London event discovers customer engagement is key to brand
survival
Marketing industry stars come
out at Alterian Engaging Times European Summit to discuss how
customer engagement requires a radical new way of
thinking.
London – 08 February 2010 – Alterian (LSE:ALN) held its
inaugural Engaging Times European Summit in London last week, where
attendees discussed how personal, one-to-one engagement with
consumers requires a radically new way of creating content and on
demand services. The event was attended by more than 400
marketing heads and decision makers, and a line up of marketing
speakers including: Stan Rapp, Chairman of Engauge; Will Whitehorn,
President of Virgin Galactic; Professor Michael Hulme, Institute of
Advanced Study at Lancaster University and Andrew Finlayson,
Channel Solution Development Manager at AstraZeneca. According to a
survey conducted at the event, 87% of respondents agreed that
customer engagement requires new ways of thinking while 56% of
respondents thought their current website was adequate but could do
better when engaging with customers.
All of the speakers explored how customer
engagement and social media are now key to marketing in the
21st century while the survey explored the challenges
faced by marketers in the audience. When asked what the greatest
individual challenge is to achieving customer engagement 35% of
those surveyed said that linking online and offline marketing
activities played a major role. Of the successes the audience is
seeing 77% believed that they are currently delivering personalised
communications and when it came to social media, 81% felt that they
would be able to effectively utilise this emerging channel.
In his speech Stan Rapp explored how social
media is essential to customer engagement and discussed how the
‘awesome power of direct marketing’ still applied in a digital age.
The results of the live survey, which found that 80% ranked the
importance of social media to the overall marketing mix as
increasingly important or critical to success, showed that those
attending the event agreed. For the majority of those that are
utilising the power of social media, 36% said they will be using it
to build brand advocacy and 31% would be using it primarily as a
lead generation and business development tool. As well as social
media, other areas of online interaction featured highly in the
focus of marketers. 85% of those surveyed said that website
individualisation will be increasingly important or critical for
success over the next 1-2 years.
David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian said of the
survey and event, “We consider the Engaging Times Summit to be a
great success. The issues explored show how marketing as we
currently know it is dead and the results of the event survey show
much of the market agrees with us. The halcyon days of mass
mailings, brochure-ware websites and email blasts are now well and
truly finished. The key to marketing in the 21st century
is individualisation – engaging with customers and prospects on a
one to one basis with targeted marketing communications.
The technology to effectively engage with
customers has been around for some time but the rise of social
media over the last year or so has rapidly sped this process up. It
is clear from the feedback we had at the event and the results of
this survey that marketers realise that the difference between
brands that survive and brands that don’t will be their ability to
effectively engage with their audiences both online and
offline.”
Event attendees included Tim Burge,
Consultancy Director from Rapp. Burge said of the day “Events like
this are exactly what the marketing industry needs to refocus and
reinvent itself. At RAPP, we’ve partnered with Alterian for many
years and data-driven customer engagement is at the heart of our
strategy. From listening to what the great speakers had to say
about how they conduct business, it’s clear that this approach is
exactly what’s needed to deliver value to our clients.”
The survey went further to explore budget that
organizations think they will be in a position to use for customer
engagement over the coming year. When asked how they expect their
budget to change over the next 12 months 33% of respondents
expected it to increase. When then asked where the focus would sit
over the next year, 25% of respondents expected to see a focus on
social media and user communities, whereas 26% would be seeing an
increased focus on marketing analytics and 22% would be increasing
focus on their website.
Eldridge continues, “Following the turbulent
last 18 months, it is encouraging to see that marketing budgets are
on the increase. What is more encouraging is to see that people are
taking social media seriously as a channel through which to engage
with customers. It must be remembered, however, that engagement is
a two way process. Brands must listen to customers as well as talk
to them and businesses must invest time and budget listening to
stay abreast of conversations and respond to customers and
prospects – whether their conversations are positive or negative.
Engaging with customers on a one-to-one basis is increasingly
critical as marketers need to find a way for their brand or product
to appeal to the individual.”
About Alterian
Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers organisations 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, SM2 Social Media Monitoring 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.engagingtimes.com.
For more information, contact:
Beth Handoll
Bite PR
+44 (0)20 8741 1123
alterianuk@bitecommunications.com
Karen
Gibbons
Alterian
+44 (0)117 970 3200
karen.gibbons@alterian.com