The New Look of Engagement
Blog, wikis, podcasts, YouTube, videocasts, Twitter…
Social media present marketers with a new tough reality—traditional marketing channels are under fire and new channels give consumers more control with shaping the brand.
But these new channels bring with them many challenges. At Forrester’s Marketing Forum, the focus has been marketing’s new imperative—engagement through these new frontiers.
The following are some sound bites overheard yesterday in one-on-one interviews and in speeches that capture the sentiment about marketers’ new reality—engaging customers through the labyrinth of social media.
Harley Manning, vice president, research director, Forrester:
“Engagement is a lot like art in that you recognize it when you see it.”
Brian Haven, senior analyst at Forrester:
“Engagement is the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence a person has with a brand over time.”
Casey Jones, vice president, global marketing, Dell:
“We’re in search of an elusive thing here—a better expression, a vision we can articulate across all marketing communications to communicate the power of the Dell brand for recognition. We’re looking at the heartbeat of the brand. Relevancy is gone in marketing. Engagement is about relevancy. We have to go from broadcasters to entering a dialogue…Communicate so that you’re not only understood but also so that you’re not misunderstood.”
Emmanuel Brown, director of digital and content, Nike’s Jordan brand:
“It’s not hard to become part of the [blogging] culture. It’s a small nucleus of people who influence the masses. So our footwear team listens to consumers. It’s like having a focus group with kids on the [Nike] campus.”
Gary Skidmore, corporate officer and president, Harte-Hanks:
“How do you build an emotional bond with your customers to the point where they tell others to buy from you? Ultimately, customer engagement is about creating a relationship with a customer that they value you more than the product or service you deliver…You must change the thinking of your customer from inside-out to outside-in. The customer is the reason you are here. Everything needs to be driven, not be systems, not be IT organization, must be driven by customer.”
Charlene Li, vice president, principal analyst, Forrester
“If you’re not entering this space with a queasy feeling in your stomach, you’re probably not pushing the envelope.”
Cathy Halligan, CMO, Walmart.com
“I don’t know if anyone has a sophisticated practice or process. We do have an active interest in it and think about it. I think it’s early days. I don’t think there’s a scientific approach [to putting a process around managing all social media]. Don’t know that there is a process or approach to understanding it all.”
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