A New Development in Online Marketing: Introducing Digital Inbound Marketing

Abstract

This paper addresses the conceptualization, scale development and scale validation related to the study of consumer engagement in online settings. It first reviews this concept and draws attention to the multidimensionality of the construct, considering the underlying cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions of consumer engagement. Then, it presents the foundation of this concept in relationship marketing and adds support to this proposition. Further, it proposes the construction and psychometric assessment of a 37 scales that examine all three dimensions, based on an international sample of 110 respondents who engage with a brand on a social media network. Based on multiple and successive applications of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, 11 scales are developed showing strong evidence of reliability and validity measurement of consumer engagement in online settings. The final section includes a discussion of the academic contributions, managerial, implications of the findings and directions for future research.

Keywords

• consumer engagement
• online marketing
• social media
• scale development
• scale validation
• relationship marketing
• multidimensional concept