The 3Es of marketing are there primarily to help deliver a content marketing strategy. We’ve recently talked about the 4Ps of Marketing (adding in a 5th ‘P’; Persona), and these are great for general marketing campaigns. Where the 3Es of marketing become useful and essential is with digital marketing.
If you haven’t already heard of the 3Es of marketing, then there are many versions you could come across. Here are a few:
Enable, Engage, Ensure
Engage, Educate, Earn
Educate, Entertain, Engage
Entice, Engage, Enchant
but to us, the best and most useful ‘journey’ for the 3Es is:
Engage, Equip, Empower
These 3Es of marketing are in place to engage with followers, equip them with media and empower them to share.
Using this journey, we can segment more effectively and manage each of the 3Es.
Before we dive into the 3E’s deeper, let’s recap briefly on the foundation of Marketing through the 4P’s (or our preferred 5P’s of Marketing). We can then understand and leverage the 3E’s from their foundation. Read more on the 4Ps and how we add Persona in as a 5th P here >
1. Product
The product meets customers needs or demands. The unique selling proposition (USP) of the product need to be identified and leveraged.
2. Price
Price covers what the end user should be expected to pay for your product. Research should lead to a perceived value of the product instead of an actual cost. If a product is above or below its perceived value, then it will struggle to sell.
3. Promotion
Promotions could include special offers or advertising campaigns. Promotion needs to be suitable for your product, the price and of course the end user.
4. Place
Place or its placement is how the product is provided to your customer. How it is distributed and how your end customer is introduced to your product.
5. Persona – the 5th ‘P’ in the Marketing Mix
A persona makes each of the traditional 4P’s of marketing meaningful. Expected outcomes can be anticipated and planned for in advance. Download our worksheet on creating a persona here >
The 3Es of Marketing
For digital content we need to focus on the 3Es of Marketing; Engage, Equip, Empower. If you successfully master all three of these through a coherent journey, you will lead your market in sales and ‘reputation’.
To build a reputation, you need to build trust, and we use a simple formula here to build trust: T=R+D.
Trust = Reliability and Delight
As marketers, we won’t be directly responsible for ensuring the software is robust and doesn’t break. We may or may not assist in the user experience and feature mapping. But, we are responsible for leveraging all of the good stories through content marketing to help build trust through the 3Es of Marketing.
Trust comes from meeting and beating customers expectations. Reputation comes not only from direct interaction with your product but also what other people say and how they say it.
It is ‘other people’ whether they are current customers or not that we reach through the 3Es of marketing.
The Journey Through the 3Es of Marketing
1. Engage
This is easier than most people think to start. Working with many start-ups here at Wesley Clover we see a reluctance to start content marketing and therefore ‘engaging’ readers. This is because it is deemed as time-consuming and other things are more important.
At Wesley Clover, we operate under the same conditions as our entrepreneurs. Spend little, work a lot, keep recruitment and costs low. That being said, before we started writing articles like this one we commenced 12 months solely on Twitter. Find and sharing content that was relevant to our audience of technology entrepreneurs was crucial in building up an audience we could engage with. Twitter is quick and easy to use. If people engage with our tweets, we can quickly engage back and give that personal touch.
Nike is fantastic at this. They consistently respond to conversations and queries on Twitter about their products. This is how to engage with people. Their voices are being not only heard but listened to, and you build brand ambassadors this way.
2. Equip
Equip your followers, influencers or customers with reasons to talk about you (or with you). Ask them to share their experiences on certain things that they may have even forgotten. Great products, service or something they’ve learned. Yet their stories of how they use your product is great publicity. But you have to equip them and signpost with the ability.
Learn and understand what your consumers like about your solution and give them what they need to shout about it.
Apple has built a social brand where people get excited about upcoming releases. Small leaks and rumours feed the requirements for consumers to talk about Apple’s new technology. This is a unique approach as Apple ‘Equips’ their followers by actually not releasing any information and allowing peoples personal opinions to be shared.
3. Empower
Give your consumers exciting ways to talk and share your features and stories. Your customers are essential, and by letting them know their loyalty and opinions matter to you, it encourages and empowers them to talk about you.
Find ways for your consumers to speak about you within their social circles. This gives them something to talk about and empowers them to speak on your behalf.
Dominoes Pizza is excellent at this. By empowering their pizza loving fans to create a new pizza, add different toppings and then naming it, Dominoes were flooded with new ideas as well as enabling their fan (pizza) base (sorry about the pun) to share their unique creations.
Conclusion
The 3Es of Marketing help us engage, equip and empower consumers to spread our products socially within their groups. This is how a brand and a reputation is built. If your targetted group is 18-25-year-olds, then one person sharing something within their social group will also go to a more significant proportion of your target group organically. They could then be interacting with your product for the first time or remember previous times and become re-engaged with your solution. Either way, the person engaging and sharing it becomes the influencer who is equipped with the information to convince and empower their groups to follow.
Inbound marketing is difficult but having the journey through the 3Es of marketing as a guide will help you build a customer base, even if you haven’t launched your product yet.
It is never too early to start engaging.