Content Becoming Crucial In Customer Engagement

April 2, 2009: summarized from PR Week -- Engagement is still one of the most highly sought metrics, particularly as it relates to digital dialogue with consumers. But many discussions around it focus on how the customer is engaging with the brand, not the other way around. As social media platforms have developed and multiplied, the focus has shifted away from finding ways to provide more and greater information to customers and toward more aggressive efforts to get customers to take action and be active participants in the experience that is being created.

Other marketing disciplines can lay claim to the kind of direct response activities that spur customer action or generate databases of information that can be analyzed and marketed to down the line. And engagement in, say, an online competition or social media site doesn't alone equate to sales.

A 2008 article in the Harvard Business Review, titled "In E-Commerce, More is More," helped to articulate the difference. Over a period of four years, the researchers conducted an analysis of more than 1,700 e-commerce Web sites. They also interviewed customers and managers in the US, Europe, and Asia.

They found that consumers want content, information on the products, and services that interest them. They also discovered that the top 25 companies that met this criterion were consistently outperforming the rest of the industry.

It is important to remember that tracking true engagement isn't easy and can't always be measured in e-mail addresses and click-throughs. There is still great value in delivering content and information that informs and pleases as well.

Full story at: http://tinyurl.com/cp789k