Measuring Social Marketing

One of the basic elements (and benefits) of any direct marketing campaign is the ability to track and measure results. That's a primary reason why we like this business so much. You get the gratification that the marketing dollars spent resulted in positive results (like new leads acquired, new sales made, etc.).

So I was really pleased to come across this article that seriously attempts to quantify the value of Word-of-Mouth marketing: What's a Conversation Worth?

"LET'S SAY YOUR GREENEST FRIEND recommends the latest hybrid vehicle. Or a dairy-sensitive "foodie" suggests you try some new vanilla flavored soy milk. Or your frugal father-in-law steers you toward a particular variety of charge card. Few would question the power of these types of recommendations. After all, they cut through advertising clutter with relevant advice from trusted sources. This elusive credibility led marketers to spend over $1 billion on word-of-mouth programs last year, despite the fact that nobody seems to agree on how to properly value an unscripted consumer interaction."

The article talks about the challenges of measuring social marketing and how it is so hard to compare to other mass media. Author, Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent, has decided to tackle this issue via a series of white papers, each focusing on a different measurement component. The first topic is CPM. From the article:

"In order to consider whether CPM is an ideal measure, one needs to consider how to calculate what a proper effective CPM might be for a word-of- mouth conversation. We begin with the simple correlation of a dialogue to an impression, and then layer on the additive values of word of mouth, such as premiums for customer targeting, value of a trusted source, length of engagement, and generational impact (or ripples of conversation)."

"The big, scary question looms: What is the proper effective CPM for word of mouth? $30? $300? $3,000?"

The article provides an easy link to their white paper (no registration required) that delves into the calculation of measuring word-of-mouth marketing in terms of CPM. Now, for some reason, they left out most direct marketing channels in their comparisons, but there's still some valuable insight to be found here.

I know that I'll be on the look-out for upcoming articles on this topic of measuring social marketing efforts. Somehow, our pesky clients will only hire us to produce measurable results, so having a framework around how to measure social marketing results is a great way to add more of this to our direct marketing tool-kit.

Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) More Important than Ever!

In this faltering economy, direct marketers need to make use of every possible strategy to gain the loyalty of their customers and prospects. As you know, we're big believers in utilizing social media as part of the overall marketing strategy. Part of participating in this brave, new world is extending your reach via Word-of-Mouth (WOM).

In a recent article from BizReport, WOM is examined and is reported as being "seriously underestimated by many communicators and often overlooked as a valuable component to a communications strategy." These are the new findings in the annual “Media, Myths and Realities” report from Ketchum and the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. The study reports that "less than a quarter (24 percent) of communicators have a word-of-mouth strategy in place." At first blush, this may not alarm you, however, when you consider that WOM is estimated to grow from $981 million in 2007 to $1 billion in 2008, with a continuing upward trend forecasted through 2011 . . . well, let's just say it may be high time to get a WOM strategy in place!

WOM is simply about looking at your prospective audience as a "public of one," as opposed to creating messages for the masses. Said differently, this means that marketers must begin to provide "relevant, meaningful and entertaining content that their audiences will feel inclined to share with others."

In this frenetic shopping season, we marketers can't help but feel the impact of advertisers and the myriad of messages aimed at us -- just like the rest of the consumers out there. And, as we examine our own actions, it is now more apparent than ever that we seek out products and services that we are interested in . . . and are becoming better and better at filtering out what is not relevant or meaningful to us. This is exactly why WOM is so important to consider right now as we communicate with our customers and prospects. As the Ketchum-USC study suggests, "Communicators must focus on speaking to individuals, not just broadcasting to the masses, when getting their messages across to this new 'public of one.'"

The net net . . . creating messaging that appears to be highly individualized, highly targeted and perfect for each one of us.

Customer Trust is So Important...

We work so very hard to get our customers to like us, to buy from us and, ultimately, to trust us. Isn't trust really the epitome of customer loyalty?

Then you read about customer trust gone awry, as in the case of Target misusing social media. It kills me that one of the few huge corporations that actually buys into the value of communicating with customers and prospects through social networks didn't put into practice what I believe is the very essence of social networking. A little thing called Honesty.

From the Star Tribune article: Target, "the Minneapolis-based discount retailer is being outed in online blogs and discussed in college ethics classes after students allied with the company (Rounders) were told to "keep it like a secret" while singing the company's praises on the social network site Facebook.com."

Target gave their 'Rounders' discounts, CDs and other prizes for marketing Target products to their Facebook friends and providing the company with feedback.

Rounders were okay with this concept (heck, they loved the free SWAG!), until in one campaign, they were instructed by a Target-sponsored newsletter to "try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder."

As you can imagine, this rubbed some kids the wrong way and (take note here) one Rounder used the Facebook forum to 'out' Target. I love the irony of using the very medium that Target was attempting to control to put out the honest story.

Lesson learned: if you are trying to generate a buzz for your product on places like Facebook, MySpace or even in the blogosphere, do it with integrity. Let your product virtues sell themselves. Manipulation will most likely backfire on you, creating the exact opposite effect of what you were trying to achieve.

Yes, Target did get some word-of-mouth. Sadly, I don't think that this is the exact kind of 'buzz' they were hoping to generate...