By M. Isi Eromosele

Customer engagement marketing aims to:

• Persuade targeted customers the company or offering is worth their time, effort, money and commitment
• Create, stimulate or influence customer engagement behavior

Customer engagement marketing provides new guidelines and opportunities for the development of business to customer communications as well as helping to build long-term customer relationships.

The implementation of customer engagement marketing practices requires a coherent methodology and efficient execution, both online and offline. However, the Internet is usually the basis for customer engagement marketing. Customer engagement marketing practices aim at participating and advancing the social media experiences of consumers.

The interactive experience that digital media provides has facilitated the expansion of customer engagement as part of the social media experience. Additionally, it has changed the ability of businesses to engage their customers.

The following are the principal differences between traditional and customer engagement marketing: It is crystallized by the shifts:

• From general knowledge focused marketing toward more targeted and personalized interactions that move consumers to connect with and act on relevant content
• From communication obstacles between companies and their target customers toward partnership between both parties in product development, customer service and other aspects of brand building
• From one way, top down communication from companies to customers to continuous discussion and personalized communication that is initiated by either party

Customer Engagement Marketing Practices entail:

• Giving confidence to collaborative sifting - Encourage your customers to sift through interactive forum generated information to market your products. Consumers are more skillful at creating highly targeted classifications of products they use, within the market segment they are a part of.
• Group Development - Helping target customers develop their own communities or create new ones
• Group Participation - Consumers are most comfortable in filtering and rating companies and products at non-sponsored, online spaces rather than at company websites. You must go and meet your target customers at their favorite online setting, not only to listen, but also to participate in the discussion
• Help customers engage with one another - Give them content (viral podcasting, videocasting) that they can use to connect with one another
• Ask for user generated content - Connect with your customers directly or indirectly with your product by enabling them to create user generated content
• Customer self service - Help them to create a customer service FAQ in blog format. Build a blog where your support staff and customers can communicate directly
• Product co-development - Build a blog where your product developers and consumers can communicate directly

The behavioral outcome of an engaged customer is what links customer engagement marketing to increased profits for your organization.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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