CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT

The new buzzword for brands and marketeers :
After buzzwords like knowledge management, re engineering, business processing its now the turn of consumer engagement. Consumer engagement starts as early as a kid when all of us take our kids for the nursery school admission. The school management in their interview grills the parents and kids but while the parents sit and reply to the questions the kids are actively engaged in the playroom with lots of toys to play. During this engagement the parents comfortably fend the questions while the child is kept engaged. The engagement with the kids through those toys helps the school to understand the kid more and better.

This is a very important marketing tool that most big brands of schools effectively use to get the best talented and bright kids to their school. To me the definition of consumer engagement is nothing but politely and meaningfully conversing with the prospect to get the customer closer to experience the brand. Of course there will be several definitions one can look at but at the end of the day consumer engagement has to lead to conversion across product category. Hence it is of prime importance that engagement which is two ways dialogue is thoughtfully planed with a strategy, which has a killer instinct to win over the customer.

Types of Consumer engagement:
You have active and passive engagement with the consumer. Active engagement is more of two a way interaction where the consumer closely interacts to get to know the look and feel of the brand. In case of passive engagement it is other external props that entices the customer to experience the brand. A very classic and relevant example is movie watching in a multiplex. Here your primary motive for the customer is to identify a good movie and watch it in a multiplex. While the consumer is engaged enjoying the movie it is that other extras in a multiplex like the food, ambience, bookshop and that keeps his mind passively engaged with the multiplex brand. Even for some reasons the movie was not good the passive engagement of the multiplex in its various forms of frills that he experienced will bring very closer to multiplex brand. For the customer this experience has to be unforgettable and delightful.

The same holds good for a eating place or a fast food joint. While you relish the great food other factors such as the live making and viewing of roomali rotis or preparing of gelato cold slab through the transparent glass keeps the consumer actively engaged and gives he are she a different experience. There are these little extras that keeps consumer busy. Consumer enjoyment does not limit to only offline, live brand experience. Even online brands have strong consumer engagement mechanism to keep the customer hooked to the experience the brand is offering. One example, which is very common, is gaming portals, social networking websites and marriage portal. In the case of marriage portal you interact with lot of questions that the portal poses. Here the tone of engagement is a bit serious as the prospect is in search for a life partner and he or she needs to carefully handle the interaction. One of the best experience in consumer engagement I would like dwell upon is the great music festival in Chennai. The consumers or rasikas who enjoy the traditional music with all its nuances is also actively engaged with tastefully created ambience,décor which is perfectly integrated with other frills such as music shops and books, with mouthwatering idlis , dosas, vadas and strong aroma of filter coffee at the venue.
Here the over all engagement platform gives the customer a very delightful and tangible experience.


Consumer engagement helps generating sales and retaining customers: In a world where competition is stiff and customer expectations are high in terms of best deals, marketers across brands, products and services have taken consumer engagement as their new mantra to accomplish success. As mentioned earlier the engagement can be either active or passive.

I would like to illustrate an interesting shopping mall experience where consumer engagement is of the highest order. I was at a shopping mall, which was buzzing with lot of activities. While there was enough consumer engagement with in the mall by way of video games, singing competition and you were heard live through a popular radio stations there was one holiday travel brand that were just asking people to fill up a simple form with your contact number and address details. No quiz or trivia was asked. If you are lucky you get to win a prize. But more than the prize what was hidden in their sales strategy was to call some randomly picked customers and ask them to report in 24 hrs.These lucky prospects are then offered a free holiday at any of their resorts. The lucky customer gets a free gift voucher of 2 days and 3 nights to try the resort. However to get this free voucher it is mandatory that you have to go with your wife and spend 45 minutes with their sales team. You get the free voucher but not before you attend a strong sales pitch presentation promoting their various properties. Here the holiday company was involved in three different stages of consumer engagement process starting from filling up the form, followed by calling the prospect that you have won a free gift voucher and finally making the prospect attend the sales presentation. Here the travel brand was very clear that they were looking for a big fish to net their sales returns.

Similarly several loyalty programs keep continuously using consumer engagement ideas and tools. It could be credit cards, debit cards or co - branded cards. The Jet miles and Petro bonus cards are one of the strong consumer engagement examples. In the case of Jet once the passenger completes his journey the first task in his things to do list is to update his mileage points so that he does not miss on it. The whole engagement process has been so successful it is difficult to get this jet customer to switch brand. The petro bonus cards is another very good loyalty program where the customer interacts with the brand each time he or she refuels gas in their vehicle. There are several examples one can quote but rules of the marketing is changing fast and that is one of the reason most marketers are bringing in new consumer engagement models to woo customers and bring closer to experience their brands.