My Life as a Chief Consumer Engagement Strategist: How I Do What I Do
Here’s a short post reflecting on what I’m doing these days. Having just wrapped up a major engagement that has had me more-or-less heads-down for nearly 2-years, I was recently asked,
“What exactly do you do as a Chief Consumer Engagement Strategist?”
That’s a fair question and a perfect opportunity to reflect on what I’ve been doing. First, I realized this boilerplate of a label does reasonably capture what I do. Now, I just need to explain how I do it. My work principally includes 4 big elements:
Fostering consumer-centric thinking for brands to create durable relationships from the moment of consumers’ first interactions in any form.
Assimilating the consumer’s impressions and responses when assessing current brand interactions across all touch-points in order to identify opportunities to improve their engagement and experience.
Traversing corporate matrices to ensure people, products, and services access and leverage the data and insights necessary to delight the consumer.
Ensuring all operational aspects of the business from the front lines of customer service to the C-suite of leadership consider consumer needs at each step of the brand journey.
Next, there’s the how I get that done. First, success requires verifying that the company is prepared to deliver and satisfy the customer whenever and wherever they interact with the brand. Second, it requires being data-driven with a “quant” mindset (that’s me), in order to resourcefully:
Span the disciplines of marketing, data, analytics, tools, and technology when considering the consumer—their journey, experiences, and brand engagement.
Problem-solve through the lens of all aspects of marketing, including: brand, growth, performance, relationship, event, and loyalty. This necessarily includes digital and physical commerce, as well as product and service development.
Calibrate performance metrics when weighing acquisition and retention investment priorities.
Evangelize prioritization of product development opportunities based on consumer needs and wants.
Reconcile how distribution and fulfillment strategy impact the opportunity to delight or disappoint the customer.
In a nutshell, my work drives top-line revenue growth, enhances customer experiences, and improves operational efficiencies, but always through consumer-centered design and consumer-centric implementation.
And that’s how I do what I do—Consumer Engagement Strategy.
I call it my “success profile.” 🤓