Engaging Customers: Is There A strategy?

Let's face it effective marketing starts with an effective brand. What if your marketing communications spend exceeded returns in your company's offerings each time you engaged in marketing activity? If this was the case then of course you would be more pro-active and willing to increase your marketing spend and company's resources. However, most company's fall short because they fail to realise that in order to be successful they need to market their brand in a way which ignites passion in their target market and differentiates their products and services in ways which are worlds apart from competitors in a marketplace saturated with convergence and 'me too' products. The bullet proof points from digitalbookworld provide a snapshot of how companies can interact with their customers.

What’s the Engagement Strategy?

• Listening – using social media as “real time” research and gaining insights from listening to customers.
• Talking – using conversations with customers to promote products or services, authentically.
• Energising – building brand stewardship; identifying enthusiastic customers and using them to persuade others.
• Supporting – making it possible for customers to help each other.
• Embracing – turning customers into a resource for innovation.

More interesting and innovative ways to relate to your customers can be found from the journal article "How Brand Community Practices Create Value," by Hope Jensen Schau, Albert M. Muñiz Jr. and Eric J. Arnould. Journal of Marketing, 2009. A few of the ideas shared are useful for any size company.

Can companies foster positive interaction with their brand to create a thriving social community?

Companies need to listen to the growing demands of consumer who form 'tribes' and build 'communities' around their products. To move beyond the observer approach (which most companies foster) it's essential they rewarding customers to act as 'disciples' in spreading the good news of your brand. A few suggestions have been listed below.

Reward Innovation. Step away from observing and take action to engage consumers, if you run an on-line activity and consumers are not fully interacting with each other then perhaps it's time to fully utilise your efforts. Give them something to talk about - engage them by fostering various social networking activities for them to interact with (why not add music sharing, image sharing or perhaps interactive game).

Offer easy customisation. Encourage brand community members to "participate" in the brand. Example: "Firms could create a website that allows consumers to tweak the brand logos to suit their own colour schemes or to include owner names or initials, perhaps going so far as to sell customised brand logos."

Reward creativity. As community members get more creative, companies may want to join in. "Firms might go so far as to release official branded versions" of consumer-generated products, the researchers suggest. Example: A consumer finds a way to give her Mini car "the showroom shine [that] off-the-shelf options do not provide." BMW might join forces with the customer, and produce a branded version of her formula.

What's The Point: Plant those polishing seeds. These days, brand marketing is about encouraging and benefiting from your customers' creative innovations. Let 'em loose and see what happens!