By UTalkMarketing Editor, Clark Turner.
Here’s an idea: engage consumers through your marketing communications and watch that engagement convert into sales.
It’s hardly rocket science, as a principle that lies at the heart of marketing strategy for most brands whatever the industry sector they are operating in.
But there’s a problem. Back in the day campaigns hinged on TV with perhaps some radio, press or outdoor support. Job done.
This is no longer the case. The emergence of the digital space has revolutionised marketing – with an explosion of channels transforming the very nature of communication with consumers.
What once was once a monologue, with brands simply broadcasting their messages has been transformed into a brand-consumer dialogue, spurred on in part by the growth of social media.
As a result, on the back of consumers voting on brand activity and creating user-generated content, there now exists and uneasy balance of ‘shared control’.
Consequently brands are now posed with the dilemma of knowing how best to reach consumers, where to best reach them and when. And it’s no easy task in an ever evolving landscape.
It’s an issue that leading brand and communications research agency, Hall & Partners, has been aware of for some time.
“Essentially researchers, agencies, brands and the media; we all know we are living in a different world,“ explained the agency’s Global Innovation Director, Richard Owen,
“Things are changing and changing fast, powered by the rise of digital which is giving more power to consumers while presenting brands with a richer and deeper way to engage them.”
He added, “As a result we’ve had to rethink the models and frameworks we’ve used to study the impact of advertising. It’s called for a new way of thinking - something new and fresh –that aim to give some discipline to the landscape of communications.”
There’s no question that we are living in an ‘Era of Engagement’ but doubt still remains as to how this can be measured and directly related to brands.
For Owen, the answer for brands is that by implementing different marketing measures, and ultimately improving engagement they can impact on the bottom line.
Hall & Partners’ solution has been the development of a new research model – Engager. It’s driven by a number of principles to assess how consumers respond to and engage with brands.
“Ultimately brands need to remember that for engagement, they have to provide assets that people will want to share – that are bold, brave and entertaining. If you are dull you are dead,” advised Owen.
“There’s a belief from some quarters that it’s easier for brands operating in some industry sectors than others but even financial services and banks are developing exciting apps while Nationwide has been creating talkability with its ‘Little Britain’ campaign.”
He continued, “What’s important is knowing your target market and then using the technology to reach them. Brands are really only limited by their own imagination.
“Transparency and authenticity is also key, otherwise brands will be found out. Just promise what you can deliver is a principle that should be true for every brand.”
A third consideration for brands looking to engage, is that people’s brand responses are emotional and so they should be looking to surround consumers with brand connections that tap into their daily lives. It’s all about the dialogue, rather than hammering messages home.
Ultimately Engager understands that the journey between consumers and brands is not a linear one. Life is generally messier than that, so the model is presented as a circle as opposed to a pyramid (see main article picture).
It represents how consumers engage with brands via different entry points and can jump around the model.
“Some concepts are relatively new for the age,” explained Owen. “’Participation’ whereby understanding brand involvement and participation is something we can now measure.
“’Sensing’ is also interesting – the impact of others on our own behaviour.”
OK. So here’s the science bit. Behind each component is a series of questions that uses flash technology and drag-and-drop to tap into the more emotive part of the brain.
An index score is then calculated for each component, with a weighed average - influenced by how important components are in driving choice - resulting in a single brand engager score.
In addition to determining quantative results, Engager, can determine qualitative aspects as well.
Once Engager has identified a brand’s strengths and weaknesses against the competition, a strategy can be mapped out to address problem areas and what touch points need to be worked on the fix the ‘wheel’.
The message for brands is simple. According to Owen, two-third’s of a brand’s profitably can be explained through engagement alone.
The more components of the Engager model that come into play, the more consumer-brand engagement resulting a higher conversion to purchase.
AJR