What is Customer Engagement Marketing
Customer engagement is about encouraging your customers to interact and share in the experiences you create for them as a business and a brand. When executed well, a strong customer engagement strategy will foster brand growth and loyalty.
First and foremost, understand what customers wants. it is important to know that every customer has certain needs that wants to be understood and that they can relate to your brand. For business to consumer brands like Nike and Adidas it is easier for them to relate as compared to business to business companies. However, they to can humanize their products and not confining themselves on being too corporate.
For example, find a personality within in your organization who is passionate about your brand and a natural communicator, you can grow them into a thought leader and give them a voice to humanize your brand and engage your audience.
Create opportunities for them to build their presence and promote your brand – they can regularly blog on your own site and guest blog on others, be used in video content, engage in speaking opportunities, present webinars and publish white papers and e-books – all ways to establish your brand’s voice with a trusted face.
The Worlds Best Poster, Carlsberg
Digital era: Surprise and Delight Your Audience
Technology has been advancing at a rapid pace and social media is no longer a trend but a part of everyday lives. To that
end, any good marketer should see this as an opportunity to engage her audience
and build a community. However, it’s just not enough to simply post status
updates and photos on social media. To keep your audience connected, it’s about
valuable content and creating a shared experience that keeps them
interacting with you.
Drinkable Poster by coke Zero
Drinkable Poster by coke Zero
Your Business Strives on Happy customers
As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, will tell you, pampering your customers is the key. It starts with your company culture and ensuring your customer support team, the frontline of your business, is empowered by and shares your focus on providing an amazing customer experience. For example, Zappos, the leading online shoe retailer renowned for their customer service, doesn’t enforce call time tracking because they believe their reps should spend that little extra time with customers rather than be focused on getting through each call.
Think about your business model and how you can best service your customers. When do your customers need you? What hours do you need to be available to them? Seamless, the online food ordering service and one of my favourite companies (not least because I love to eat at all hours!), services customers in different time zones across the US. Not only are they fantastic at providing customer service around the clock but they’re stellar at timely, relevant offers like snow day discounts and engaging you with fun food facts across their twitter and email channels.
The customer experience you provide is key because it gives marketers and business owners a way to increase satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. A study by White House Office of Consumer Affairs found that 80% of U.S. consumers would pay more for a product or service to ensure a superior customer experience. Isn’t that telling?
It’s about looking at all of your customers and delivering them exceptional service no matter if they are worth $1 or $1M to your business. Remember, in the long run, your customers will determine your revenue.
Nescafe's Instant Connections
(Note to readers: The blog has be created by Kinshuk Midha and Arnold Pacheco)
What could be other methods to engage your customers in your marketing campaign.(*videos Appreciated.)
Hey guys,
ReplyDeleteLiked the videos and your blog, good work on it.
Coming to your question of what can be some other methods of engaging customers in a particular marketing campaign, well to start of, the key word here is ENGAGE YOUR CUSTOMER. We can actually involve the customer right from the time we plan on starting a campaign, simply put a customers involvement can be had when a particular ad or commercial is on the writing board . You can actually start an online survey of customer needs, various combinations a customer would want to have in some cases where the company is planning on a food or beverage commercial, then according to what the majority have voted for make or design your advertising /marketing campaign accordingly.For example in the Nescafe commercial the ad plays on the basic value of human emotions, where a stranger can become your friend over a coffee. So if you involve your potential or to be customers right from the start when you are planning on putting a marketing strategy in place, customers would give you their start points (inputs), of what their needs are or what they expect from a particular product.
Involvement of a customer at the start is as important as during the time they are your customers. Make the customer a part of the product from the start or while implementing a marketing campaign.
:)
Thanks for your comment and I totally agree that if you tap into human emotions you can attract guests from the start. An online survey is a great idea yes but lets face it, how many times do you actually fill up those surveys,(take the Nescafé ad as an example) which doesn't involve guest using their time should be thought of. Online surveys could tell you exactly what people want but the challenge here is to get people complete the surveys. Thank you for taking the time to leave your comment.
DeleteHey guys, very interesting and greate topic!
ReplyDeleteCustomers are the most important part of any business because they are the lifeblood of your company. Without our customers, it is safe to assume you should not be in business at all. Hospitality is one of the parts where customers is main part. To attract customers hotels try to create more and more ways. Your ideas are greate way to attract new people. I found one interesting way to interact customers as well. For example, one London hotel can offer for their guests a wonderful way to relax and feel like a child reading bedtime stories. The service has become such a great success that the hotel is now going to invite to tell tales of popular journalists and writers)))
Hi Anastasiia, thank you for you time. Reading storie to your guests? That's new, different and yet simple. Its a very nice thought and yes gives people time of from their digital screens as well.
DeleteHi arnold and kinshuk
ReplyDeleteYou guys have presented very interesting insights on customer engagement. According to me Customer engagement really begins the moment a buyer spots a mention of your company on social media, or hears about your product from a peer in their industry.Engaged customers are more likely to spread positive word of mouth about your brand through blogs and social media, videos, case studies, speaking engagements and other activities. This social proof will help you attract more prospects, close more deals and shorten the sales cycle.However, you have to engage your customers throughout their lifecycle if you want them to advocate for you at every stage of your potential buyer’s journey.
Great job guys !!
Thanks guys, great topic together with commercials))
ReplyDeleteAs belong to me I do really like when the brand that I am in loyal program provide some engagements programs. It is the way to attract more prospects via social media, commercial or some creative staff as you have shown in ads.
