The slides from my Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) talk at Hull University Business School on 2 February 2016, where we looked at social media marketing return on investment (ROI) and a seven step approach to better achieving it. Includes case studies on companies including Fisher Tank and Maersk.
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developer
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Running content and social
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How to suck at social media
Make assumptions about customers
(and treat them like idiots)
Audiences haven’t evolved Aren’t sophisticated /moving
online for information needs
Don’t have confidence with
digital tools and technology
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Why do so many companies fail?
They make
assumptions
Audiences
haven’t
evolved
Haven’t
moved online
for
information
needs
Don’t have
confidence
with digital
tools and
technology
Not
learning
How to ask
the right
questions
How to listen
to the
answers
Don’t
interact
Don’t engage
– its all about
broadcast
Don’t advise,
help, inform –
it’s all about
selling
Don’t
entertain,
develop
relationships
– it’s
transactonal
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Know your audience
• Who they are
• Where they go
• What’s being
asked or
discussed
• What’s missing
• Who’s helping
• Who needs help
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Setting conversion metrics
Goals Possible Metrics
Brand awareness Website traffic – Page views – Video views – Document views –
Downloads – Social interaction – Referral links
Engagement Blog comments – Likes – Shares – Tweets -+’s – Pins – Forwards
– Inbound links
Lead generation Downloads – Form completions – Email subscription – Blog
subscription – Conversion rate
Sales Online sales – Offline sales -
Retention/loyalty % of content viewed by existing – Retention/renewal rates
Upsell/cross-sell Sales for new products / services
Source: Content Marketing Inst. The Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategies
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Set conversion goals
• Make online purchase
• Fill out contact form
• Use online quote feature
• Click on dealer website
• Sign up for newsletter
• Download PDF
• Spend time on an
important page
• Engage on social media –
follow specific accounts
• Watch video
• Use Live Talk / chat
functionality
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Reach
• The more followers, fans
and connections you have
across platforms, the
greater ROI your
campaigns.
• Use platforms like
Hootsuite Pro ($8/month),
Buffer and native analytics
to track uplift and
engagement.
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Traffic
• Getting visitors to your
website or another URL,
where conversion
happens.
• A major objective of all
social media activity.
• Every update should
contain an image, a link to
more in-depth content and
#####.
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Leads
• Track all incoming leads and measure where
they are coming from (referral).
• Continue to invest in channels that work and run
down those that don’t.
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Customers
• Track the number and social-media generated leads
that become actual customers.
• Once attribution has been allocated to social media,
make sure this is logged on the customer record in your
CRM of choice.
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Example: Fisher Tank
http://www.fishertank.com/blog
• Web traffic up 199%
• Social media traffic 0% to 4800%
• Lead conversion up 3900%
• Quote requests up 500%
• $3.4m qualified sales
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Establishing real-world ROI
Source Revenue Cost ROI
Facebook £45,000 £20,500 +119%
Linkedin £9,000 £25,135 -64%
Twitter £3,000 £7,500 -60%
Instagram £1,650 £15,000 -89%
= £58,650 £68,135 -13%
Corrective action
• Invest more in
Facebook
• Strip Instagram
out to reduce cost
and make a +7%
ROI
• Refine Linkedin
targeting
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Buzz by no of posts buzz by impressions shift in buzz channel buzz
asset popularity buzz by customer type mainstream media mentions
growth rate of fans follows friends contacts no of pass alongs
recommends embeds bookmarks subscriptions page views
clickthroughs changes in search ranking type reach channel
geography volume of posts impressions time spent clicks
contributions by bloggers chatrooms wikis online sales offline sales
savings change in share AEV event response email
open rate by time / region event attendance
buazz by time of day seasonal buzz competitive buzz category/topic buzz
buzz by stage in DM process mainstream media mentions installs downloads
uploads favourites likes comments ratings
increase in searches %of buzz with links no of views/interactions polls
virtual gifts tags popularity contest entries leads generated
products sampled store visits trials
customer acquisition & retention complaint handling
cost per click satisfaction feedback dwell time on site
bounce rate cost per customer
Vanity vs. sanity
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• Set strategy (who and what)
• Quantify success upfront (goals)
• Track the right things
• Assign monetary value
• Attribute channel return
• Understand your costs
• Monitor and use analytics
Summary: 7 steps to brilliant
social media ROI
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Header: Guaranteeing a return online: ROI strategies for social media marketing, CIM Humberside, Hull University Business School, Tues 2 February, 2016
I’m delighted to be here to talk to you about one of my many digital marketing pet topics. Thanks to Emma Shaw for reaching out to the CIM network team and making this happen.
