Editor’s note: The world of retail is changing rapidly as more people shift to buying via ecommerce and hundreds of stores are shut down. But other firms are facing challenges, too, from finding to engaging and then selling products regardless the goods are services or apps or pastries. So how do businesses survive and thrive today? CatalystCreativ’s CEO Amanda Slavin has some ideas.
RALEIGH – What can the 1989 film “When Harry Met Sally” teach marketers?
It can teach them everything they need to know about engagement, says Amanda Slavin, founder and CEO of CatalystCreativ and one of the keynote speakers at the Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association’s High Five Conference earlier this week.
CatalystCreativ
“We want meaningful connections,” said Slavin. “We want brand advocates, but we are settling for lower levels of engagement without realizing there is more.”
The key, according to Slavin, is what she calls the seventh level of engagement. How do you reach the seventh, highest level? Just watch the relationship that blossoms between Harry Burns and Sally Albright. It begins at what Slavin calls disengagement and ends at literate thinking, the seventh level.
“By reaching the seventh level of engagement, you gain deep, meaningful relationships,” said Slavin.
To begin, brands must first identify their core beliefs and values, which will become instrumental in ensuring their organization meets its sales, marketing and relationship goals.
“Authenticity is a huge word in marketing,” she said. “Stay in your footing of who you are and what you believe in.”
The Seven Levels of Engagement
A slide from Amanda Slavins presentation
According to Slavin, there are three phases of engagement:
1. Attract
2. Engage
3. Delight
It is within these stages that an organization’s engagement with its customers grows from level one to level seven. In Slavin’s approach, the engagement levels are:
Level 1: Disengagement
Level 2: Unsystematic engagement
Level 3: Frustrated engagement
Level 4: Structure-dependent engagement
Level 5: Self-regulated interest
Level 6: Critical engagement
Level 7: Literate thinking
As organizations get stuck on a level of engagement, they can begin to ask themselves critical questions about how they are communicating with their customers.
Slavin recommends that to move engagement to the next level, organizations must ask themselves what they are trying to achieve. Based on this answer, they can set actionable goals that will strengthen the organization’s relationship with its customer.
For instance, level three is frustrated engagement, when customers are engaging with an organization but becomes distracted.
Breaking down engagement from Amanda Slavins presentation
“Level three is characterized by a person’s interest and understanding of your message, but there’s a loss of interest due to a distraction or inability to complete a task,” said Slavin.
She explained it like this. Perhaps your audience is clicking on the purchase button on your ad but is not going to your website. As an organization, ask yourself, “Does my website load quickly enough?”
Marketers can then work with their developers to improve the website load time 1.5 seconds or less.
What happens when your organization reaches the seventh level of engagement? It is here, said Slavin, that your customers interact with and promote your brand because it aligns with their values and interests.
“It is about communicating with them in a way they understand and meeting them where they are,” said Slavin. “They then derive meaning from you as a brand.”
So how did Harry and Sally reach the seventh level of engagement? If you don’t know, I recommend you watch the movie.