In my city we have a very success restaurant that makes charitable lunches 3-4 times a year having support from celebrities and just citizens of the city may join fest and bring anything clothes, toys or whatever. It attracts customer being not a professional in marketing business I would never said that it could be success. Nowadays people are proud of being customers of this restaurant. Managers also make meetings with interesting people from the city and it isn't always celebrity: people who were sick in cancer and conquered sickness, handmade workers and so on. People coming sharing advice, supporting each other and enjoying the atmosphere of restaurant.
Hello Kateryna. For companies to be more socially sustainable they do organize such drives that involve the contribution of people in anyway (like you pointed out about people donating clothes and toys). Charitable drives and lunches does tap into human emotions and is a form of indirect marketing. For me however, its more related to CSR initiatives and not focusing on engaging customers in your marketing campaign. Thank you time out to comment though.
DeleteGuys great topic. Well done. Loved the videos in your blog.
ReplyDeleteCustomer engagement is very important these days. Attracting customer, retaining them has become the objective of all the companies. customer loyalty, understanding customer spending patterns are very important for your brand. Marketing your product. making your customers your brand ambassadors is a way of promotion too.
some ways I could suggest to promote your brand would be conducting road shows, giving away free samples like carlsberg did in the video that you uploaded, giving incentives for the first time app users, rewards for brand loyalty, conducting trade shows, Partnering with vendors for brand publicity can attract a lot of customers for your brand.
Hel Ms. Humne and thank you for your comment. Great initiatives. But lets take road shows and loyalty programs, Carlsberg being one of the biggest names in the beer world can create a scene when they organize road shows, but what about those companies who still do not have the 'big' name. Do you think they could attract guests even if they do not have the brand presence? These companies would have to come up with creative ways to increase their awareness like partnering with vendors and the app (as you have mentioned) once the get clients then they could move towards loyalty programs.
DeleteHey Arnold and Kinshuk,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations for the interesting blog. Indeed Customer engagement marketing is a unique way by which the business can increase it’s market penetration, sales, brand value and customer satisfaction. It creates a special bond between the customer and the business, thus leading to loyalty and repeat clientele. By making it interactive, the customer develops empathy leading to lesser complaints.
There are many ways by which the customers can be engaged.
Free upgrades- based on their purchase and history, they can be offered free upgrades initially. Specific offers or packages can be devised where according to guest needs a bundle of products/services can be combined at a special rate. Guest Mentions- a special mention of the guest name on the website or flyers etc can keep them connected and loyal. Priority services- Guests can be offered free extra fast service depending on the product. Vouchers/ Coupons- can be offered for continued patronage. Product development- special products can be designed or produced based on the feedback received from the guests. Exclusive invites- Guests would feel privileged if they are offered VIP treatment and given special exclusive invites or memberships. Green initiatives- Guest love to give it back to the society for a general cause. Locals could be lured in for a special cleaning or discard drive and offered complimentary services post the event.
The delivery of product quantity and quality should exceed the expectations of the guest, as this immediately leads to customer satisfaction which is the primary vision of any organization.
Congratulations for your presentation. According to my opinion, there are some ways to engage with customers and keep them coming back for more: 1.- Provide Real-Time Benefits to Make the Customer Experience More Fun By deploying technologies thta may provide customers with relevant promotional offers. 2.- Use Social Media as a Tool and Not Simply a Platform to provide more value to their customers. 3.- Simplify Your Customer’s Experience to Increase Satisfaction and Retention more about re-crafting experiences based on newfound insights. 4.-Use and Analyze Data in Forward-Thinking Ways By deploying an in-memory database and a business intelligence tool. 5.- Leverage and Embrace Customer Feedback actively sy seeking feedback from customers to better meet their needs. This can be done through consistent surveys. 6.-Anticipate, and Act On, Customer Needs.
ReplyDeleteHello guys,
ReplyDeleteFist of all, Congratulations for your wonderful presentation. Some of others ways which can attract customers are as follows:
1.Utilize creativity:
=> Word "creativity" itself means invention of new ideas to deliver messages regarding your products or services to the customers. Message as well as the media both are equally important for promoting the product.
2. Consider competitiveness:
=> Here the concept of value preposition arise which means make your customers realize the real difference between the competitor's product and your own product. So, obviously for that you need to all statistical information about your competitors too.
3. Involvement in CTA (call to action) strategy.
Thank you guys for bringing up the topic of customer engagement and awesome video’s you guys put up. Coming to the question about what are other ways to engage customers, in my perspective social media is huge as you already brought up, but instead of using sites such as facebook, twitter or instagram, building your website would be good as well. Building a website is both creative and beneficial because you can add so much about your campaign on your website which you wont be able to on other social networking sites, also your website will only be based on your campaign that will be the main focus, and customers will be engaged. If you use sites such as facebook or twitter, as you said social media has become a part of our everyday lives, using such sites can withdraw attention from campaign ads to other things. Another way is open houses, open houses are a way to interact with customers directly face to face, and you can answer questions asked about your campaign and give them lots of information whereas online it is usually minimal. You could also receive ideas from customers which you never thought of through conversations which will benefit you and the customers.
ReplyDeleteA creative insight is always needed in customer engagement and it also was seen in the blog the videos and the content was very fresh and gave a new perspective to customer engagement.as i have said earlier creativity is an major aspect as seen in the videos on the blog the people were made to carry out some activities which would amaze the user and also promote the brand.the favorite part of the blog for me was the videos .Great job on the blog
ReplyDelete