I believe in social media, so take pictures, tweet, pass comment, share slides – just as long as you @me @renepower on Twitter.
I’ve also been tweeting all day (and through this presentation to #CIMsocialmediaROI )
As well as some brilliant content and a structured 7-step approach, the freebies I’ll mention in a minute, if you take one message away today it is this.
Attention is the new currency online. It’s about audience, but its actually about the right kind of audience. To some of you, that might not be new, but how you get that attention is changing massively and you have to go after it with authenticity or you’re going to be blown out of the water. Hopefully, this session tonight will give you some pointers.
Is this familiar?
Hopefully, though you are neither of the people in the caption, but someone tasked with making sure both ‘get it’ sufficiently to have an impact on your business.
This is what I’m focusing on tonight. The risk of course with this topic is that the minute you shoehorn the phrase ‘ROI’ into a presentation, it instantly becomes dull and commercially focused. (We became marketers for the glamour and the glory, right?)
I’ve looked to colour up the process with some examples and some further reading and tips along the way that help you. It’s really about sound planning, using all available data and asking the right questions of it, all in order to make the best onward decisions.
Then you can get as creative as you like. I want to leave a fair bit of time for Q&A too as I have a habit of running over.
Before we start, I always like to “context the crowd” (that’s a Gary Vaynerchuck way of saying he wants to understand the perspective and motivations of his audience – I liked it but it sounds better in his New Jersey dialect). It just gives me a sense of who’s in the room and makes sure I try and ensure what we’re talking about works for everyone.
These are three biggies. This stuff is fused, melded together now. If you are a jobbing marketer and you don’t have access to this, ask why. Your success and future career opportunities depend on it.
Which platforms – Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, G+, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope??
Nobody likes talking about themselves, but here are a few things that point to why I have the mic tonight. The key thing is that I’ve staked my livelihood and feeding thee young boys on my ability to implement online marketing and helping others to do it – whether they are SME, enterprise, hyper-local or international – do it better too. I you want to talk afterwards, or tomorrow morning, let me know after the presentation.
Some final housekeeping before we get to the the main event.
CIM regional teams don’t, as a rule, distribute speaker slides – so you need to do one of these things:
Head to my Slideshare tomorrow www.slideshare.net/renepower and download the slides from there.
Follow and tweet me @renepower
Connect on Linkedin – there are 6 of us unbelievably – so pick the one that looks most like me!
Email me at rene@visionb2b.co.uk
Give me a business card
ALL of the above
Actually, the business cards are really important as they access three giveaways:
These slides as PDF with slide notes!
PLUS - A free blogging for business guide
And ten lucky people will get the full 250pp Brilliant B2B Digital Marketing pdf ebook
Plus the occasional email from me – you know how it works. But a ton of value up front first!
Now a confession, I’m a content and comms guy. I’m all about taking the best of brand, PR and digital technologies and fusing them to tell the best story about your expertise that you can. Now we’re not here to talk about content. But being set up for social media, I think means having a few things in place.
We’re not going to talk about these today but if anyone is interested, I run a #MarketingPlanInADay session that can help tease all this out if you are starting from a different place. We’re assuming tonight that we know who we are, what we’re good at, who our customers might be and how to talk to them.
The fact we are still searching for advice and best practice on how to use these channels for business isn’t a great surprise to me.
They weren’t built for commercial use, really.
