Customer Engagement
The overwhelming majority of company respondents (90%) say that online customer engagement is either ‘essential’ or ‘important’ to their organisations, while three-quarters of respondents (77%) say that its importance has increased in the last 12 months (cSape report 2007).
Organisations are embracing the concept of customer engagement and recognising this to be a key requirement for business success.
A consistent online and off-line customer experience is very important for any engagement marketing campaign. However, ‘efficient and accessible customer services’ (generally online) are seen as an even more important strategtic priority. Online Customer Engagement can be facilitated by the integrated implementation of Web 2.0 tools and technologies.
At a tactical level, the most commonly used methods of engagement are blogging sites, video-sharing sites and social networking. Another implementation of online customer engagement is the use of online and desktop Widgets.
Methods of increasing Customer Engagement
The use of Web 2.0-type tactics and technologies are being used to drive online customer engagement. It is important that this is part of an integrated marketing campaign that is different to a traditional one. Companies are now using word of mouth marketing via these new tools and technologies
The most common being Blogging and video-sharing sites. Social networks, Web-based widgets and social knowledge sharing are also popular.
- Blogging sites
- Video-sharing sites
- Social networks
- Web-based widgets / badges / gadgets
- Social knowledge-sharing
Word of mouth marketing
Across the world, Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) is gaining prominence as a formal marketing discipline. It has long been recognised that personal referrals and testimonials have an incredible impact on the sales of products and services - only now are marketing and PR professionals harnessing this power through formal strategies using new tools.
5 Key Tactics for Engagement Marketing
- The need to cultivate the right people to talk about you
- Talkworthy and newsworth topics need to be promoted
- Tools make it easier to spread the word
- The need to participate in the conversation without being overt
- Tracking and measuring results