Customer engagement

Essentially, it is a more dynamic and transparent concept of customer relationship management (CRM).

In combination with lower switching costs, easier access to information about products and suppliers and increased choice, brand loyalty is hard to achieve.

All marketing practices, including internet marketing, include measuring the effectiveness of various media along the customer engagement cycle, as consumers travel from awareness to purchase.

To engage customers retailers have shifted from the linear marketing approach of one-way communication to a value exchange model of mutual dialogue and benefit-sharing between provider and consumer.

Discussion forums or blogs, for example, are spaces where people can communicate and socialise in ways that cannot be replicated by any offline interactive medium.

Customer engagement is a business communication connection between an external stakeholder (consumer) and an organization (company or brand) through various channels of correspondence.

Customer engagement is a business communication connection between an external stakeholder (consumer) and an organization (company or brand) through various channels of correspondence.

Customer engagement is a business communication connection between an external stakeholder (consumer) and an organization (company or brand) through various channels of correspondence.

This connection can be a reaction, interaction, effect or overall customer experience, which takes place online and offline.

Marketing practices aim to create, stimulate or influence customer behaviour, which places conversions into a more strategic context and is premised on the understanding that a focus on maximising conversions can, in some circumstances, decrease the likelihood of repeat conversions.

Marketing practices aim to create, stimulate or influence customer behaviour, which places conversions into a more strategic context and is premised on the understanding that a focus on maximising conversions can, in some circumstances, decrease the likelihood of repeat conversions.

In March 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation announced the first definition of customer engagement as "turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."

The ARF, World Federation of Advertisers, Various definitions have translated different aspects of customer engagement.

In the past, customer engagement has been generated irresolutely through television, radio, media, outdoor advertising, and various other touchpoints ideally during peak and/or high trafficked allocations.

It is a recent social phenomenon where people engage online in communities that do not necessarily revolve around a particular product, but serve as meeting or networking places.

Simultaneously, lower switching costs, the geographical widening of the market and the vast choice of content, services and products available online have weakened customer loyalty.

Although customer advocacy has always been a goal for marketers, the rise of online user generated content has directly influenced levels of advocacy.

Rather than trying to position a product using static messages, companies can become the subject of conversation amongst a target market that has already discussed, positioned and rated the product.

Another popular suggestion is Ghuneim's typology of engagement.