Just Get Engaged

More and more media planners are seeing the necessity of not only creating a media plan, but also an engagement plan. A plan that will see actually what the user will DO and how you are going to measure that doing. Basically the need is how to better engage with the user. The engagement aspect will create a lasting relationship and memory between the brand and the user.

Below are a list from a ClickZ article of the most promising ways to get this engagement plan:


Offers and calls to actions: What are the high-value actions and interactions we are trying to encourage?


Rich media functionality: What rich media technologies can we take advantage of to encourage high levels of engagement right in the banner? Consider lead capture, video, social enablement games, etc.


Site specific technical enablement: LinkedIn polls, Facebook Engagement Ads, InfoWorld's White Paper Library lead capture, etc.


Landing page actions: Lead capture, video plays, coupon and materials/white paper downloads, free trials, free demos, send to friend, call us, talk to an expert, etc.

Thank you page secondary calls to action: Don't just say "thank you" and end the experience. Keep visitors on your site! Say thank you and offer more highly engaging activities. How about: "Thank you and here is a great 2-minute video" or "Thank you, explore this new product" or "Thank you, would you like to speak with a rep."

E-mail auto replies: If people fill out a form to get a coupon or white paper, don't just say, "Thank you. Here is your white paper." Offer secondary calls to action to continue the dialogue. Like the thank you page opportunity, say "Thank you and here is a great 2-minute video" or "Thank you. Explore this new product." or "Thank you, would you like to get a quote."

Viral/social/advocacy calls to action: Turn one impression, click or action into many by weaving viral calls to action and chiclets into the process. That includes things like forward to a friend, post this to my blog, tweet this, post to Facebook.


Lead triaging: If you are doing lead generation, what happens to the leads you generate? Are they being rapidly followed up on, categorized and escalated? What customer-relationship management systems are they being ported into? Salesforce.com Siebel, Microsoft Dynamics?

Marketing automation: What are the marketing automation programs and applications being applied to the leads you generate based on their source, demographics or behavior? Are they being ported into Unica, Salesforce, Eloqua or Capterra? Are you triggering specific campaign or offer calls to action and emails when they return to your clients site?


Retargeting: Are you using retargeting technologies via your ad server, the networks, and large portals/sites to reinforce offers and brand impact once a consumer or prospect has visited your client's site? What is the secondary message you are serving exclusively to people you retarget?