BarnRaisers

Many companies want consumers to “Like” them on Facebook but are surprised to learn the #1 reason people would be motivated to “Like” them in the first place is to receive discounts and promotions.

Of all the words to convey a discount or promotion, the word this Black Friday and Cyber Monday that generated the most engagement was “coupons.” (source: Buddy Media and Marketing Profs)

Promotions, discounts and coupons are tried-and-true ways to encourage trial and boost sales volume.When they are delivered in social media, they benefit from sharing and the efficiency of available apps, like Wildfire, that cost a small fraction of traditional methods. In our experience, social media promotions are some of the most effective, affordable and profitable ways to build business and brand advocacy simultaneously.

You don’t have to go to social promotion sites like Groupon or Living Social either. Although effective in some cases, their promotions require you discount your brand by 50%; then, they keep 50% of the remaining half leaving you with 25% of the original price.

Imagination and resourcefulness are more effective and much more profitable. Need proof? Here are 10 case studies that prove Social Media Promotions ROI.

1. DELL: Started @DellOutlet, a Twitter page where they offered products and customer service through Twitter. Then, they integrated coupons. The Twitter page, which was free to set up, generated over $3 million dollar in sales to date and, with the integrations of coupons, accelerated to $1 million dollars within 6 months.

2.  EDIBLE ARRANGEMENTS. Through their Facebook page, Edible Arrangements offered consumers a voucher for free chocolate dipped strawberries. But to redeem the coupon, fans had to visit an Edible Arrangements store providing Edible Arrangements franchisees the opportunity to promote their store to a slew of new customers. This campaign  generated 170,000 new fans and a double-digit increase in sales versus year ago.

3. HAUTELOOK:  Ran an “instand win” coupon campaign at different values. After becoming a fan of the Hautelook Facebook Fan Page, entrants were presented with a coupon but the value of each coupon was a surprise and ranged from 10% to 20%, and some had free shipping. Not only did Hautelook generate thousands of new fans they also generated tens of thousands of sales in just one day and a return on investment of more than 5x and over 20% of purchasers were first time Hautelook customers.

4. JAMBA JUICE: Gave their customers a choice with “Feel Good Bucks” and a unique coupon code generation functionality. They gave out ‘lucky’ coupons via our Facebook Connect Product and Facebook Fan Page Product that could be redeemed at Jamba Juice stores. When consumers redeemed the coupons they either received $1 off their purchase or the opportunity to win instant or cash prizes of $10,000! Plus, users could send Jamba Bucks to their friends in the form of fun, Jamba-branded virtual gifts like smoothies, bucks, and cartoons. The coupon campaign drove tens of thousands to Jamba Juice stores.

5. KRAFT MACARONI & CHEESE:  Used Twitter to encourage people, in their “Mac and Jinx” campaign, to tweet something with the phrase “mac & cheese” in it at the same time. Once those pairs were identified, Kraft sent both a link. The first one to click on the link and give Kraft her address got five free boxes of Mac & Cheese plus a t-shirt. The campaign took advantage of the real-time nature of Twitter boosting the brand’s Twitter followers by 400% and at one point gaining over 300 mentions of “Mac & Cheese” per minute on Twitter.

6. PRETZEL CRISPS: Launched a$1.00 coupon on their Facebook page. Within 36,000 hours, their fan base grew from 5,000 to 12,000. So, they launched another only coupons – Buy One, Get One Free. Only this time they didn’t tell their fans. No matter, Fans found out on their own and the “letting you in on a secret” factor had a viral effect that built the fans following from 14,000 and 29,000 and now it’s at over 62,000. But fans just tell one side of the story.  The redemption rate for the fist coupon was 87%; the redemption rate for the second was 95% and annual sales increase was 93%.

7. SARA LEE: Ran a month-long campaign to promote Jimmy Dean D-Lights sandwiches. Users were offered a $1 coupon on any one package of Jimmy Dean D-Lights 4 count sandwiches, or, if they chose to share the offer with three or more friends, they could receive a $2.50 coupon. There was also a bonus coupon for $0.50 off on Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls. The campaign saw over 65,000 visitors in 30 days, and the 64% was through clicks from friend referrals.  The audience reach was primary in the South-Eastern states and referrals were made to people geographically close to each other. The campaign delivers sales volumes and geo-targeting not possible with traditional coupon methods at a small fraction of their cost.

