Customer Engagement Agencies Shift Marketers from Analyzing the Past to Predicting the Future

Approach delivered by Alterian and Partners places customers at the center of all marketing activities

CHICAGO – June 10, 2009 –Engagement is the next generation of marketing, and will allow companies to have one-on-one conversations with customers and prospects. Alterian (LSE:ALN), the leading international integrated marketing platform provider, today announced that it has joined forces with several of its most innovative agency partners to address the emergence of the Customer Engagement Agency.

Advances in technology combined with the increasingly easy access to data have turned consumers from passive observers of brands into active participants who are shaping brands. As a result, companies must offer a method of enabling a two-way conversation with customers. Regardless of the channel, from first contact to customer to advocate, Customer Engagement marketing means that companies – through the utilization of data – can deliver the most relevant message, at the right time, in the right tone of voice to each individual customer in the most efficient and cost effective manner.

“We’re on the crux of a monumental shift in the marketing industry driven by the customers themselves,” said Michael Fisher, senior vice president sales & marketing, Alterian. “For years, there has been an incremental shift in the complexity of customers and their needs, largely due to the emergence of digital delivery channels and opt-out options for consumers. As such, a new type of agency model called the Customer Engagement Agency has emerged focused on engaging the customer into a two-way dialogue. The agencies and companies that understand how to connect the channels and how they are influencing purchases will succeed. Those that don’t will become followers rather than leaders, and have a hard time keeping up.”

Engagement marketing allows companies to place the customer at the center of the marketing process – integrating data from the on and offline world to create a 360 degree view of the customer in order to truly engage with them at every step of the customer lifecycle. Alterian’s integrated marketing platform serves as the foundation for Customer Engagement by providing the technology infrastructure that can pull together data from multi-channel sources and then applying analytics in real-time to deliver insightful feedback and recommendations to customers and prospects.

A handful of progressive agencies have joined forces with Alterian to address this trend, including RAZOR, Tribal DDB Worldwide and Targetbase. These agencies are known as thought leaders and visionaries on the future of advertising and marketing. “So many companies invested in technology by building a Website, but do not understand how the Website relates to brand strategy and driving sales,” said Mark Wright, president, Targetbase. “Customer Engagement is looking at everything a customer does, figuring out the when and why behind those actions and then using that information to predict customer behavior before it happens.”

Additionally, Customer Engagement allows marketers to measure the value of each customer better than ever before. By gathering information from the customer throughout the course of the relationship, marketers can determine not only who is reading their emails and stopping on their Websites, but can also add that information to a variety of other information to determine (a) how likely a customer who lands on the site is to conduct a transaction, (b) whether or not the customer will make a major purchase in a brick and mortar store, and (c) what time they shop. As a result, marketers can create timely campaigns that are targeted directly to the individual that receives the phone call, the text message, the email or direct mail.

"The ultimate goal for Consumer Engagement is to help clients build transactions and market share," said RAZOR President Tom Cole. "Today, more customers are finding more channels to tell brands what they want. So, we show clients how to enable them by balancing traditional and new media engagement strategies and transaction tools."

“We have entered the age of the 24/7 consumer,” said Clifford Lopez, managing director, Tribal DDB Worldwide. “In the past, there was always a response lag time, in terms of attending to consumer needs online and offline. In today’s market, responses must happen in real time or you will lose the attention of your target audience. To do this, you have to be able to understand that consumer today and how they will react today.”

The Customer Engagement Agency is focused on delivering the right message to the right person at the right time through whatever channel is most appropriate including the very cost effective, behaviorally rich web channels. Agencies that recognize the need to coordinate messaging in a conversational way with consumers will lead the next generation of marketing and advertising services.