback. Whether it’s an online contest, a survey, or live polls, engagement-driven activities tap into user behavior patterns and give you a better understanding of how you can communicate with your target audience more effectively. One basic example of a tool that listens to your target audience is Google Analytics. With comprehensive insights on behavior flows, demographics, and conversions, you get the full image of user engagement and then will know how to improve it.
- Tech it. According to the research, a quarter of millennials become engaged customers through their interaction with technology. This means progressive software solutions, mobile apps, and online platforms actually help you increase engagement and the number of active users as a result.
- Talk to your audience. If you’re lucky enough to have a large client base, maintaining a stable connection with everyone could be a headache. Some tools that increase user engagement are perfect communication channels. Email marketing systems with pre-built templates can accelerate your interaction with clients while still keeping it personalised. Mobile apps are the ideal platforms for communicating quick updates as well as building an internal user community. The list could go on and on.
The 5 best user engagement tools
It’s impossible to communicate all of the capabilities of engagement with just five tools. To be completely honest, the market is so huge that you can’t do it even with twenty. However, these five platforms all do a good job of demonstrating five different sides of user engagement that you can align with your business strategy.
Type: Marketing software that automates communication with clients
Lately is an all-in-one software system for marketing gurus. With a focus on data-driven social media promotions, Lately is the perfect engagement tool to help you schedule, manage, and track your content from one centralized dashboard.
This software has a built-in social post generator that marketing teams can use to parse different content pieces into thousands of social media posts.
Pros and cons:
- It keeps all of the content in one place.
- You can schedule social media posts across different platforms.
- There’s a steep learning curve.
Pricing: From $99 per month
Free demo: Available
Type: Awards management software for online contests, grants, scholarships, awards events, and abstract submission
Judgify is a contest management software and grants management system, that helps you engage your audience with all types of awards campaigns. In particular, Judgify is a good tool for organizing business challenges, creative and industry competitions, startup pitching events, charity events, etc. In addition to receiving engagement perks, businesses and organisations use Judgify to showcase a product, raise brand awareness, and establish industry positioning. The toolkit is fairly robust and integrates solutions for entry submission, scoring, reporting, and more.
Pros and cons:
- The public voting module is a good tool for maximizing external engagement.
- There’s a free plan that can be used for free events.
- You can use white labeling to raise brand awareness.
- There is no social media module.
Pricing: Basic – free; Pro – $500 per event
Free demo: Available
Type: Automated video and presentation maker
There’s hardly a better engagement driver than video content. Today’s consumers adore visuals and actively interact with videos wherever they go—from social media to product websites. Powtoon is a user-friendly video builder that helps marketing teams create awesome visual presentations and video content. Just pick a template, add your message, and you’re good to go.
Pros and cons:
- It’s super simple to use.
- It helps you create professional-looking videos.
- It doesn’t have a built-in module for posting.
Pricing: $19 per month per user
Free demo: Available
HARO (Help a Reporter Out)
Type: Email newsletter service for connection building
Engagement strategy often doesn’t work, because you can’t get your content in front of the right audience. HARO is one of the best user engagement tools when it comes to finding top platforms for your content. Matching reporters and business experts through an email service, HARO helps businesses identify expert opinions and high-traffic sites for posting. Since the platform is actively used by such huge news outlets as The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, it offers a great opportunity to make a business into a star by sharing your professional knowledge.
Pros and cons:
- It has effective content promotion features.
- It can be used for free by both businesses and reporters.
- It takes time to build engagement because email interaction can go slowly.
Pricing: Free
Type: Social media engagement software
Simple planning, production, and management of social media content—that’s what Sprout Social is all about. The software has a great collaboration module that helps multiple teams track user engagement across different platforms.
Pros and cons:
- It offers detailed analytics reports.
- It has capabilities for tracking team progress and discussing issues across multiple threads.
- It has limited integration capabilities (doesn’t integrate with Hootsuite).
Pricing: $99 per month per user
Free demo: Available
Conclusion
Using online tools to improve customer engagement is no longer an option. With millennials being an important client segment, you can’t ignore the necessity of integrating tech tools into your business model. To choose the right solutions for you, focus on tools that help you stay connected to your audience anywhere and anytime.