One of the major obstacles that new business owners face as they launch and enter their startup phase is getting people to actually buy the product or use the service that they have produced.  The process of building awareness and getting people to try a product or service is generally referred to as marketing.  Marketing processes can be broken down into two categories – promotion and engagement.

Promotion encompasses all process in which a brand’s message is put in front of the public to attract eyeballs and bring attention to the brand.  Essentially, the promotion is one-sided.  The idea is to get the brand in front of the consumer and then hope that the customer picks up on and acts on the message.  Promotional messages are often transmitted via tweets, banner ads, billboards, magazine and newspaper spreads, flyers, etc.

Many blogs, brands, and companies (including myself) utilize strictly promotional methods.  The Dell Outlet twitter account has utilized simple the simple promotion of a product via a short tweet accompanied by a link too generate a few million dollars worth of sales.  The main issue with simple promotion is that it is easy to ignore.  People have become so conditioned to being bombarded with brand messages, advertisements, catalogs, emails, T.V. commercials, etc. that they can mentally tune them out with ease.  In order to be effective, the content of the promotion must be in some way compelling – so that that what little attention people have anymore is captured, retained, and then prompted to action.  However, this must be ever evolving lest the consumer once again finds them self desensitized once again to any run-of-the-mill promotion.

Engagement refers to purposefully interacting and engaging with potential customers.  The idea here is to foster a sort of two-way conversation, giving the customer a voice and a chance to react to and interact with a brand.  Previous to the social media avalanche this was generally accomplished via person-to-person communication whether it be via telephone, in person, or in a focus group setting.  Newer tools like FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs have allowed brands to intentionally reach out to their customers/potential customers and consciously, purposely, and purposefully, interact and foster conversation.

Many times this interaction is done without any sort of expectation on behalf of the brand.  They simply do what they can do help the consumer, and then build rapport and trust accordingly.  Tracking engagement is a bit more difficult than tracking promotion – as promotion can be boiled down to a mathematical core, yet a few brands have managed to engage their customers effectively and are seemingly seeing some benefits (see above twitter images).

It is worth noting of course that these marketing methods are not mutually exclusive.  Dell, while they do utilize the simple promotion model, spends a considerable amount of time interacting and engaging with customers who are looking for clarification, need support, etc.  The same goes for the aforementioned JetBlue Airlines.  Taking a hybrid approach and integrating engagement into promotion is certainly a smart marketing plan.  As trust is built with consumers through engagement they will be more privy and perhaps even more interested in the promotional messages than they would have been had they remained one-sided and promotional all along.

How are you promoting to and engaging with your customers/clients? What tools have been most helpful?