Communication vs Engagement:
A Personal Matter
Recently my daughter, Ella turned 7. Out of all the birthday cards Ella received this year, do you know the one card she looks forward to receiving the most? No, not the one from me, or her Aunt Kimmy, or her Grandma. It’s the one from Pottery Barn. This card looks like Martha Stewart herself made it. It is girly pink(if that’s even a color) with the number 7 cut out and Ella’s name written on the front of the card. Ella has no idea what Pottery Barn is, but this is by far her favorite card she likes to open and keeps, by the way, every year on her birthday.
I had a similar childhood birthday card experience. Mine wasn’t from Pottery Barn, but a magical place called Johnny’s Toy Shop. Johnny’s Toy Shop would mail you a birthday card with a special key to their toy castle. Every year it was a tradition to go to Johnny’s and get your birthday gift wrapped in striped red and white paper from Johnny’s.
Engagement leads to emotion
Why are there such strong emotional ties to Pottery Barn and Johnny’s Toys? Because they engaged us. Hear me now, they didn’t contact us, communicate with us. They ENGAGED me. How? With something that was meaningful, my birthday.
Communication vs Engagement
If you have an audience, are you communicating or are you engaging them? Do you know the difference? Communication is a guess about which one message will resonate with many. Engagement is knowing your audience, like a sharpshooter, and reaching out to them based on their interests, passions, skills, etc. Engagement is meaningful. Communication tends to lack meaning over time. Communication has the intent of “HEAR ME.” Engagement has the intent of “LISTEN.” With the average person receiving over 120 emails per day, if you are not engaging your audience you will loose them.
Bottom line is personalization.
The road to engagement requires personalization. You must personalize your audience’s experience with your product, your content, your newsletter, your experience, with every touch point. How do you make it personal?
Consider the following 2 steps to begin your journey towards engagement.
- LISTEN: Ask your audience what they are interested in. This starts the flow of engagement and stimulates a critical feedback loop.
- RESPOND: Feed your audience, based on their response. Personalize your touchpoints and engage your audience members with what they like or need.
Every time you do this you change the pathway of communication and thus your audience’s perception about you. You can now pay attention to the individual needs and interests of your audiences. Each individual will now welcome you and as a result you will have what you always been looking for: a realtionship.
Engagement is the support to relationships
This relationship, supported by engagement, will connect your audience emotionally to you. Remember, engagement is the support needed for relationships. (Tweet that y’all).
Don’t know where to start? Ask your customer or audience for their birth date. Then send a personalized birthday card, it worked for Johnny’s.
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