(Facebook was built for shy geeks to get girls to like them; Pinterest for foodies and fashionistas; Linkedin for business networking; Snapchat for teens to send naked selfies to each other.)
The point is most companies suck at social media because it wasn’t really designed for them.
That said, companies often do a few things that aggravate the situation…
Another confession. I’ve spent most of my professional life (20 years) working in complex, long gestation, multiple buyer/influencer B2B markets. Most are sectors still governed by trade shows, conferences, trade magazines and advertisement led marketing. Digital has been slowly adopted but the risk is that most companies in industrial B2B use this an excuse not to innovate. These are the same people happily enjoying cutting edge consumer digital experiences. Dangerous.
There is, I think, also a feeling all to prevalent in many sectors & companies that markets aren’t adapting to digital and that the disruptions seen elsewhere ‘won’t happen here’. It’s happening everywhere. And someone right now is looking at your sector and providing customers with a better digitally fuelled, internet based experience.
This leads to the third assumption that customers aren’t confident with digital tools and technologies. How could an app, interactive responsive website or kick ass customer centric social media platform aid your business?
The assumptions are only one part of it. The biggest crimes on social media are the companies that broadcast only. To serve the best content, engage and create evangelical customers of your brand, you need to understand them by listening and asking lots of questions.
Linked to this is a lack of true interaction. The best social media is two-way, dialogue not monologue and genuine in its attempt to create mutually rewarding relationships.
You have to build trust before transaction.
Being aligned with your audience is by far the most important thing you can do to impact return on investment.
Identify and prioritise target audiences. As with traditional marketing, targeting the right audiences is key. Digital media enable you to target broad groups, but also micro-target. LinkedIn, the preferred business online networking tool of over 200 million around the world, is a fantastic resource for customer and influencer research. Get a sense of the issues your audiences have, as suggested by their individual and company profiles. Also review the questions and discussions placed in LinkedIn Groups. This can help you both in developing content to engage them, but also shows you questions you must answer to convert them. Use Twitter lists to segment different clusters of target audience. Use Pinterest boards to focus on different interests or sdifferent Instagram or Facebook pages to target segmented groups.
In most of the sectors and companies I’ve worked and consulted there are lots of people to convince. All require delicate handling in order to provide what they need.
Consider what it’s going to take to get over the line and bring each of the key people on the opposite side of the table with you. Each will be motivated by differing drivers – some a problem to solve, others more an aspiration.
There may be a requirement to make an argument about switching an existing supplier out – and in all cases, the need to make a compelling benefit appeal.
Sports professionals are encouraged by sports psychologists to see themselves taking the world cup winning penalty or the grand slam winning serve.
So too in planning for business success, we can visualise what success looks like and where we’re going to be at the end of the campaign or end of year.
Applying this to social media activity is important as it can help determine what things we then need to do to set about achieving it.
This is a key slide on setting conversion metrics.
These are my key ones.
Make online purchase
Fill out contact form
Use online quote feature
Click on dealer website
Sign up for newsletter
Download PDF
Spend time on an important page
Engage on social media – follow specific accounts
Watch video
Use Live Talk / chat functionality
I’m currently setting up a number of pages and products, with bespoke landing pages to test my market.
Setting up of goals covering destination, duration and no of pages per session are easy. Goals for events require tracking code adding to your site.
Here’s an example of setting up a goal for a specific landing page together with referral funnel. When you set this up, it gives you % conversion based on the last 7 days activity so you can tighten up your goal setting. We’ll talk about applying a monetary value shortly.
Tracking conversion is the main part of this session so I want to share with 5 things you should be looking to track.
Manage your social media accounts from one dashboard. This allows total access, scheduling, cross posting, access to enhanced analytics and more. I use Hootsuite Pro but others are available.
Here are a couple of the analytics screens from Hootsuite Pro. This one shows four Twitter accounts I manage and a top line view of the key data. The more you push out and engage, the more your numbers grow. But it does take work. I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 and grown my following entirely organically.
