As a precursor to my blog entry for this week that is about return on investment (ROI) for social media, I am going to start with a story about my radio sales days. I found the readings this week very interesting, because I spent 4 years of my life selling air to clients and teaching them about their ROI in advertising. Similar to social media campaigns, radio campaigns are a challenge to determine the ROI. A client wants to sell 100 hot tubs in a weekend. They sell 110 hot tubs (but will only tell the sales rep that they sold 80, because the sales person cannot always be right) but is it the radio campaign alone that sold the 110 hot tubs? This was the #1 challenge in my sales role. Perhaps it was the radio alone because the ads were placed at strategic times, the copy for the ad was creative and customers were dying for a reason to buy a hot tub. Then there were the radio campaigns that didn’t sell any hot tubs. How does a sales person over come this challenging client visit on Monday morning when 100 people came through the show room door, but not one hot tub was sold?
When we look at a social media campaign or a radio campaign for instance, the million dollar question is what was the ROI? No business owner has an unlimited budget for facebook advertising and simply doesn’t care how much money is coming in from the campaign. I told my radio story to relate to other industries. Both have their challenges, but there are many similarities. For the campaign that did not sell any hot tubs, one thing was accomplished and that is ATTENTION was brought to the business. I would use the word “Awareness” interchangeably with “Attention”. Those people who walked into the showroom may not be purchasing a hot tub today, but heard the ads and wanted to check out the store. When we relate this to a social media campaign, the customer could be looking on facebook on a Saturday morning while enjoying their coffee and see an ad for a hot tub company and click through the ad. That company may view this as a success. That is one more customer that now knows the company name and attention was brought to their company. Attention is the start of the buying cycle, which will lead to a tangible number in the ROI.
Those customers that walked into the showroom and didn’t purchase; why didn’t they? Was the price too high? Were the sales people ignoring them? Was it too busy and they were not being services? These are the questions that the owner of the company must analyze. This is ATTITUDE and how others view your company or products. When we look at this through social media, the potential customer clicks through to your website, looks around, then hits google to compare with other companies. This customer is interested, but wants to learn more. They go to facebook and post out to their friends “Thinking of buying a hot tub, suggestions?….GO!”. Friends start posting and your hot tub company is there, but then someone posts that they have terrible customer service. The potential customer still marks your company down on their short list of where they are going to check out for the potential future hot tub purchase. Your facebook ad has moved this customer through the sales process and you are still on the list, that’s good news!
Now, let’s get to the sale. This is known as ACTION. You have created attention through your campaign, you have worked to maintain a positive image or attitude of your company and now you have a potential customer walking into your business that wants to purchase. They heard that the customer service may be lacking, but that’s just one opinion from a friend. Worth checking out on their own. The price is right and the service is exceptional and this customer is walking out with a hot tub delivery. Success!
Without sales, you cannot measure the ROI from a campaign, whether it is social media or a traditional media campaign. The sales cycle isn’t just about the meat and potatoes of the campaign, it is about having the proper image in the market, the staff in the building or the person answering the telephone and the product to back all of this up. ROI is what will get you the go ahead from your boss to create another campaign or move more money into the social media budget.
Communications in the Social Media World 