Marketing ROI
What do companies want from their Social Media Marketing spend? Basically they want to understand social media marketing ROI and that means they want to see 2 things.
1. That it’s working – and for most that means making a valid contribution to the sales & marketing effort of the business
2. That they’re getting value for the money they are spending
Social media ROI
Social Media Managers & Consultants need to be able to discuss the value of potential Social Media Activity with their clients – and then they need to be able to show social media ROI.
Social Media Marketing ROI (Return On Investment) cannot just be measured in monetary terms – it’s not that simple anymore. Customers don’t buy as a result of one point of contact. It’s more than likely that any buying decision has been pre-empted by research by your customer, both online and offline, and so it makes sense to boost your profile in both arenas. They can’t buy from you if they can’t find you, right? Multiple touches coming in from everywhere that the customer hangs out (both physically & virtually) will have the biggest effect on your bottom line.
And before you get all bogged down by ROI and social media, consider this…
“What’s the ROI of a handshake?” That’s a quote from Charlotte Li and it’s a cracker. We don’t weigh up every single thing we do with our clients in terms of ROI – we instinctively know it’s a good move to shake hands and that the relationship will be strengthened by it. Not sure the time you spend doing it will show specific measurable returns though!
Good news is that it IS easier to measure the effect of your social media marketing…
When you review your social media marketing activity, you need a whole picture of what’s happening and why. What sort of measures can you use to assess the success of your campaigns?
1. Completed Transactions:-
Sales or orders that can been directly attributed to leads generated by Social Media Activity – social media marketing in its purest form and easy enough to track using short URLs, trackable numbers, download vouchers & reports from social platforms etc.
2. Contact Generated:-
This is not just about the sales leads – leads for other relationships that can help your business i.e. sponsorship requests, joint venture offers, strategic alliances etc that will result in growth of your business.
3. Customer Service Monitoring and Reporting:-
How many customer service issues have you dealt with online? How many people have asked questions on your social profiles that you have either directed to the correct page of the website or solved over the social platform itself? This has saved you real time and money in handling the problem on the phone or within your business at a cost. We handle many client enquiries & questions for many of our clients within Twitter & Facebook for instance – they never have to go to the client, saving the client time & resource. Similarly, those that do need to be referred on are dealt with more quickly and efficiently as there is no backlog of minor issues. Better customer experience!
4. Raised Awareness of the Company:-
Just by having a well organised, professional & constant presence on your Social Media platforms means that the awareness of your company will be raised. That’s a bit Flaky though isn’t it? Exactly how has the awareness been raised? What increase in awareness has occurred since last month for instance? You can use metrics such as post views, blog comments, unique page views, post feedback, tweet click throughs, tweet RTs, demographics, regional engagement and plenty of other gauges to measure awareness. It’s about understanding the path to purchase that your client takes – and ensuring you appear when you need to in the right places as they progress down that path.
5. Reputation Management:-
What people are saying about your business when you’re not in the room!
6. SEO Improvements & Benefits:-
The best organic SEO is social media activity and we have tons of case studies to show that – check your keywords regularly & monitor your progress on a monthly basis. Google the keyword and see where your Social platforms appear in the search results. For all the websites we work on we ensure that social media profiles are integrated so that fresh content is regularly appearing on all online assets – it’s a key part of your digital marketing strategy.
7. Job Applications:-
Great people are the life blood of every business – the more active you are and the more successful you are at raising your company profile, the more applications and CVs you will receive through the Social Media channels.
What areas would you like help with in terms of understanding how your social media marketing is working for you?