7. STEAZ: Used social media coupons, blogs and Twitter chats to generate a buzz among moms about their organic teas. The result was 250,000 coupon download at a 20% redemption rate. 6,000 blog and social media mentions. 3,000 new fans and followers. Store shelves that were emptied and sales that doubled from the effort.

8. TORTILLALAND: Fresh, uncookded tortillas from Circle Foods are different from pre-cooked tortillas that contain preservatives. Once consumers try TortillaLand, they swear by their superior fresh taste and say they’ll never go back to buying the pre-cooked kind again. But the brand has low awareness. TortillaLand created a social sweepstakes where the prize was 3 iPads (1 for you/2 for friends).   The objective was to boost the Facebook Fan base of 900 and create a database from entrant to receive additional offers and news of store availability. The sweepstakes boosted the Facebook base 7X in two month. It created 10,000 person database who now receive regular emails and show a 50% open rate . The database also serves as brand community for market research and new product ideas with a significant ROI versus traditional methods like focus groups.

10. ZAPPOS: Ran a unique sweepstakes with a chance to win a $500 voucher for use at Zappos, but only after entrants visited the online store and put together a list of the items that they would purchase with the winning money. This encouraged 1000′s to visit the Zappos site with list of their favorite items on Zappos which increased purchases (although Zappos did not release the exact sales increase).

We’re big believers in the business effectiveness of social media promotions. We did the TortillaLand program for Circle Foods and see it for ourselves.

Do these case studies prove the ROI of social media promotions to you?

Peter Drucker said: “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.”  This succinctly stated truth is the essential requirement for every brand.

Although Peter left us in 2005, I think he would agree the spark that keeps the customer relationship going is relevant content. It’s a fundamental way to create trust by proving you understand what your audience values.

For some more revealing percentages, here are 42 reasons every brand needs a content marketing strategy in 2012.

1. 93% of CMO’s plan to use some form of user generated content in their marketing effort this year
2. 92% of shoppers have more confidence in information sought online versus a salesperson or some other source
3. 90% of all purchase decisions begin on the internet
4. 90% of CMO’s participate in an average of 3 or more social media activities
5. 84% of brand managers says they use online videos on their brand websites for marketing product and services
6. 81% of CMO’s say they plan to track social media activities to revenues in order to determine ROI. However, only 40% actually do.
7. 80% of traffic to a web site begins with search query
8. 78% of marketers believe content is key to the success of their organization but only 49 have a content strategy in place
9. 78% of B2B marketers say generating high quality leads is their top priority
10. 77% of search users choose organic over paid search listings
11. 74% of consumers rely on social networks to help them make a purchase decision
12. 73% of companies now use social media for marketing
13. 66% of companies report using online video for brand awareness; 21% for lead generation and 12% for ecommerce/sales
14. 66% of marketers says their greatest concern is lead generation; only 17% say it’s brand awareness
15. 65% of consumers report a digital brand experience changed their opinion about a product or service
16. 62% click a link on the first page of search engine results
17. 61% of marketers say they implement a social media strategy for lead generation
18. 60% of retailers use customer reviews as a form of content marketing
19. 60% of brand managers says they are going to increase spending for online videos in the next 12 months
20. 55% of the time people spend on the internet is directly related to content consumption
21. 55% of companies use case studies as part of their content marketing strategy
22. 51% use a blog for content marketing
23. 51% of marketers say they are going to increase content marketing spending within the next 12 months
24. 49% of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation from a social network
25. 44% of all content shared on internet comes from Facebook
26. 43% of companies says they are writing “white papers” and sharing them online as part of their content marketing
27. 43%of companies report higher click-through on RSS feeds with reviews than without
28. 42% of consumers say, when shopping online, they prefer to look for an answer online
29. 40% or Republican and 38% of Democrats use social network sites to become more polictically involved
30. Only 38% of consumers say they watch an online video in its entirety
31. 32% of consumers now browse or research products at least once a month on mobile devices
32. 26% higher conversion results for products when they have product reviews
33. 26% of total marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing by B2B marketers
34. 25% of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
35. Only 21% of branded mobile apps now contain videos. However, 70 of brand manager says they are going to add videos to their mobile apps within the next 12 months
36. 14% of B2B marketers say they send e-mails on an opt-out basis; down from 23% a year ago
37. Only 2.6% of all brands views occur through off-site embeds of branded videos
38. 300 other companies compete with Facebook for content sharing
39. 30 minutes is the average that people watch online videos every day
40. E-mail providers, such as Yahoo, AOL and Gmail, all use the number of time a consumers hits the “report spam” button as their #1 criteria for sending future e-mails to that consumer
41. Companies with over 1000 employees use an average of 9 content marketing tactics
42. Companies with under 10 employees use an average of 6 content marketing tactics

Laurence Peter, the educator who developed the Peter Principle said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” The numbers clearly state content marketing is on the rise but, before you jump in, have a content marketing strategy.

