When we first started this series on the next era of marketing, we brought you the marketing pundit point of view through conversations with visionaries like Special leads Seth Godin and Aditya Joshi, but only recently did I discuss your opinions on the future of marketing. We asked the Economist Intelligence Unit to survey nearly 500 marketers and then shared the results Special leads on the many observations about marketing’s future, including organizational change and technology advancement.

But to kick off our deep dive into all of the interesting data Special leads from the survey, I want to pause and talk more about one of the key concepts to emerge from the research—engagement. Every marketing team’s goals are to bring in new customers, grow their lifetime value and convert them into brand advocates who can influence their network to become new Special leads customers. But today’s constantly-connected world of digital, social Special leads and mobile has changed the way customers behave— and, consequently, how brands need to speak to their customers and prospects.

As brands evolve, they’re learning that engagement is the Special leads critical next step. If they’ve not already started, brands are starting to shift from an era of mass marketing and advertising—where we talk at people for a single moment in time—to an era of engagement marketing where we begin to take time to learn more about our customers on a personal, individual Special leads level and engage with them over a lifetime. A New Definition of Engagement An interesting foundational fact that emerged from the survey, was the shifting definition of what it means to “engage” someone as a marketer going forward.