White paper I wrote on customer engagement

1. The Pervasiveness of Engagement
Embracing the American Idol Effect
By Gary Druckenmiller, Vice President, Customer Engagement
t is every marketer’s dream—and inevitable disappointment: A campaign breeds instant success.
I Sales spike and profits climb. Then the campaign fades to silence, and sales just as swiftly slip back
to baseline levels. The stellar campaign, seemingly forgotten, leaves no lasting lift for the brand, no
boost in customer loyalty. The marketers, having hoped to gain new ground, instead managed only a
holding action. So they marshal their budgets and regroup to ready their next campaign.
In marketing, retaining customers has always been the hardest thing to do. And in the age of
media fragmentation—as hundreds of TV channels and thousands of websites compete for
audience attention—the traditional siege-mentality approach to marketing is giving way to a
new paradigm known as engagement. This approach uses technology to establish and maintain
continual connections and conversations with key
constituents. It displaces traditional interrupt-and-repeat
the traditional communications mediums, in favor of establishing and
nurturing relationships with customers, selling channels,
siege-mentality partners and other stakeholders.
approach to
The difference between traditional campaign-based
marketing is marketing and engagement marketing is the difference
between selling a product or service and making a customer
giving way to a believe in it; between a one-off transaction and long-term
loyalty; between shortsightedness and sustainability. You
new paradigm might even say it’s the difference between a one-hit wonder
like Vanilla Ice and a perennial hit maker like U2.
The music business, despite its well-publicized woes, provides a great illustration of customer
engagement’s potential. While CD sales are in a tailspin, traditional record retailers are shutting
their doors, and as illegal file-swapping continues to erode profits, a massive customer-engagement
campaign has produced a major exception to the overall industry downturn. This campaign is so
hugely successful in its own right that it’s easy to forget what it is: The show-business juggernaut
known as American Idol is, in a very real sense, a brilliant engagement campaign that’s highly
effective at creating fans and inspiring them to buy music.

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Channel marketers and business-to-business
“Engagement is
communicators can benefit from study of
American Idol’s embrace of interactive technology
an estimate of the
and its engagement-based approach to building brand
loyalty. The American Idol brand is embodied in the stable
degree and depth
of artists it grooms (and whose recordings it ultimately
releases), but the lessons apply to B2B brands as well, and
of [website]
are helpful in illustrating how engagement works.
visitor interaction
Roots in the Net
against a clearly
Customer engagement is a broad concept, with several
overlapping definitions. We’ll examine them more closely in
defined set of
a bit, but all sources agree on one thing. Engagement first
became possible thanks to the Internet. Before the Internet,
goals.”
all communications media were one-way streets. Radio,
television, and print publications were (and still are) Web analytics guru
effective at carrying messages to the multitudes who Eric T. Peterson
consume them, but the net enabled something new.
The multi-touch, interactive, customer-centric communication necessary for
engagement marketing was inconceivable before the Internet. Spin-off technologies
such as blogging, text messaging and social networking, and their extension beyond the desktop
to gaming devices, iPods, smart phones and other mobile devices, extend the ubiquitous,
unscripted potential of customer engagement still further.
The very technologies that make engagement possible are also, paradoxically, more responsible
than anything else for the radical changes in how many businesses address traditional marketing.
The pervasiveness of the net, its capacity for continuous communication, and its support for
personalized user experiences all helped diminish the effectiveness of traditional interrupt-and-
repeat marketing and advertising. But, at the same time, the net allows companies to create
and cultivate contact and conversation on multiple levels, building relationships
with key constituents, and encouraging their ownership, and even participation
in, the growth and evolution of a brand.
It’s no coincidence, then, that the brilliant marketers behind American Idol succeeded in no small
part by embracing the Internet, even as many of their old-school industry colleagues avoid it or
accept it only grudgingly, with dread and disdain.
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The Internet is, of course, at the root of the record industry’s troubles. It upended traditional
music-marketing methods by providing a much more eclectic outlet for new music than the
traditional showcases of radio and MTV. It allowed music fans to hear songs they liked whenever
they wanted to and buy only the songs they want, without having to defer to labels’ marketing
muscle, program directors’ tastes, or deejays’ schedules. It gave listeners (and, eventually, viewers
of videos) the freedom to skip songs they hated and repeat the ones they loved. And, of course, by
enabling quick, easy digital-file sharing, the Internet subverted traditional music sales channels.
