Canadian Marketing Blog

Marketing Through Customer Engagement

Over a last 6 months I’ve been hearing a lot of companies talk about changes in marketing, changes in the way we target and communicate with our customers. Recently, I attended a conference where the focus was on Customer Engagement Agency Model. The conference included good representation, with recognized industry leaders and speakers, both on the marketing service provider (MSP) and client side.

Several years ago marketers were ahead of technology, coming up with ideas and strategies that couldn’t be executed as the technology that existed then did not support most of their initiatives. Today, most if not all marketers, in order to be competitive, need to catch-up with ever-growing technology. With online marketing, especially social media, customers have more channels to share their comments and feedback more quickly, reaching millions of potential viewers instantly. New marketing models allow companies to integrate online and offline channels and, through social medial listening tools, marketers will be able to react quicker to consumers’ needs and feedback. Twitter, Facebook, My Space and other channels provide consumers with many ways to get feedback from other consumers (not from product companies directly) and to read reviews of products they are about to buy. People trust their friends and colleagues more than marketers.

The end goal is for consumers to become brand advocates and help companies market and sell their products. Online analytics coupled with technology and marketing strategies will help marketers reach out to the right people at the right time with the right offer.

Is your marketing strategy changing in order to stay ahead your competitors?

Jacob Ciesielski, Partner at FSA Datalytics, is a member of CMA’s Marketing Technology and Database Intelligence Council

As the marketing world changes where consumers look to their social network for information on what is valuable in making a purchase decision, we, as marketers, must confront this new paradigm on who are the real key decision-makers. Marketing to consumers directly in some cases might not make sense particularly if they are heavily engaged in the various social media applications. Instead, identifying who is the key influencer within a partucular network might be the appropriate place to start as an initial point of contact. Data Mining and the subsequent analytics could then be used to better understand the key behaviours and demographics behind these key influencers in order to develop marketing programs that will indicate who,when, and what to offer in future marketing initiatives.