Don't Just Make Friends

By Larry Kavangh

Engagement marketing happens when people become a part of the product they're buying or consuming. Many marketers think it begins and ends with sites on which visitors create the content — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. They think a simple product mention on these sites will drive traffic and make their  sales soar.

But the evidence says otherwise.

Engagement That Sells
Social media sites are entertaining and fundamentally ideal for connecting with people to generate a flow of information. MySpace attracts three to four times more unique daily visitors than Amazon, yet Google can't even make pay-per-click text ads work on MySpace. While these sites are great examples of engagement marketing, they're not yet useful for driving e-commerce sales.

There are, however, other ways to use engagement marketing to drive sales. The offline world is full of successful business models, and some savvy e-comms have begun adapting these models to the online world. Con- sider how some offline, broadcast entities have engaged consumers:

"American Idol" If you tune into this popular program, you know that vast numbers of people vote for their favorite performers and then watch to see how others voted. Viewers become an integral part of the show.
Talk Radio show listeners are encouraged to call in and participate in conversations on subjects ranging from sports to cooking to cars. Again, callers become a key part of the show.

There's an unsettling number of other offline examples. They're unsettling because online marketers are supposed to be innovative, yet many of them lag behind media that's not nearly as interactive and far-reaching as the Web. We're caught up in social media and missing the e-commerce applications of engagement marketing.

6 Ideas to Get Started
I challenge all marketers that have heavy online presences to find ways to implement engagement marketing that drives sales on their sites this month. Here are some ways to get you going:

1. Ask shoppers to vote. Send an e-mail asking customers to vote on the items they want you to put on sale. Send a second e-mail to post the results: a sale! I've seen these e-mails provide a lift of 50 percent and more in open rates and, more importantly, response.

You can take this idea further and make the e-mails viral. Invite shoppers to forward the e-mail to their friends and stuff the ballot box for the items  they prefer.

You also can encourage voting with a banner on your homepage. Request e-mail addresses from these on-site voters so you can send them the results; it's a great way to increase conversions and build your list.

2. Invite shoppers to enter a contest. Ask your customers to submit stories about innovative and interesting ways they use your products. Publish the results online. Ask winners to demonstrate their techniques in a live webinar. Make it even more interactive: Ask your customers to vote for the winner from a top 10 list.

3. Conduct customer surveys. Shoppers love to share their opinions because it makes them feel involved. So send a survey, and ask what they think. This is particularly effective for customers who appear to have lost interest in your e-mail program or haven't been to your site in months.

Ask your customers about potential new products, changes you're considering for the site or a possible new line of business.

4. Ask shoppers to e-mail five friends. Offer shoppers a prize, discount, free shipping or even a token gift for passing one of your promotional e-mails on to five friends.

Tracking these e-mails needn't be daunting for your IT people. Simply tell shoppers to redeem their prizes by returning to the site and clicking a link that certifies they passed along the e-mail. No worries if a few people cheat the system; most will do what you asked and earn the prize (and you'll save on IT costs).

5. Offer discounts to bloggers. Incent shoppers to blog about your product and/or create links back to your site by giving away discounts as mentioned above. You're giving away a small discount, not a 52-inch flat screen TV, so trust people to self-report their work.

Shoppers who like your product enough to get motivated by a discount will do a good and honest job blogging. Inbound links can directly drive new shoppers to your site — and even help search engine optimization.

6. Use ratings and reviews. If you're not giving customers a chance to rate and review your products, fix that immediately. This is a standard feature on today's e-commerce sites.

You can get even more out of this information by featuring five-star rated products in e-mail, using ratings as a sorting tool for search results and on category pages, or by showing online ratings in your catalog.

I've seen top-rated products (four and five stars) convert about 40 percent better than products with lower ratings or no reviews at all. You need to get those ratings and products in front of  your customers.

The ideas for engagement marketing are infinite, so be innovative and prove that e-commerce — and you — can engage shoppers in ways that promote sales. I'm confident you'll see positive results.

Larry Kavanagh is founder and CEO of e-commerce and e-mail solutions provider DMinSite (lkavanagh@ dminsite.com).