Customer: a person who buys goods or a service (1)
Engagement: the process of encouraging people to be interested in the work of an organization (2)
Engagement: the fact of being involved with something (2)
Customer engagement is how a company creates relationships with customers with the aim of gaining brand loyalty and awareness. For brand marketers, this is the holy grail, to have engaged, loyal customers who are fully bought into the brand and extol its virtues to others.
Marketing has traditionally involved brands telling customers what they want them to hear through advertising bill-boards, TV commercials, internet advertising, and through the more recent trends of social media engagement. It is usually entirely pre-purchase, enticing consumers to buy.
Customer Engagement – Photo by Tim Douglas
Marketing has never stood still, the ways in which brands seek to find and put their message in-front of their chosen customers changes over time often driven by technological advancement, however, today, marketing is more about engaging with customers rather than simply bombarding them with messaging from afar, the advent of the social media platforms has begun to change this, however, it is often still used in the traditional model of bombarding consumers with messaging rather than engagement.
The next great revolution in marketing will come from brands embracing direct interaction with their customers through smart products and smart packaging technology and two-way communication between individual customers and that brand, and as such that goal which has been chased by marketers for so long, to engage with those consumers is finally achieved, enhancing the customer experience, delivering relevant tailored messaging to them and increasing customer retention for the brand.
That smart technology can be used in any product from a bottle of coke through to high-end luxury items to either create Smart Packaging or Smart Products which allow consumers to simply tap the product with their phone and consume the content that is delivered to them by the brand.
Link this smart technology with a powerful data engine that profiles users and tracks their preferences, the brands can move from the current single advertising message to suit all, to bespoke messaging directed at the specific consumer since we know their likes, dislikes and preferences and know a profile of who they are.
Content that can also be tailored not only to their profile, but their personal needs, making the same smart product just as accessible for someone who is visually impaired, dyslexic or colour blind as to everyone else.
Messaging dependant on where the product is, with different messaging delivered while instore to that throughout the life of the product since the smart technology stays with that product, that relationship with the consumer also lasts throughout the life of the product and not just at the decision-making point.
This leads to customers being engaged with the product, which is a very powerful concept to think about. Engaged customers as much more likely to be retained customers, they are much more likely to talk to others or share on social media about that product, they feel part of a community, they feel valued.
How can this customer engagement be achieved?
Firstly and most critically, the tech must be right, the ease of interaction with smart products must be simple and accessible for all, the data engine must be powerful and deliver meaningful content, but most of all this engagement concept requires marketers to be free thinking, to imagine what is possible and then ask for it to be delivered.
“Veribli allows marketers to be free thinking, to dream a dream and make it possible”
Take an example, I am a lover of Single Malt Whiskey. I want to enjoy my whiskey in different ways, I could tap my favourite bottle with my phone and be shown a ‘How to enjoy your Whiskey Today – Why not try with a twist of orange zest’ of I buy a stake, and tap the smart packaging and I can view a video of Chef Ramsey telling me how to best cook that steak and what to have with it.
Perhaps I bought my favourite shirt and am looking to buy another, an AI virtual shopper can suggest things I might like, AI that learns what I reject and tailors my shopping experience directly to me.
It is this level of engagement with consumers that the next generation of marketing is going to focus on.
Critically form our view, this engagement can then be used to get the consumer to play their role in reuse, refill, repair and recycle schemes.
Smart?
Powerful?
Yes, we think so, our Smart Tech is designed to be easy to integrate into products and the use of our platform to build and control those messages to the consumer holds access to powerful data driven functions that marketers have only dreamed of.
Veribli is made up of three components, our smart tech, our platform and our data engine, bringing these three aspects together we enable all those things you are now beginning to imagine and make them possible.
Why not give us a call on 01482 455855 to discuss how Veribli can be used in your products to allow this Customer Engagement.