Your 2024 Brand Engagement Strategy - A comprehensive action plan for brand owners
Proactive preparation is the hallmark of success in the fast-paced world of brand engagement. With 2024 just around the corner, now is the perfect time to assess, strategise, and prepare. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. This action-oriented approach is designed to evolve your brand, and move it up the Brand Engagement Pyramid
Reassessing your brand's current standing
In order to devise a robust brand engagement strategy for 2024, it's crucial to first scrutinise your brand's existing positioning, values, and how it is perceived by consumers. This is not a call to completely overhaul what's been built or achieved to date, but rather to refine and optimise it. Dovetail is equipped to support you with detailed brand audits and customer feedback evaluation, facilitating a concrete, data-based comprehension of your brand's present status. Echoing this, Dovetail Director Marcus Gibbs articulates,
“The springboard to the future is an accurate understanding of the present. This is the foundation from which we propel any brand engagement strategy.”
Revitalising your brand purpose and values
Navigating the brand engagement sphere, authenticity is paramount. A brand purpose and set of values that are in harmony with consumers' evolving expectations can wield a potent influence on engagement. Here are some actionable points for brand owners to ensure their purpose and values stay relevant and resonate with today's consumers:
Re-evaluate your purpose and values: Look at your brand's core purpose and values with a critical eye. Do they still align with what your brand stands for? Are they still relevant to your target consumers?
Understand your consumers: Consumers' values evolve over time. Conduct surveys or use social listening tools to understand what matters most to your consumers today.
Host Brand Workshops: Gather your team for brainstorming sessions to revisit and refine your brand's purpose and values. Involve different departments for a diverse perspective.
Seek external help: Consider seeking assistance from a professional service of branding agency in Melbourne like Dovetail. Our team can guide the process, provide an external perspective and ensure your brand's purpose and values are relevant, engaging and true to your identity.
Communicate your values: Once you've refined your brand's purpose and values, communicate them effectively across all channels – from your website to your social media platforms.
“A brand’s purpose and values are its compass. They guide everything the brand does, and should be reflective of both the brand and its audience. Authenticity is key - consumers can sense when a brand’s purpose is genuine and when it’s simply a marketing ploy.”
Engaging your evolved target audience
Today’s consumers aren’t static—they're dynamic. The target audience you identified at your brand's inception might have evolved over time. Update your understanding of your consumer base by analysing changes in demographics, preferences, and behaviour.
“Understanding your target audience is not a one-off task. It’s an ongoing process that should underpin your brand engagement strategy.”
Steps you can incorporate now to ensure you are prepared for the 2024 consumer (and beyond) are:
Forecast future trends: Begin by researching industry projections. Understanding future consumer behaviours, popular channels, and emerging trends can help you shape a forward-thinking strategy.
Monitor changes: start tracking changes in your consumer base. Their evolving needs and preferences are key indicators of how your brand should adapt.
Use predictive analytics: Use the power of data analytics not only to understand your customer's current behaviours but also to predict future ones. Anticipate the needs and preferences of your consumers in 2024.
Several tools allow brands to use predictive analytics to anticipate customers' future behaviours. These include:
Google Analytics: Provides predictive capabilities via its Predictive Audiences feature.
IBM Watson: Offers AI-powered predictive analytics.
Salesforce Einstein: Uses AI to predict customer behaviours within Salesforce's CRM.
Adobe Analytics: Features 'Predictive Intelligence' for forecasting customer actions.
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning: A cloud service that builds models predicting future outcomes.
Initiate long-term social listening: Engage in ongoing social listening on your social platforms to gain a deep understanding of your consumers over time, noting the shifts in their conversations and sentiments about your brand.
Creating adaptive strategies
Unlike static plans that remain unchanged, adaptive strategies are dynamic, evolving as conditions change, enabling your brand to stay relevant and engaging amidst shifting consumer behaviours and market trends.
For 2024, it's crucial to craft strategies that are designed with the ability to adapt and pivot in response to market flux or unexpected challenges.
Dovetail offers specialised services that assist brands in building these resilient and adaptive engagement strategies. “We work collaboratively with brands to create strategies that are flexible and able to respond quickly and efficiently to changes in market conditions,” says Dovetail Director Marcus Gibbs.
Elevating your content strategy
Content is the lifeblood of brand engagement. It is through content that brands tell their stories, express their values, and connect with their audiences. As you plan for 2024, it's crucial to not only maintain but to elevate your content game.
Consider diversifying your content portfolio to cater to the varying tastes and preferences of your audience. This might involve branching out into new types of content—podcasts, webinars, LinkedIn newsletters or interactive experiences—or experimenting with different tones, styles, or formats in your existing content channels.
Crafting a content calendar is an actionable way to ensure that your brand maintains a consistent and robust presence across all platforms. This aids in systematically planning out your content, allowing you to anticipate key brand milestones, seasonal opportunities, or cultural moments to engage with your audience.
“At Dovetail, we offer comprehensive content strategy services designed to harmonise with our clients overall brand engagement strategy. We work closely with their teams to identify the types of content that resonate best with their audience, creating a tailor-fit content strategy for each brand,” says Marcus.
Upleveling your content will also include aligning your content strategy with SEO practices and social media trends, optimising the visibility and impact.
As we reach the midpoint of 2023, it's high time for businesses to turn their attention to the future.
Why start planning for 2024 now?
“Simply put, preparation is key to success. The next few months present an ideal window of opportunity for your brand to delve into a comprehensive audit, tweak strategies, and hone in on the shifting landscapes of your target audience. The advantage of starting early is the space it provides for experimentation - to try, assess, adjust, and perfect. Uncertainty is an inevitable aspect of business, but strategic foresight can effectively mitigate its impact.”