Chapter 12Inbound Strategies Are Engagement Focused
More and more of what we care about in the second machine age are ideas, not things—mind, not matter; bits, not atoms; and interaction, not transactions.
—Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee1
In the age of buyer control, organizations have to create opportunities that make it easy for buyers to connect throughout the entire buyer journey. In an inbound context, the term engagement means attracting buyers and giving them the opportunity to interact with your content, employees, and products anytime, anywhere. Getting a buyer to choose your product or service over the competition is the goal of engagement, but the key to engagement is being human. Your content, product, and employees must be personal, relevant, and helpful.
The best way to engage buyers is to anticipate what problems they want to solve, diagnose how they research solutions, and help them solve those problems in a fast, comprehensive, and personalized way.
A successful inbound strategy requires defining a responsive customer engagement process with the whole team, including:
Understanding the buyer's needs- Engaging the buyer in personal interactions that save time
- Delivering the right information at the right time throughout the buyer's journey
- Offering options ...
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