Customer Engagement Agencies Shift Marketers from
Analyzing the Past to Predicting the
Future
Approach delivered
by Alterian and Partners places customers
at the center of all marketing
activities
CHICAGO – June 10, 2009 –Engagement is the next
generation of marketing, and will allow companies to have
one-on-one conversations with customers and prospects.
Alterian (LSE:ALN), the
leading international
integrated marketing platform provider, today announced that it
has joined forces with several of its most innovative agency
partners to address the emergence of the Customer Engagement
Agency.
Advances in technology combined with the
increasingly easy access to data have turned consumers from passive
observers of brands into active participants who are shaping
brands. As a result, companies must offer a method of
enabling a two-way conversation with customers. Regardless of
the channel, from first contact to customer to advocate, Customer
Engagement marketing means that companies – through the utilization
of data – can deliver the most relevant message, at the right time,
in the right tone of voice to each individual customer in the most
efficient and cost effective manner.
“We’re on the crux of a monumental shift in
the marketing industry driven by the customers themselves,” said
Michael Fisher, senior vice president sales & marketing,
Alterian. “For years, there has been an incremental shift in the
complexity of customers and their needs, largely due to the
emergence of digital delivery channels and opt-out options for
consumers. As such, a new type of agency model called the
Customer Engagement Agency has emerged focused on engaging the
customer into a two-way dialogue. The agencies and companies that
understand how to connect the channels and how they are influencing
purchases will succeed. Those that don’t will become followers
rather than leaders, and have a hard time keeping up.”
Engagement marketing allows companies to
place the customer at the center of the marketing process –
integrating data from the on and offline world to create a 360
degree view of the customer in order to truly engage with them at
every step of the customer lifecycle. Alterian’s integrated
marketing platform serves as the foundation for Customer Engagement
by providing the technology infrastructure that can pull together
data from multi-channel sources and then applying analytics in
real-time to deliver insightful feedback and recommendations to
customers and prospects.
A handful of progressive agencies have
joined forces with Alterian to address this trend, including RAZOR,
Tribal DDB and Targetbase. These agencies are known as
thought leaders and visionaries on the future of advertising and
marketing. “So many companies invested in technology by
building a Website, but do not understand how the Website relates
to brand strategy and driving sales,” said Mark Wright, president,
Targetbase. “Customer Engagement is looking at everything a
customer does, figuring out the when and why behind those actions
and then using that information to predict customer behavior before
it happens.”
Additionally, Customer Engagement allows
marketers to measure the value of each customer better than ever
before. By gathering information from the customer throughout
the course of the relationship, marketers can determine not only
who is reading their emails and stopping on their Websites, but can
also add that information to a variety of other information to
determine (a) how likely a customer who lands on the site is to
conduct a transaction, (b) whether or not the customer will make a
major purchase in a brick and mortar store, and (c) what time they
shop. As a result, marketers can create timely campaigns that are
targeted directly to the individual that receives the phone call,
the text message, the email or direct mail.
"The ultimate goal for Consumer Engagement
is to help clients build transactions and market share," said RAZOR
President Tom Cole. "Today, more customers are finding more
channels to tell brands what they want. So, we show clients how to
enable them by balancing traditional and new media engagement
strategies and transaction tools."
“We have entered the age of the 24/7
consumer,” said Clifford Lopez, managing director, Tribal
DDB. “In the past, there was always a response lag time, in
terms of attending to customer needs. In today’s market, responses
must happen in real time or you will lose the attention of your
target. To do this, you have to be able to understand that consumer
today and how they will react today.”
The Customer Engagement Agency is focused
on delivering the right message to the right person at the right
time through whatever channel is most appropriate including the
very cost effective, behaviorally rich web channels. Agencies
that recognize the need to coordinate messaging in a conversational
way with consumers will lead the next generation of marketing and
advertising services.
About Alterian
Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers organizations to create relevant,
effective and engaging experiences with their audience that help
build value and reinforce commitment to their brand, through the
use of the Alterian Integrated
Marketing Platform. Alterian drives the transformation of
marketing and communications, making it practical and
cost-effective for companies to orchestrate multichannel engagement
with the individual.
Alterian’s unprecedented integration of
analytics, content and execution through industry leading tools,
such as the Dynamic Messenger email platform and the award winning
Content Management solutions, enables companies to build integrated
communication strategies which create a true picture of the
individual.
Alterian works with marketing services
partners, system integrators and agencies who recognize the need to
plan and deliver coordinated customer engagement services in
partnership with their clients. For more information about
Alterian, products within the Alterian Integrated Marketing
Platform or Alterian’s Partner Network, visit www.alterian.com or the Alterian
blog at www.this-is-marketing.com.
For more information, contact:
Annabel Kerr
Ruder Finn
+44 (0)20 7462 8900
akerr@ruderfinn.co.uk
Karen Gibbons
Alterian
+44 (0)117 970 3200
karen.gibbons@alterian.com