Marketing with Search and Social Media & the Customer Lifecycle

How to optimize both the attitudes of the vocal minority and the behaviors of the silent majority

The race to integrate paid (TV, Search, Display), earned (Social, UGC and SEO) and owned media (your website and distributed content) and the measurement around them to do true attribution modeling is heating up. Making this more complicated is the fragmentation and lack of structure around how Social is even defined.  Is “Social” simply the main social networking portals, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn?  Does it include UGC videos, reviews, blogs, and bookmarkings, like YouTube, BazaarVoice, Technorati, Digg and others?   And, most importantly, where does it fit in the value equation for marketers at companies who have something to SELL?

That’s the most interesting issue – we all know earned media is important, but (i) now how much, (ii) how does it correlate with search, and (iii) how can it all be measured together?

Here are some interesting stats I was able to cobble together, using a variety of reports surrounding the 2009 holiday shopping season:

• 60%+ of shoppers use search engines (eMarketer/RetailMeNot fall survey)
• 30% say social media influences their decisions (Comscore Q4 State of Retail Report)
• 13-50% say online ratings and reviews are important (eMarketer/Deloitte and Comscore Q4 SoR)
• <10% suggest Facebook, Twitter or online videos influenced their shopping (Comscore, Shop.org eHoliday Study)

Now, we all know these studies are primarily focused around the purchase part of the buying process, and possibly the consideration stage, but these numbers are definitely directional.

Given these findings, I am suggesting and we are starting to research the following ideas:

• Search is great for behavioral measurement, whereas Social Media is more useful for attitudinal shifts
• Search marketing represents the silent majority, while Social tends to reflect the vocal minority
• Search is primarily useful for acquisition marketing, whereas Social Media is primarily for post-purchase support, retention and up-sell and Net Promoter/referrals

CONSUMER BEHAVIORS AND ATTITUDES IN MARKETING ARE DIFFERENT, BUT BOTH ARE IMPORTANT

Clients and consumers often don’t do what they say they will do.  In fact, surveys often show what people “say they would buy” are different than sales receipts of what they “do buy”.  This is important to note as it exemplifies the difference of Search versus Social Media.  In Social Media, we get people talking about what they think and feel about a particular product or service (their attitude). Whereas, in Search people are “searching” and “clicking”; they are looking, comparing and often buying (their behavior).  This is not to say that one is better or more valid than the other. It’s just important to note the difference when considering how to use and measure each media type – separately or in coordination.

EXTREME MARKETING:  THE SILENT MAJORITY VERSUS THE VOCAL MINORITY

My stats above show that between 15-50% of consumers are influenced by Social Media, but I could not find any stats on what percent of consumers actually take the time to comment positively or negatively on products.  Based on other research I have read in Service Management, the general stats are that 5-10% of your customers tend to be vocal promoters, whereas 15-20% tend to be vocal detractors.  All kinds of consumer satisfaction studies show that consumers get vocal at the extremes- when they REALLY love your product or REALLY hate it.  And the average company’s vocal detractors tend to be 2-3X more than the promoters.  Not that there are MORE detractors than promoters, just that detractors tend to be more vocal than promoters.  This is the origin of the Net Promoter score, which many large companies use to measure consumer sentiment.

The point here is that only 20-30% of your customers may ever comment about you online.  Two to three times as many will actually search and shop online, and although many will be influenced by the vocal minority, one would be misled to believe that the attitude of the vocal minority is representative of the future behavior of the silent majority.  It’s an important signal to watch and influence, but it is not the absolute predictor.

THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL FUNNEL:  HOW TO USE BOTH TOGETHER

We are finding companies getting more interested in using Search and Social Media together, and questioning (i) how much to use of each, (ii) where to use each in the customer lifecycle, and (iii) how to measure the results.  A recent Comscore study suggests, however, that still over 60% of marketers are simply using numbers of blogs, tweets and posts as a metric for social media volume and simple “website traffic” from Social Media as the ROI number.

This may be a starting point, but we all agree it’s not sufficient and certainly won’t get the attention and budgets or resources from the CMO or CEO that digital marketers are looking for and requesting during budgeting season..

Thus, based on our research findings and in work with our clients, Covario has developed an initial full customer lifecycle of how to apply and measure Search and Social Media together:

In this diagram, we apply a very popular acquisition funnel at the top (Awareness, Interest, Consideration and Purchase), and a less well-known, but still well understood, post-acquisition retention framework at the bottom (basic retention with service and support, cross-selling and upselling the client, and then getting actual referrals or Net Promoters).

One can easily see which tactics of SEM, SEO and Social apply to each stage of acquisition and retention, and Covario has launched and is in further development of the methods, the metrics and the software modules to put it all together and make it work better at the cross media optimization (CMO) level.

In a later blog, we’ll start talking about the specific metrics one should capture at each stage of the game and how to turn them into a holistic lifetime value number and customer lifecycle marketing plan, but in the meantime, we welcome your comments and input!

Actionable Insight #1: When you run a major marketing campaign or event online or offline, look for the impact of that marketing action on your Search and Social Media metrics.  By measuring what works, you can tune subsequent campaigns to maximize your overall impact.

Actionable Insight #2: Always compare your Social Media metrics against your competitors’ – Social Media is the one place where you can get the data that allows a true apples-to-apples comparison and benchmark.

Actionable Insight #3: Create separate metrics for measuring success throughout the customer lifecycle, from awareness through purchase, retention, cross sell, and recommendation.

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