Consumer Engagement Online

The E-Marketing era has opened the door to endless new ways to raise the level of engagement between organizations and consumers. Before the Internet, consumer engagement was fairly limited and often a major resource suck.  In the pre-Internet era organizations could engage consumers through rewards programs, courtesy calls and follow ups, and sweepstakes. With the Internet, organizations can now not only offer their consumers countless ways increase their engagement, but it is also very easy. A consumer who was engaged with an organization once and may have previously been only aware of them, can instantly become an advocate by sharing a product that organization offers on their friend's Facebook wall. Some new tools the internet offers organizations to help increase their consumers' engagement include community forums for individuals who share an interest in an organization, interactive games and rewards programs that allow consumers instant feedback and gratification (i.e. FourSquare's badges program), QR codes that give consumers instant information that can then be easily shared with their friends via social media platforms, and e-blasts that can offer direct and frequent communication between upper-level employees and consumers. The greatest benefit of these alternative ways to increase consumer engagement is that they are often not nearly as resource intensive as the pre-internet techniques. Another benefit is that because there are so many options for consumer engagement, organizations can offer numerous ways for consumers to become engaged thus increasing the likelihood that they will become engaged and continue to increase their engagement.