While this was bad news for old-school music marketers, the architects of American Idol
recognized it as an opportunity. They weren’t the first to do so, but they have arguably been
more effective than anyone else at harnessing several of the Internet’s strengths: its ability to
complement and reinforce traditional broadcast and print messaging; its ease at distributing and
sharing entertainment content; and its ability to foster virtual community. The creators of AI
dusted off the tried-and-true TV talent-show format and, by deftly pairing it with a website geared
toward sharing videos and fan feedback, created a powerful platform for energizing and mobilizing
music fans. The AI marketers may have never even heard the term “customer engagement,” but
they are masters of it.
So What is Engagement?
Engagement has links to digital-marketing tools such as customer relationship management (CRM).
It also embraces the cluster of community- and user-content-creation technologies known as
Web 2.0. But it is distinct from both.
Customer engagement is still evolving as a marketing discipline, and its definition depends, to a
certain extent, on whom you ask. Here are a few of the most useful definitions:
Theoretical. Perhaps the oldest (and most criticized) definition was offered up by
the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) in 2006: Engagement is turning on a
prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.
Executable. Marketing author Ron Shevlin, who agreed with many others that the
ARF definition is too abstract, has gained currency with his alternate definition of
engagement as “repeated, satisfied interactions that strengthen the emotional
connection a customer has with the brand.”
Measurement. Web analytics guru Eric T. Peterson offers a predictably metrics-
focused definition, which underlies a mathematical model he’s devised for
measuring engagement:
“Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of [website] visitor
interaction against a clearly defined set of goals.”
MINTZ & HOKE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP | www.mintz-hoke.com

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All of these definitions are applicable. Shevlin’s has the advantage of being customer-focused and
allowing for experiences both online and in the “real world.” Peterson’s is practical for many, but
its omission of real-world experiences (such as gathering in the den to watch an American Idol
broadcast) excludes some engagement experiences—albeit ones that are difficult or impossible
to measure.
While its definition may still be evolving, the concept of engagement has widespread recognition
and acceptance. In a survey of more than 1,000 marketers, customer experience pros, and “digital
experts,” the British research firm cScape found that more than 90% of respondents view online
customer engagement as “essential” or “important” to their organizations’ success (2nd Annual
Online Customer Engagement Report, cScape, 2008).
The Degrees of Engagement
Degrees of
Low Medium High Highest
Engagement
Collaborative Content
Adoption Social
Filtering Creation
Uploading
(User Generated
Rating, Voting,
Bookmarking, Content), Blogging, Adding Friends,
Commenting,
Tagging, Adding to Fan Community Networking, Creating
Endorsing,
Fan Community
Group Participation, Creating
Favorites
Mashups, Podcasting,
Vlogging
Research also indicates that businesses feel the need for a multi-channel approach—combining
online and offline contact and communication—when engaging their customers. A good balance
between online and offline experiences was voted “essential” or “very important” by 86% of
organizations. Again, it is about engagement execution.
Multi-Channel Meets Engagement
Wikipedia.com talks liberally about an engagement typology championed by Wiredset CEO Mark
Ghuneim. This measurement-centric model, which focuses on online activity only, describes a
spectrum of engagement that ranges from low to high, depending on website visitors’ level of
participation in, and emotional attachment to, the content of a site. As documented in the table
above, Ghuneim characterizes passive content consumption and bookmarking as low-level
engagement, and active community participation and content creation as high-level engagement.
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By all accounts, American Idol falls squarely in Ghuneim’s highest-engagement column: The AI
website enjoys tremendous levels of repeat traffic and community involvement; homemade videos
of fans singing AI stars’ songs are widespread on YouTube, as are “mashup” videos spoofing some
of the infamous AI also-rans. Fans even devote blogs and personal sites to contestants’ hairstyles.
Don’t forget, however, that the American Idol engagement engine works offline as well as online,
encompassing traditional advertising (TV Guide, network and MTV spots), public relations
(contestants on E! and Access Hollywood), and even arguably, “real-world community” gatherings
on living room couches and around office water coolers. The integration and reinforcement of the
AI online and offline experiences play a huge role in instilling AI audience members with a rooting
interest in its contestants—and, ultimately, in a willingness to support the winners by buying up
their CDs as soon as they’re pressed. Complementary online and offline engagement activities are
something every marketer should aspire to.