NOTE: The facts and statistics in this post all feature studies conducted within the last year. The sources include: Nielsen, eMarketer, comScore, Edelman Digital, BazaarVoice, MediaPost, Webbiquity among others with appreciation.

The number, 42, was deliberately chosen to acknowledge the great work Junta42 and Joe Pulizzi do in content marketing.

In the compilation of the stats, the best infographic I came across on content marketing comes from Marketo and was passed along by Wendy Emerson at business2community.com because a picture is worth 1000 words. It is below.

Will your brand have a content marketing strategy to create and keep customers in 2012?

In 1899, the first edition of Who’s Who in America was published.  Its’ purpose: To profile leaders influencing the nation’s development. For a long time, we’ve accepted third-party authorities to tell us who influences and who matters.

When Klout was launched in 2009, it quickly became the authority for Who’s Who in social media. It used data from Twitter and Facebook, then LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube, to measure a person’s influence across their social network. Authority is better if it’s earned rather than assumed. Does Klout deserve to be the authority?

Here are 6 foundational faults with Klout.

1. A ROLE NOT CLEARLY DEFINED: Klout assumed, not earned, the position of “Standard of Influence” (in social media). They said they “measure influence based on your ability to drive action.” What action? Unlike Who’s Who that says it looked for actions that prove influence on our nation’s development, the action Klout drives is not clear, nor does it result in real positive change.

2. SELLING OUT: A benefit to Klout is you can get Klout Perks. They get “distributed to select influencers based on their topics of authority, location and score.”  Isn’t that discriminatory and doesn’t it encourage people to sell out?

3. NO CASE STUDIES: On this blog, we promote the business value of social media to brands. You can find close to 100 case studies that prove social media ROI (see related posts at the bottom) based on hard sales measurements across every business sector (e.g. B2C, B2B, profit, non-profit) and social network (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs). After two years, we can’t find one substantial case study from Klout. Hmm.

4. GAMING AND MANIPULATING, NOT INFLUENCING: But, with very little searching, we can find plenty of anecdotal stories from people who have gamed the system like this one from a researcher who set out one week to drive up her Klout score and, with very little effort, did.

5. UNEXPLAINED GLITCHES: In late October, Klout launched a new algorithm. To many of us, it not clear why except it caused a dramatic and unexpected decrease in the Klout scores to most users. At about the same time, Google announced it reworked its algorithm to give greater importance to recency of content because so many people now look to social networks for the most recent news. We all got it and it made perfect sense. Can anyone explain the new or old, for that matter, Klout algorithm?

6. SOCIAL MEDIA SHOULDN’T BE ABOUT KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES: Do we need a status symbol for participating in social media? Shouldn’t we just do it because we enjoy it.

This week, the Pew Study came out with findings about how we use social media:

• 67 percent said the major reason they use social networks is to stay in touch with current friends
• 64 percent to stay in touch with family members and 50 percent to connect with old friends they had lost touch with.

Pew didn’t mention the percentage that was checking their Klout scores. What does this say to you?

Related Posts

34 case studies that prove Social Media ROI

67 case studies that prove Social Media ROI

16 case studies that prove Social CRM

12 case studies that prove Social Commerce ROI

Social commerce is the merger of social media and ecommerce.

It aligns human behaviors with buying behaviors because:

• 90% of all purchase decisions begin online
• 75% of consumers shop online before they buy offline
• 85% are looking for an independent review
• 78% of people trust the recommendations of other people
• They have an average of 130 friends on social networks
• 14% of people trust advertising
  Only 18% of TV advertising campaign ever achieve a positive return on investment

1. INTEREST IN SOCIAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO DOUBLE EACH YEAR: The number of people who search “social media,” either those exact words or those words in a phrase, continues to climb.

2.ALMOST 1/2 OF EACH HOUR WE NOW SPEND ON THE INTERNET IS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS. Doesn’t it make sense we’d rather buy there than log-off and then log back on?

