Gap Between Chatter and Real Investments Starting to Shrink
Undoub
tedly, all the constant kibitzing online includes plenty of conversation about brands, products and services. Nearly 50% of social media users have recommended or talked about a product or brand on Facebook, and 44% have done so on Twitter, according to a report that ran on Mediaweek.com in November. Similarly, 30% said they learned about a new service, product or brand from a social networking site, and of those, 25% went directly to an online retailer or e-commerce site after learning about the new item.
But there is a gap between the level of social media activity among consumers and the amount of money corporate America is devoting to social networking. A study released in November by The CMO Club (http://www.thecmoclub.com), found that 84% of CMOs allocate less than 10% of their budgets to social media and other non-traditional communications channels, and 55% allocate 5% or less. There are legitimate reasons why many companies – particularly those that operate under a great deal of regulatory scrutiny—are skittish about social media. But due to current adoption rates and rapid changes in consumer behavior, most marketers ignore social media at their own peril.
There are several steps sales and marketing pros can take to integrate social media into their direct marketing efforts. For starters, marketers need to understand the basic fundamentals of social media and how social media differs from traditional media. As part of this educational process, they need to understand the difference in platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter et al.) and what content is best for each platform. Next, marketers need to gain an understanding of how all the social media platforms weave together to benefit the marketer. It’s not an easy undertaking; there are a lot of concepts to absorb that are unique to the non-digital marketer. Marketers can harness social networking for direct mail advertising by using direct mail to point consumers to their fan page on Twitter, LinkedIn account and YouTube channel. However, when providing these additional channels, marketers run the risk of distracting the consumer from the primary mission of the mail.
So the question comes back to what the mission of direct mail advertising is. If it is to create a direct sale by driving responders to the telephone and/or the Internet, big marketers need to proceed with caution when using social media for large promotions. Marketers must also remember that combining direct mail with social media requires a different kind of ROI. Unlike with traditional direct messaging, the marketer needs to measure the amount of engagement with the media itself, instead of gross response. Working on the company’s Facebook fan page and inquires referring people to it can be more valuable to the marketer than inquiries.
For a crash course on social media, check out “Social Marketing – An Hour a Day” by Dave Evans.
Tags: Digital Marketing, Direct Marketing Agency, Social Marketing, Social Media
Categories: Digital Marketing
