Are you engaged? Whether or not you have a significant other or someone you’ve committed yourself to, chances are, the label engaged fits you in some capacity.
Engaged is an attribute marketers and customer relationship professionals ascribe to a company’s customers. There are varying degrees of engagement, a continuum if you will, and strategies continue to evolve to move customers along that continuum in an effort to marry them to a brand.
When the concept of engagement first entered the customer acquisition, retention and experience discussion in the mid 2000’s, the advertising industry was leading the conversation. According to Wikipedia, the Advertising Research Foundation announced the first definition of customer engagement at the re:think! 52nd Annual ARF Convention and Expo in March 2006:
"Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."
I’m not exactly sure what this definition means, and many others didn’t get it either. So, a number of subsequent trial balloons were sent up by marketing, customer relationship and advertising professionals. None stuck. In 2007, Richard Sedley adapted a definition put forth by Ron Shevlin, a respected authority on customer engagement, that seemed to resonate well:
"Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand.
This and similar descriptions of an engaged customer gained traction and companies began to seek out authorities to help them establish customer engagement strategies.
Remarkably, or perhaps I should say, disturbingly, by late 2007, customer engagement was already being described as a buzzword. It took less than two years for some to grow weary of the discussion. That’s incredible. It didn’t dim the din, though. The noise grew in the ensuing years along while many flavors of engagement evolved:
- Customer engagement
- Employee engagement
- Online engagement
- B2B engagement
- Channel engagement
- Social engagement
When social media exploded onto the scene, it turned the customer engagement dynamic on its ear. Suddenly, engagement was no longer entirely controlled by the vendor. Consumers had the tools to develop or participate in communities outside of any vendor domain. Communities were created around a brand and the company had nothing to do with it. In some cases, companies found themselves in the awkward position of having to ingratiate themselves with the community organizers to earn themselves an invitation to join.
Corporations also took a proactive approach, though, and established their own social engagement strategies and programs. Social engagement is all the rage today and the noise around it is louder than ever.
Engage in all its forms continues to be a marketing buzzword and a driving imperative for many customer-centric companies. The power of attraction simply cannot be denied.
So, dear reader, as a consumer, you are engaged. You just didn’t know it.
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