By Bob Barker

So with the industry discussing the new rules of engagement with consumers, Alterian hosted the inaugural Engaging Times European Summit in London, attended by over 400 delegates and some of the leading marketing spokespeople in the business. The aim of the conference was to offer the opportunity to learn from industry experts and get practical advice on the transition to two-way, multi-channel, intelligent marketing.

Leaders in the fields of brand, direct and data marketing were there to give frank accounts of their experiences with modern engagement and offer best practice advice for marketers embarking on new engagement strategies.

So, what are the rules of engagement? I see them as falling into 3 steps:

1. Listen First Before You Engage

You can’t engage your audience until you have listened to what they are saying about you. At the recent conference we dedicated a session to exploring Social Media and the new tools for marketers to listen to conversations consumers are having -the sentiment, and their influence.

Will Whitethorn, President of Virgin Galactic, discussed the value of their Spacebook social media site which enables them to listen to the conversations their astronauts’ communities are having and react accordingly. Professor Michael Hulme, Institute of Advanced Study, Lancaster University, highlighted the problem of increased cynicism of customers who don’t trust brands and believe that they are just being sold to. The application for marketers is very clear, but many marketers are not even aware that these tools now exist. In any walk of life – effective listening will pave the way for better decisions.

2. Be Engaging – if you are, consumers will do anything for you

In the case of Virgin Galactic, their engaging interaction with potential spaceflight passengers via their website helped to prove that there was a market for space travel. It also helped to raise $10m in advance bookings – enough to prove to the Virgin Board that it was a viable venture. Will Whitehorn described this as ‘Word of Web’.

In the case of Astra Zenica they were able to engage customers across all their brands in countries in which they operate, in a controlled and managed approach. Colin Bradshaw, MD of Rapp, the full service, integrated, global agency, described how they help Love Film to engage with their customers to satisfy even the most obscure film choices and keep them coming back for more.

Again, as Stan Rapp said, “Marketers have never had it so good”. Customers will give you permission to sell to them, they will help you reduce your costs by buying and interacting online, they will even participate in how you can improve, serve them better, and what to sell them. To be engaging you need to have systems that can manage that engagement on an ongoing basis and Mike Talbot, CTO of Alterian, took the audience through the ‘engagement cycle’ that combines content creation, analysis, audience understanding and execution on an ongoing basis.

3. Engage the Individual

The more you know about an individual, the better you can engage with them. For years in marketing we have just pumped one message, email or website page at everyone. It’s like going up to someone at a party you have never met, giving them your business card and asking whether they are going to buy from you.

To engage the individual you have to look at the strengths of direct marketing and expand them – understand the individual at an address level, household level, examine digital channels, and make the digital channels individual channels. For example, when customers come on to your website as a result of an email you have sent them, the website can alter the content it serves to take that into account; the intelligence you built around that customer in order to email them means you know them and can identify them if they land on your website. If the customer can interact with you, they will build a relationship with you.

One of Stan Rapp’s ‘5 Myths of Marketing’ was that people say the customers are in control, to which he said, they may have a voice but things still aren’t that good for them. If you can do anything to engage with them, as a result of what you understand about them, then you have an enormous opportunity. Stan forecast that the future will see direct marketing becoming interactive. To engage the individual you need to collect and manage data – one of the key fundamentals of any business is that the data you build up on your customers becomes your customer relationship assets. Marketers need to realise that if they engage at the individual level and build personas around each customer, they are building, and own, the most valuable asset for the company in this digital world.

As the ways to engage with customers increase, and networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook become an everyday tool for employees, companies are now pushing social media as their marketing tool of choice in 2010. We’re moving into a year when engagement is the key word and consumers are playing an increasingly more active role in shaping brand. To hear more from the experts at the Alterian Engaging Times Summit and for ideas of best practice in engagement strategies, take a look at our site: http://www.alterian.com/news__events/engaging_times_european_summit.aspx

About the author

Bob Barker is VP of corporate marketing at Alterian and social media expert