How Marketing Agencies Can Build an Enterprise Engagement Practice--A Strategic Roadmap for Entering the Next Growth Market

With only about 50 incentive, recognition, and loyalty companies in the world, the opportunities are rife for marketing agencies with deep client relationships to tap what is largely a do-it-yourself business—fostering the proactive involvement of all stakeholders toward a common purpose, goals, objectives and values.

The Next Strategic Frontier for Agencies?
Begin With a Clear Definition and Point of View
Expand the Agency Lens Beyond External Marketing
Develop an Engagement Strategy Offering Before Technology or Rewards
Build Capability in Engagement Technology Ecosystems
Create a Cross-Functional Engagement Team Model
Shift Measurement From Activity Metrics to Business Outcomes
Start With Existing Clients and Adjacent Needs
Build Recurring Engagement Management Relationships
Position the Practice as Enterprise Value Creation, Not Marketing Services

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As enterprise engagement emerges as a formal discipline focused on aligning all stakeholders around purpose, values, and measurable organizational goals, marketing and advertising agencies are uniquely positioned to play a leadership role. However, entering the enterprise engagement marketplace requires more than repackaging recognition programs or extending campaign services. It requires building a structured practice grounded in enterprise-wide strategy, enabling technology, and outcome-based measurement.

For agencies seeking sustainable differentiation and new growth, the question is no longer whether enterprise engagement represents an opportunity, but how to develop the capabilities to deliver it. The good news, the cost of entering the market is minimal because there are readily available technologies and the practices are available online through organizations like the Enterprise Engagement Alliance.

The Next Strategic Frontier for Agencies?

Enterprise engagement represents a major market shift: from fragmented incentives and communications to integrated systems that engage all stakeholders in measurable ways. Agencies have a rare advantage. They already own the core competencies most traditional incentive providers lack:

Enterprise storytelling
Communications orchestration
Brand and purpose activation
Behavioral influence
Integrated technology experience
Performance-driven measurement

By building structured enterprise engagement practices now, agencies can enter an underserved growth market and define a new strategic role in the engagement economy.

Begin With a Clear Definition and Point of View

The first step in building an enterprise engagement practice is establishing clarity about what enterprise engagement is—and what it is not. Enterprise engagement is not simply:

Employee recognition
Incentives and rewards
Internal communications
Customer loyalty programs
Culture campaigns

It is a formal management discipline that integrates these tools into a unified strategy designed to engage all stakeholders around shared organizational, project, or team objectives. Agencies must develop a point of view that positions engagement as an enterprise performance system, not a collection of tactics.

Expand the Agency Lens Beyond External Marketing

Traditional agency models focus primarily on customers and marketplace behavior. Enterprise engagement requires agencies to design for a broader ecosystem that includes:

Employees at all levels
Sales and non-sales contributors
Channel and distribution partners
Suppliers and strategic vendors
Customer communities and advocates

Building an engagement practice means shifting from “audience targeting” to stakeholder alignment across the enterprise.
This expansion creates new relevance for agencies at the executive level, particularly with CEOs, corporate communications and investor relations teams, marketing executives CHROs, and chief commercial officers.

Develop an Engagement Strategy Offering Before Technology or Rewards

Many engagement providers have historically led with platforms or incentives. Agencies can differentiate by leading with strategy first. A credible enterprise engagement practice should begin with consultative offerings such as:

Enterprise engagement assessments
Stakeholder alignment audits
Engagement journey mapping
Purpose and values activation strategy
Measurement and impact framework design

These services establish the agency as an architect of engagement, not simply a program vendor.

Build Capability in Engagement Technology Ecosystems

Enterprise engagement is increasingly enabled by integrated enterprise engagement technology platforms that unify:

Communications
Learning and development
Recognition and incentives
Feedback and listening systems
Collaboration and community features
Analytics and impact measurement

Agencies do not need to build these platforms themselves, but they must develop expertise in selecting, integrating, and managing engagement technology ecosystems—similar to the role many agencies now play in marketing technology.

Technology fluency is essential because enterprise engagement is moving from standalone programs to enterprise-wide infrastructure.

Create a Cross-Functional Engagement Team Model

Enterprise engagement cannot be delivered through creative and account services alone.
Agencies building a practice should establish interdisciplinary teams that combine:

Engagement strategists
Communications and content leaders to build relationships with permission-based communications
Behavioral and cultural insight expertise
Learning and performance design
Data and measurement specialists
technology integration capabilities

This structure reflects the reality that enterprise engagement operates across departments, not within marketing silos.

Shift Measurement From Activity Metrics to Business Outcomes

One of the most important differentiators agencies can bring is outcome-based measurement. Traditional recognition programs often report participation statistics, such as:

Redemptions
Points issued
Program usage

Enterprise engagement requires measurement tied directly to enterprise value, including:

Retention and turnover reduction
Productivity improvements
Customer loyalty and advocacy
Partner performance
Sales growth
Alignment with organizational purpose

Agencies that can connect engagement initiatives to measurable business impact will lead the next generation of the industry.

Start With Existing Clients and Adjacent Needs

Agencies do not need to build enterprise engagement practices from scratch. The most effective entry point is through existing client challenges, such as:

Declining employee or customer engagement
Inconsistent culture across regions
Channel partner underperformance
Fragmented loyalty and incentive efforts
Lack of alignment around purpose and strategy

Enterprise engagement can be introduced as an integrated solution to problems clients already recognize. Early pilot programs can then evolve into enterprise-wide engagement systems.

Build Recurring Engagement Management Relationships

Enterprise engagement is not campaign-based. It is continuous. Agencies should design their practice around long-term engagement management models, including:

Ongoing communications and content operations
Selection and management of enterprise engagement technology
Continuous measurement and optimization
Stakeholder feedback cycles
Program evolution aligned with business strategy

This creates recurring revenue streams and deeper client integration than traditional project work.

Position the Practice as Enterprise Value Creation, Not Marketing Services

Finally, agencies must position enterprise engagement appropriately. This is not an extension of advertising. It is a strategic business discipline that directly supports organizational performance, workforce alignment, customer commitment, and partner productivity. Agencies that successfully build enterprise engagement practices will evolve from marketing vendors into enterprise-wide growth and performance partners.

Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services

Celebrating our 17^th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:

1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:

ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards since 2020

2. Learning: Purpose Leadership and Stakeholder

Management Academy to enhance future equity value for your organization.

3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.

4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.

5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.

Contact: Bruce Bolger at TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230.