The Brand Connection: Marketing Engagement
Although marketing has long been a way to spread the message of your company and possibly allure customers that are already involved with a particular brand, it has almost always had the primary purpose of acquiring new customers.
But now, with the existence of social media, it appears that the focus of marketing in general has changed. At one point, marketing was about driving revenue. Now, it appears, its focus has shifted towards driving engagement. With Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and even blogs becoming important tools for any successful business, marketing efforts have shifted dramatically. Big name brands and marketing teams everywhere have had to readjust their approaches towards marketing, placing an important emphasis on engaging the people that are already fans (and possibly customers) of their products.
And, in some ways, that has stood as a significant but important challenge for marketing departments. But many brands have responded in a brilliant way. Some companies, including Dunkin Donuts, Coke, and Dominos, have asked fans to take pictures of themselves with their products and to post them online. And they have been met with incredible success, often finding huge portions of their fans willing to contribute to their fan pages.
Others, including Blendtec, have turned to Youtube viral marketing in order to achieve similar success. Blendtec’s Will it Blend?” series of videos saw incredible success, often routinely getting millions of views in each of their videos.
Certainly, by driving engagement, brands are also in turn acquiring new customers. After all, Blendtec’s campaign met with huge success on and off the web, resulting in a huge increase in sales for their products.
But engagement isn’t the same as acquisition. Sure, with recent marketing campaigns, the line has been blurred. Still, viral and social media marketing campaigns have marked a significant shift in how brand’s market themselves.
Now, as opposed to asking consumers to simply purchase their products, companies are asking them to engage with their products in a meaningful fashion.
As opposed to being simply another brand, companies are beginning to market themselves as more household brands that try to connect with their consumers. Not pander them.
Source: MSM DesignZ, Inc. is a Westchester NY Advertising company specializing in social media marketing, web and graphic design, SEO and much more.