Engagement Without the Hits
Of course, there is no slam-dunk to engagement superiority, and few audiences are as receptive to
full-bore engagement as plugged-in teen and tween females, eager to swoon over David Cook or
idolize Carrie Underwood. In the business world, particularly B2B, the game is different, but
there are still numerous lessons to be learned from American Idol that can be executed today.
Any engagement strategy must be fitted to and grounded against your business
and your audience(s). One good starting point is to address and facilitate such universal—
and critical—audience behaviors as repeat business (loyalty), complaint management, satisfaction,
word-of-mouth, lead generation, and net new sales. Look at your existing processes for handling
these activities, and think about ways that instant communication, information sharing, and
community building—among your employees, between employees and customers, or among
customers themselves—could improve the audience experience.
If you are not applying interactive technology toward these areas, engagement is not the priority it
should be for you.
Building off Ghuneim’s engagement spectrum, following are three high-level customer-engagement
models that characterize monthly activities an organization or department might pursue over the
course of six months as part of an engagement strategy.
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Business Engagement Model #1: Low to Medium
Awareness Conversion
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6
PR/ Guerilla PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
Advertising OFFLINE N/A OFFLINE N/A OFFLINE N/A
LANDING PAGE/ LANDING PAGE/ LANDING PAGE/ LANDING PAGE/ LANDING PAGE/ LANDING PAGE/
Web
REGISTER REGISTER REGISTER REGISTER REGISTER REGISTER
Email BLAST BLAST BLAST BLAST BLAST BLAST
E-marketing SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH
Web X.0 RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS
Model #1 is intentionally simple and achieves only what Ghuneim would consider a low-to-medium
level of engagement. It combines traditional offline advertising and regular public relations
outreach with the use of the two most basic engagement tools, email promotion and paid search,
and calls for a website that captures registered-user data and allows visitors to subscribe to receive
new content via RSS syndication. This should be considered a bare-minimum level of engagement
activity, but may represent a critical first step for organizations that currently have no efforts in
place at all. The best marketers look at an engagement strategy as being migratory in nature.
Lessons learned are constantly reworked and recast. In-depth involvement and rigorous mapping
are no longer just personal requirements, they’re corporate mandates.
MINTZ & HOKE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP | www.mintz-hoke.com

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Business Engagement Model #2: Medium to High
Awareness Conversion
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6
VIRAL VIDEO/ PRESS RELEASE/ VIRAL VIDEO/ PRESS RELEASE/
PR/Guerilla WHITE PAPERS WHITE PAPERS
PODCAST PODCAST PODCAST PODCAST
Advertising OFFLINE OFFLINE OFFLINE/ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE
LANDING PAGE/ LANDINGPAGE/ LANDING PAGE/
LANDING PAGE/ LANDING PAGE/ LANDINGPAGE/
Web REGISTER/ REGISTER/ REGISTER/
REGISTER REGISTER REGISTER
DOWNLOADS DOWNLOADS DOWNLOADS
Email SEGMENTED SEGMENTED SEGMENTED SEGMENTED SEGMENTED SEGMENTED
LEAD GEN, LEAD GEN, LEAD GEN, AFFINITY AFFINITY AFFINITY
E-marketing
PROMOS PROMOS PROMOS PROGRAMS PROGRAMS PROGRAMS
Web X.0 UGC, BLOGS UGC, BLOGS UGC, BLOGS MASHUPS MASHUPS MASHUPS
Engagement Model #2 offers a richer mix of online and offline activities, including some tactical
variation to keep the audience interested. This represents a level of activity that is adequate for
most of today’s B2B organizations, and represents a realistic step forward for B2B and B2C
operations currently doing the bare minimum. “Upgrades” from Model #1 include adoption of
segmented, targeted email programs and the adoption of customer and channel affinity programs.
The “Web X.0” row refers to support for user-generated content (UGC) which can range from
blog comments to “mashups” involving recombination of multimedia; the nature of suitable UGC
will vary by organization. With crisp execution, this mix of activities can achieve what Ghuneim
characterizes as a high level of engagement.