3. WHEN WE BUY AT RETAIL, 30%+OF US BUY FROM RETAILERS’ SOCIAL NETWORKS; 50%+ POST COMMENTS AND THE SIGNIFICANT MAJORITY OF US CLICK THROUGH TO THEIR WEBSITES.  Wouldn’t you want your business to benefit from these incremental sales?

4. #1 REASON PEOPLE “LIKE” A BRAND ON FACEBOOK IS TO RECEIVE DISCOUNT AND PROMOTIONS. #2 is to show their support for the brand. Just like any relationship, this say if you show me some love, I’ll “like” you back.

5. OVER 40% OF THE TIME WE’RE ON TWITTER, WE”RE LEARNING ABOUT PRODUCTS AND SHARING OPINIONS ABOUT THEM; 20% OF THE TIME, WE’RE ACTUALLY BUYING THEM. We’re doing as much researching and purchasing as we are Tweeting.

6. 41% OF PEOPLE WHO USE LINKEDIN SAY THEY’VE GENERATED BUSINESS FROM IT. That’s in addition to those who use it to look for jobs and for recruitment.

7. SOCIAL COMMERCE IS PREDICTED TO GROW ABOUT 50% A YEAR FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT THREE YEAR. Sales will total $30 billion ($14 billion in the U.S.) – Source: Booz & Company

8. BY ABOUT THAT TIME, MORE PEOPLE WILL ACCESS THE INTERNET FROM MOBILE DEVICES THAN DESKTOPS. There are many reasons to expect mobile will increase the time we spent on social networks and make shopping easier and more fun.

9. SOCIAL MEDIA IS THE FASTEST GROWING CATEGORY ON MOBILE. At this rate in a few years, it’s also likely to be the biggest.

10. 60% OF US USE MOBILE TO SEARCH AND FIND DEALS AND RECEIVE THE BEST PRICE. Many also thought mobile made shopping easier and fun.

11. MOBILE MAKES SHOPPING MORE FUN BUT MOBILE ADS DON’T. Does that mean there will be less for advertising and more for social commerce?

12. THE HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW SAYS SOCIAL MEDIA HAS CHANGED THE WAY WE BUY. For decades, we would methodically “consider” and “evaluate” a purchase and then “buy.” Now, after we buy, we want to tell, “advocate” and “bond” with others who bought the same thing.  We “enjoy” doing it. And it’s because social media and social commerce give us the channel to connect this human behavior with our buying behavior.

Do you think your boss will take an interest Social Commerce from these charts?

One of the steadiest trends in social media is the company adoption rate for blogs. By 2012, 44% of companies (or roughly 1 out of 2) will have blogs.

Here are 23 reasons it should be in your business plan.

WEB TRAFFIC AND SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:

• MORE WEB TRAFFIC:  55% of companies report more traffic to their website due to their blog (source: Hubspot)
• HIGHER SEARCH RANK:  97% receive more links from other websites which is a primary factor for raising search rank. Google algorithms are more likely to recognize your company as an “Authority” and this is their primary criteria for determining search rank (source: Hubspot)
• QUALITY LINKS:  Links from blogs are recognized as “quality” links by search engines and an integral part of any search programs by SEO experts (Source: SEOmoz)
• COST EFFECTIVENESS:  In addition to high quality, links from blogs are cost efficient because they occur with just a comment on a blog and a reply back
• KEYWORD IDENTIFICATION:  Keywords, especially in the headlines and first paragraphs of blogposts, send a signal to the search engine that content is continually being updated and the website is dynamic
• GREATER SEARCH PRESENCE:  Companies with blogs report 434% more indexed pages in search engines (source: Hubspot)

• LISTEN TO CUSTOMERS: 75% of customers post comments on blog regarding product and customer services; 88% use blogs for research and browsing and 91% click through to a company’s website (source: Shop.org)

• BUILD A DIRECT RELATIONSHIP: All it takes is a comment and a reply to take the next step and have a 1-to-1 relationship. People like to do business with people they know
• SELL DIRECT: With an SSL certificate and a PayPal account, you can sell product and service directly from a blog

• CUSTOMERS READ BLOGS: 75% read at least one a day (source: Sherpa)
• BLOGS INFLUENCE PURCHASE DECISION: 75% say blogs effect purchase decisions, either somewhat or very much (source: Sherpa)