Manfred Bruhn and Stefanie Schnebelen
Despite decades of scientific and practical experience in the field of integrated marketing communication (IMC), little is known about the role of IMC in the era of new media. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite decades of scientific and practical experience in the field of integrated marketing communication (IMC), little is known about the role of IMC in the era of new media. The purpose of the present paper is to undertake a first step to close this gap by proposing thought-provoking impulses for customer-centric IMC. This is done by discussing central premises of customer-centric IMC in terms of the changed conditions on the media markets, its challenges and principles and its implementation issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a conceptual approach to customer-centric IMC by deriving new lines of thinking from a review of existing literature relating to the concept of IMC.
Findings
The paper positions customer-centric IMC as an important advancement of IMC. It shows that the most important new lines of thinking which could be adopted as strategic components of customer-centric IMC are relationship orientation, content orientation and process orientation. The paper thus suggests that customer-centric IMC is a balancing act between a company’s own branding activities and the integration of customer-centered issues.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper resides in a detailed conceptual discussion of new insights into a customer-centric IMC. In contrast to existing work on IMC, this paper threads together the existing perspectives on IMC (inside-out and outside-in) to highlight the potential role of IMC in the era of social media (customer-centric IMC) by adding an outside-out view to the concept of IMC.
Details
Keywords
Mukta Srivastava, Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan and Neeraj Pandey
The increased digital interactions in the B2B industry have enhanced the importance of customer engagement as a measure of firm performance. This study aims to map and analyze…
Abstract
Purpose
The increased digital interactions in the B2B industry have enhanced the importance of customer engagement as a measure of firm performance. This study aims to map and analyze temporal and spatial journeys for customer engagement in B2B markets from a bibliometric perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The extant literature on customer engagement research in the B2B context was analyzed using bibliometric analysis. The citation analysis, keyword analysis, cluster analysis, three-field plot and bibliographic coupling were used to map the intellectual structure of customer engagement in B2B markets.
Findings
The research on customer engagement in the B2B context was studied more in western countries. The analysis suggests that customer engagement in B2B markets will take centre stage in the coming times as digital channels make it easier to track critical metrics besides other key factors. Issues like digital transformation, the use of artificial intelligence for virtual engagement, personalization, innovation and salesforce management by leveraging technology would be critical for improved B2B customer engagement.
Practical implications
The study provides a comprehensive reference to scholars working in this domain.
Originality/value
The study makes a pioneering effort to comprehensively analyze the vast corpus of literature on customer engagement in B2B markets for business insights.