The 5 E’s of Powerful Marketing Engagement

Guest post by: 

Lee Ali, 

Director, E5 Interactive. 

Over the years in my sales and marketing career, I have come across common problems with the businesses that we work with, such as:

• They struggle to capture real quality leads from their marketing because they rely on hoping that website visitors will fill in a basic enquiry form. They don’t have any interactive tools to inspire their curiosity or compelling content that resonates with their prospective customers.
• Because the lead data captured is basic at best, the sales conversations are not engaging and pretty much end after the first engagement.
• They struggle to differentiate themselves from the competition.
• They fail to demonstrate their real value and expertise and end up having sales conversations based on price.
• They don’t measure the return on investment from their marketing spend.

To overcome these challenges, powerful marketers use the 5 E’s framework to generate great results and grow their business.

To achieve success in marketing or in business generally, you need a focused, results-driven marketing strategy, one that begins with the end in mind: knowing not only what you want to achieve from the campaign, but more importantly why? Great strategies start with understanding what the ideal outcome is, who your target market is, how the customer’s buying journey looks like and what your KPI’s are. 

To understand our customers, we need empathy first. When you experience empathy for your prospective customers' pain points and aspirations, and you see the world through their eyes, an unstoppable bond is created. But how do you build empathy? Spend quality time with your customers to understand how they operate and what matters to them most. Learn why they are in business with you and this will give you the USP’s and talking points that you can use in your marketing collateral. You can also offer free reviews or assessments to learn deeply the challenges your customer faces in their business.

Powerful marketing is rooted in education, helping prospective customers to find solutions to their pain points and aspirations. The best educational content demonstrates your understanding of the client’s challenges and aspirations first, and then focuses on your expertise, authority and knowledge.

When you review the key steps in the customer engagement and sales processes, there are emotions at play at each stage, so it is important to understand the key emotions you want to evoke at each stage of the process. What do you want your prospective audience to KNOW, FEEL and DO, as a result of reading your content or website?

Imagine riding a bike up a hill, what happens when you take the foot off the pedal? You start to roll backwards or come to a stop. By incorporating the first 4 E’s in your marketing plan, it not only creates positive energy within your team, it also creates momentum and empowers your business growth. Developing a sense of urgency in your marketing campaigns, will give you impetus, such as a key date for a product launch, an event or even the expiry of an offer. This gives you a reason to connect with your audience and drive momentum.