I write several blogs, and not necessarily from a viewpoint of “enhancing my online brand” or generating leads for my business.
That’s why I felt it necessary to shutter The Engagement Principles for a short time; my professional life didn’t allow the room to write the articles I find interesting, though it wouldn’t have been hard to continue posting “keyword rich” but intellectually pointless posts.
That’s not adding anything to the online conversation; it’s simply gaming Google.
What Teaching Teaches Us
I can’t say the space to write has magically reappeared, but after teaching an online marketing boot camp – to a bunch of micro-entrepreneurs who grasped the logic of engagement marketing very, very quickly – I realized it was time to beat the drum once again.
Engagement is a term much bandied about these days, though many now view it as simply a measure of how engaged someone is around a particular site or campaign.
By contrast, my definition of “Engagment Marketing” remains focused on brand equity, long-term connection, and the lifetime value of engaged customers.
As I explained it to my class of eager entrepreneurs, I’m an experienced direct response copywriter, so I’m perfectly capable of selling their customers a widget, for which they’d make a widget’s profit.
Yet, if I can successfully engage customers – bind them to the brand around shared passions, values and interests – then I just potentially made them a lifetime of widget profits.
They understand that logic just fine.
Engagement is Personal
Most of the entrepreneurs in my class are not in the content-generation business, and reject the idea their primary goal in starting their business was to sit in front a PC and lard the Internet with SEO content or manage huge keyword lists.
Most of these entrenpreneurs are enamored with simple, proven channels like email/e-newsletter lists – which are rapidly merging with newer media channels like blogs and social media.
Show them the flowchart on the whiteboard, and they instantly see the beauty of leveraging content across multiple media channels, and providing return channels of communication for those customers and prospects in the process of engaging with their brand.
In simple terms, I showed them The Engagement Principles in (crude) graphic form (my drawing skills beggar belief), and they showed me it made perfect sense.
I plan to fire up a couple posts every month on the Engagement Principles; a grievously low article count in the age of “publish daily or die” content generators, but a reasonable schedule for reasonable articles from a working professional.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.