MINTZ & HOKE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP | www.mintz-hoke.com

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Business Engagement Model #3: High to Highest
Awareness Conversion
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6
PR/Guerilla SOCIAL MEDIA P2P SOCIAL MEDIA P2P/STREET TEAMS P2P P2P/STREET TEAMS
ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE
Advertising CONTEXTUAL/ CONTEXTUAL/ CONTEXTUAL/ BEHAVIORAL/ BEHAVIORAL/ BEHAVIORAL/
LOCAL NATIONAL LOCAL NATIONAL LOCAL NATIONAL
MICROSITE/ MICROSITE/ MICROSITE/
MICROSITE/ MICROSITE/ MICROSITE/
Web WIDGETS/GAMING WIDGETS/GAMING WIDGETS/GAMING
WIDGETS WIDGETS WIDGETS
PODCAST LIBRARY PODCAST LIBRARY PODCAST LIBRARY
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Email
AUTOMATED AUTOMATED AUTOMATED AUTOMATED AUTOMATED AUTOMATED
WEBISODE, WEBISODE, WEBISODE,
E-marketing WEBISODES WEBISODE WEBISODE
CONTESTS CONTESTS CONTESTS
SOCIAL SOCIAL SOCIAL iPHONE APP, iPHONE APP, iPHONE APP,
Web X.0
SOCIAL PROFILES SOCIAL PROFILES SOCIAL PROFILES
PROFILES PROFILES PROFILES
Model #3 represents a highly evolved, deep engagement program that applies a wide range
of tactics to engage audiences on every level, across a wide array of technology platforms. It’s
presented as an ideal vision of what’s possible. While some of these activities may seem out of the
realm of the B2B space, B2B marketers should pay attention to the “cutting edge” of engagement
technology, because tamer applications of those tools are already in market and likely to be fluid
and highly applicable to B2B within a few years.
Start slow, use search and email as the well known catalysts to engagement that they are, and
interact long term with a progression toward something more interoperable. The one and done
blockbuster advertising campaign days are over and do nothing but waste your money and raise
questions on your decision making ability. As we can see from these examples, engagement is a
multi-faceted, multi-channel and multi-tiered evolving communication approach. It’s not just
blogs, or wikis, or Twitter. And it’s definitely not just “search.” It is a customized, multi-touch
communications portfolio that encompasses all these things and more.
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Taking Measure
Forrester Research noted in a recent study that “Marketers must wrestle down the numerous
data sources to capture the presence, value, impact, and degree of customer interactions across
channels.”
No engagement effort is complete without data analysis to determine how well it’s doing. There
is no shortage of potential metrics (and influences willing to track and analyze them for you), but
sticking to the basics is a smart first step. Ask the following basic questions, and make sure your
measurement mapping methodology can answer them:
• Which types of information is your audience consuming, online and offline?
Which content is being viewed, requested, and used, and which is ignored?
Does the information that’s getting used reflect your messaging?
• How often do you have contact with members of your audience? When, and for
how long? How often do they return for more information? How is your audience
talking about you and your brand?
Obtain baseline answers to these questions, define specific time intervals for evaluation (90 days is
good for a start), but get data in monthly chunks. Monitor these items closely and adjust content
type and frequency of new offerings as needed to keep audiences satisfied.
Making Engagement a Communications Mandate
We talked a lot about some of the more subjective thoughts and points associated with
engagement. In the end, there are a handful of things you must do in order to instill this
mindset into your business.
• Map a plan that identifies where your engagement budget will be best spent and
align it with the proper set of customers, their touch points, and the degree of
engagement you seek for them. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.
• Use understanding of audience engagement levels to bring clarity to lead
generation, track the effectiveness of higher level engagement in converting long-
term prospects to customers, and institutionalize this as both a business and
cultural must-have.
• Identify and measure the engagement activities that foster customer loyalty and
expand their use and/or apply them to new audiences.
• Monitor engagement on an ongoing basis to analyze long-term and continuous
customer behavior and expect to make adjustments as needed.
MINTZ & HOKE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP | www.mintz-hoke.com

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American Idol has proven in this technology age that engagement as a business philosophy is beyond
real, it’s alive. It’s a science. And it works. It really works. The fundamentals of pulling this all off
for AI are daunting, but for most businesses, as we’ve noted, it could be as simple as a three or
four step process with a conversion point of X. And “X” does not necessarily constitute a sale.
American Idol has approximately 20 different conversion points, all working simultaneously over a
one-year period (which we see compressed in half a year). The average small to mid-sized business
may have only a couple. And that’s OK. No one expects you to be the next American Idol.
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