Enough Small Talk: Let’s Try Speed Dating
Our white paper, “Engagement Marketing: Partnering with Your Customers for Success,” offers great insights and practical tips on how stay engaged with your customers. By now most marketers are appreciating the value of having conversations with customers and prospects, and like any healthy relationship, it’s about having an open dialogue.
Our white paper makes a key point that’s worth highlighting here: the goal of engagement marketing is to create relationships that benefit both customers and organizations.
Everyone Likes the Word FREE but Few Appreciate It
I think the current landscape has been slanted more toward the customer. In the world of Web 2.0 there’s a perception that everything is free. It’s all one big “open source” environment where marketers are giving away services, software and information in the hopes that consumers (not necessarily customers) will return again and again.
That philosophy seems to be changing in this recessionary economy. Marketers are realizing that long-term engagements without a commitment from the consumer are a drain on resources. What if engagement marketing was more like “speed dating”? We share information, we quickly measure our impressions and either connect or happily move on? No hurt feelings, no time wasted?
Make Your Engagement More Desirable
I think progressive marketers understand they can make their customer relationships more exclusive. If you eventually join, buy or sign-up, you get additional benefits that you’ll gladly rave about to your friends. And if you’re a good customer than chances are your friends will be too. That’s a win/win.
As the first dot.com bust taught us, it’s not about traffic to our sites. Lately Google has been reminding marketers it’s not necessarily about page rank either. It’s about finding new customers or finding new ways to help your existing customers – that’s the best measure of engagement.
