By M. Isi Eromosele

Customer Engagement marketing practices aim to:

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

Customer Engagement marketing practices provide new guidelines and opportunities for the development of B2B, B2C, B2E and C2B communications and relationships.

Customer Engagement marketing practices often aim at participating in and furthering the growth of the social media phenomenon.

The interactive experiences that digital media provide has enabled the extension of Customer Engagement as a social phenomenon, as well as transform businesses’ ability to engage with its customers.

The main difference between traditional and Customer Engagement marketing is marked by these shifts:

• From ‘reach or awareness focused’ marketing communications and their metrics (GRP or page view) towards more targeted and customized interactions that prompt the consumer to engage with and act on the content from the outset
• From absolute distinctions and barriers between an organization and its target customers towards the participation of consumers in product development, customer service and other aspects of the brand experience
• From one-way, top-down, formal B2C and B2E interaction to continuing dialogue, decentralized and personalized communications initiated by either party

Customer Engagement marketing practices involve:

• Encouraging collaborative filtering: Google, Amazon, iTunes, Yahoo, Netflix, and Rhapsody encourage their consumers to filter, categorize and rate; that is, to market their products.

They realize consumers are not only much more adept at creating highly-targeted taxonomies given that they are more adept at delineating the segment they themselves constitute, but, also, that they are willing to do so for free. And to the extent they cannot, they do it for them.

• Community development: Helping target customers develop their own communities or create new ones.
• Community participation: Consumers do not filter and rate companies and their offerings within company websites only. Being able, with little effort, cost or technical skills, to create their own online localities, a large percentage of the filtering and rating takes place in non-sponsored, online spaces.

Organizations must go and meet their target customers at their favored online haunt to not only listen but also participate in the dialogue.

• Help consumers engage with one another: Give them content (viral podcasting, video casting, games, v-cards etc.) they can use to engage with one another.
• Solicitation of user generated content: Engage them directly or indirectly with your product by giving them the means or incentive to create user generated content.
• Customer self-service: Help them create a customer service FAQ in wiki or blog format. Create a blog where technical support staff and customers can communicate directly
• Product co-development: Create a blog where product developers and consumers can communicate directly.

Every single communicative action must be more targeted and engaging – from personalized online content to the buttons on websites. Instead of sticking a ‘donate’ button on each page, present charity customers with case studies that show the impact past contributions have made.

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

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group