Looking for Ways to Enhance Second Screen Marketing
Although second screen marketing shows great potential in reviving both the TV and the online advertising sector, it’s still a widely untheorized, “under construction” domain. Developers and advertisers have been busy searching for efficient techniques of integrating content in the TV-viewing experience that would secure second screen marketing’s place on the present-day advertising scene. One central matter to the topic is how to develop ways to engage users. But what does user engagement stand for when talking about second screen marketing?
What Does User Engagement Stand For in Second Screen Marketing**?**
Since experimenting with second screen marketing strategies has been a constant concern of both marketers and producers recently, discussions about how can you achieve the highest user engagement rate through second screen marketing has also raised a lot of questions and potential answers. In second screen marketing, we say that a user has become engaged when she/he chooses to consume TV-related content on their second screen devices. If the user ultimately comes in contact with the advertising brand via second screen marketing techniques, while showing genuine interest towards the content, then we speak of an efficient user engagement.
How Can Second Screen Marketing Achieve High User Engagement Rates?
Studies dealing with TV-viewing patterns show that people become more emotionally engaged towards the content being transmitted on TV when being social. So people watching TV with a companion as well as those interacting on social networks will be more likely to have an intimate contact with the content shown on TV. As second screen marketing is a strategy entirely built on the behavioral realities of TV-consumers, taking into account the human to human interaction condition to securing high engagement rate is the key to its future development. Another interesting fact is that users tend to become more emotionally engaged when involved in the second screen experience as opposed to watching TV on its own. Pairing these two findings leads to the following conclusion – if advertisers seek to increase their chances of targeting users, as well as improve their sales rate, developing second screen marketing techniques that provide TV-consumers with an attractive and fulfilling interactive experience is the way to go.
Can User Engagement Be Predicted?
If user engagement is one of the core concerns of second screen marketing, it’s natural that marketers and developers should try to learn how to predict its rate. Consequently, we see emerging apps that collect data about the particular marketing-oriented content the user consumes. Shazam is one such app that through its new always-on app format is constantly scanning for such information, even when the user is not “Shazam-ing”. In the context of engaging users more efficiently, these data may enable marketers and advertisers to transmit content in a more personalized way, by establishing user groups and targeting them accordingly. By making sure that the content is particularly attractive to users, the probability of increasing engagement also raises.
Is User Engagement Enough to Get Second Screen Marketing Going?
Although emotional engagement is one important mobilizing factor for developing the second screen marketing strategy, it is by no means a necessary and sufficient condition for success. Besides engaging users, developers have to think of ways of not only prolonging the user-content relationship, but also of ways to keep consumers coming back to it. Basically, user engagement needs to be appealing through what it offers to users, that is, an extended, significantly improved TV-viewing experience. In exchange for their involvement, users have to feel rewarded and entertained. This is one philosophy that second screen marketing needs to embrace in order to see fast and steady results.
