Customer engagement

Of all the areas of digital marketing we cover on Smart Insights, Customer engagement is arguably THE most important and THE most challenging for a brand. It’s crucial to repeat business, but with the choice available online difficult to achieve.

Our advice on managing customer engagement...

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing takes advantage of online networks to involve your customers and partners in shaping new product development. This is one of the most exciting areas of digital marketing for us! It’s closely related to the concept of “open innovation”.

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Customer communities

Creating online customer communities gives many challenges – creating them, growing them, maintaining engagement with limited resources. Then there’s integration and location between your sites and the different social platforms.

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Customer engagement analytics

We all know engagement is important, but how on earth do you measure it? Here are our suggested approaches built up through discussion with others customer engagement and analytics specialists.

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Customer engagement strategy

We know we need to engage customers on a long-term basis, but to do this requires a strategy and commitment. Here we look at developing online propositions and communications to engage different audiences.

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Our Quick Guide to customer engagement...

What is customer engagement?

In our interview with Richard Sedley we note that some might see customer engagement initiatives as shorthand for increasing conversion rates. Richard says:

“Conversions are still vitally important but what customer engagement does is place those conversions into a longer term, more strategic context. There are a number of definitions of customer engagement bouncing around at the moment, my own is:

Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand“.

The two key words here are’repeated’ and ‘investment’. A simple focus on maximising conversions can, in some circumstances, decrease the likelihood of repeat conversions. Think of that pushy door-to-door salesman.
You might buy something from him but what is the likelihood that you will repeat that purchase, or recommend his services to a friend?

Customer engagement places the strategic emphasis on the creation of valuable relationships and encourages both parties to see mutual advantage in that relationship. Frequently this will mean that your tactics require a multi-channel approach incorporating the best of digital and traditional media. I see the ability to effective blend media in its type, quantity and timing (known as Right-touching) as one of the key challenges for those interested in engagement in the coming years.

Blog posts

5 ideas for crowdsourcing and user generated content
Danyl Bosomworth, September 1, 2011

Is crowdsourcing a solution to your content problems? We’ve posted before about the importance of engaging with users, about earning the permission to market and the importance of social objects for user engagement and amplification. By engagement, I’m referring specifically …..

Crowdsourcing Read more
More advice

Customer engagement success factors

To read about approaches to improve engagement we suggest you read the latest customer engagement report from cScape. Issues to consider include:

  • How does our company measure engagement and in particular, customer activity, satisfaction and loyalty? What are the KPIs which we will use the control the engagement programme?
  • What are our online engagement devices? Which types of content or services encourage customers to return to our online channels to interact and act.
  • Which platforms should we prioritise on? The importance of relevant online platforms like the website, email marketing, social media platforms and mobile sites and apps should be considered?
  • How do we communicate the value of engagement devices? Engagement are elements of the brand that need to be communicated online and offline through clear statements about the online value proposition.
  • How do we optimise engagement? The ongoing programme should test communications through email, social media and the website to optimise communications.

Related Statistics

Statistics on the popularity of different engagement approaches are available within the latest engagement report.

Please let us know your comments on our Quick Guide to customer engagement. Tell us what you like, don't like or other ideas of what it should include. Thanks!

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