170. Engage › introduction to engage introduction to engage The next several chapters deal with driving traffic to the online assets which have been created, and more than that, driving traffic that starts to help in building relationships with potential and existing customers. The beauty of using the Internet to drive traffic and build relationships is the ability to track traffic-driving campaigns, and then use that information to both measure and report on campaigns, as well as to target campaigns more effectively. It’s useful to consider the many ways of reaching a customer in terms of their influence on the sales cycle. The sales cycle is the typical sequence of phases a customer moves through. It’s often represented as a funnel, indicating that there are fewer consumers further along the sales cycle. While one could probably argue the importance of each channel into every phase of the purchase cycle, some are clearly more influential at different phases than others. Search marketing is so powerful because it is closely aligned with declared customer intent (more on that in the chapters on Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click Advertising). Before someone searches for your service or product, they need to have heard about you and ideally placed you in the consideration set. They then need to favour you. When it comes to consideration and favourability, the reviews and opinions of others matter. Being well represented in social media is important for brands marketing online, and online reputation management tools help brands and businesses to understand how digital communities perceive them. Next, as a potential customer indicates intent via search, well optimised search engine marketing should convert that customer at their point of intent. Digital then takes it further, moving from purchase to building relationships with customers (and often potential customers), using digital channels to interact and engage with them. Again, social media plays a big role here, as do traditional customer relationship management (CRM) tactics such as email marketing. With the explosion in web access via mobile devices, it’s important to understand these various channels in terms of the mobile phone. Mobile engagement is used to create awareness, drive direct action and build relationships.166