The second grab tells me about my following and what content resonates – useful data that can be cross compared with website analytics.
Does everybody understand the funnel approach? Will it at the top with warm leads, that becomes sales as they are worked through. Social platforms can stand alone but work best when integrated and pushing and pulling from your website.
The best engagement and spikes in traffic come from super helpful or provocative content – with images, links and hashtags.
It’s really easy in Google Analytics standard view to track incoming website traffic by referrer – social media, search, email etc.
Use this data to continually invest in the right content and promotional tactics.
Digging deeper within the social media tab, track traffic from specific social channels and flow this through into your CRM.
Finally, track specific landing pages, blog posts and where traffic is coming from.
Consider using page boosting on social channels for high quality content, guides, downloads.
Fisher Tank makes giant, above-ground welded steel tanks for clients in the energy, waste water, pulp & paper industries.
They are large multi-million dollar with a long lead time. For more than 60 years, the company has made its sales primarily through cold calling and referrals from existing clients. So it took some balls to launch a content marketing strategy online. The company cleaned up the website, added a blog with social sharing, and offered some valuable content by free download.
The campaign increased web traffic by 119%, traffic from social media by 4800%, lead conversions by 3900%, quote requests by 500% and new qualified sales opportunities by $3.4 million.
The last few sections are where the numbers and the science of ROI become important. Thinking retail, this is about having a good understanding of your cost of goods, labour costs, margin and sales targets.
For most b2b’s not engaging in true ecommerce, this might seem a step too far, but setting up from the outset with the numbers crunched, your marketing planning will be taken more seriously in your organisation.
Basing value on historical data
Work out the average annual spend of a customer and plot predicted LTV (life time value).
If you can do this it makes a conversion value easier to calculate
If your average LTV is £200 and you know 1 in 20 who view a video become a customer, then the value of a visitor is £10 (£200 / 20).
Guestimating
Use common sense and experience in the absence of real data.
With so many social media channels available and more coming into public consciousness every month, it is critical to use Google Analytics and native tracking to establish the referral return from each platform. And by layering up our data and making monetary measurements, we’re keeping a keen eye on which platforms are generating the most return.
Tracking channel conversion by units and revenue gives us income figures for each channel.
Using UTM tracking code and dedicated landing pages for each channel are two ways to achieve this.
As with all marketing, we have to understand our costs in order to calculate meaningful ROI.
Add up all promotional account fees, labour costs and any sundries and allocate to each social media channel.
To wrap up the financial aspects, we’re going to look at the ROI of our example of paid downloads and how we calculate the ROI.
The sum is revenue – costs / costs x 100
In our example, it becomes clear that only Facebook seems to be profitable. Some channels are proving to be very labour or cost expensive and are not providing a satisfactory return. We’d have to sense check what is happening on each platform to see why some are underperforming so significantly.
I thought I’d throw this as we being to wrap up.
When it comes to measurement, the boffins say steer clear of vanity measures like fans, likes, follows as these are meaningless when it comes to real ROI.
I think there is some truth in this and there is much to be said about a niche but highly active following being more valuable. However, people are swayed by large numbers. For b2b, match vanity metrics with those that help display some tangible return – signups, downloads, inquiries, appointments and chart them through your funnel.
These are much more likely to lead to step change improvement in what you’re doing as you make yourself even more relevant to your customers.
Looking a little broader, Danish shipping company Maersk first began using social back in 2011 to raise brand awareness, gain insight into the market, increase employee satisfaction and get closer to its customers.
Now the company focuses on the stories that emerge from within the business, such as how it is helping fuel a boom in the sale of Kenyan avocados and where its staff come from. Its presence on each network is tailored to that platform, so for example on LinkedIn it promotes job vacancies and publishes articles about the work culture within the business, while on Instagram it encourages followers to post photos of its ships using the hashtag #Maersk.
Maersk now has more than 1.5m Facebook fans (of which around 15% are customers) and 12,000 Twitter followers, as well as active accounts on Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube and Google+.