- Category: Marketing
- Published on Sunday, 14 October 2012 18:47
- Written by Marjorie Teresa R. Perez / AdMix / marjorieperez711@gmail.com
This columnist
was asked, “Can online efforts contribute to offline sales?” My answer
would be yes because that’s been proven time and again. Just look at the
data around digital advertising, affiliate marketing programs, and
web-site conversations.
However, it’s usually difficult to directly
attribute the increase to the contribution of social media. This is
partly because the best social-media campaigns are deeply integrated
with in-store messaging and partly because there are few ways to
explicitly measure the effect because the final action—in-store
sales—is, by definition, occurring in an offline channel.
One
of the many things social media, in particular, has done is give people
an opportunity to participate in conversations around a specific
product, service and so on. The organizations that are smart, that are
winning, are aggregating those conversations in places where they are
easily accessible through a search. That creates a natural flow that
brings people to a level of awareness of these products or services and
that leads to purchase, either offline or online.
There
are a number of cases we can point to where social media was a direct
driver for purchases from stores or businesses that are traditionally
considered offline, and which data is powerfully in favor of a strong
effect on the bottom line.
The
positive trends around engaging in social media for business are
overwhelming. Companies from coffee shops to automobile dealers to
computer shops have demonstrated success and deepened relationships
through their expansive social-media efforts.
Best
practices for using online efforts to get offline sales include the
following: Proactive customer service based on monitoring to build
relationships with customers and prospects; Online drivers to offline
events, sometimes held in-store; and brand ambassador programs, which
leverage and empower enthusiasts to “spread the word” to their personal
networks and influence others to purchase goods.
I
spoke before a digital marketing class about the day we are going to
have to decide how much privacy we expect to have. It probably is not
too far away that one day we will walk into a store and clothing will be
automatically recommended for us, or we will approach the counter of a
coffee shop and they will already know what we want to order.
Look
at what Foursquare is doing already. When I check in somewhere,
Foursquare will tell me if there’s a special event happening down the
block.
This
is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the increasing importance of
going digital into the formerly offline purchasing arena. When you go
to a makeup counter, for example, you might see YouTube testimonials
from people who used a specific makeup product. Or you might even see a
Twitter screen with tweets from people who were satisfied with tax
preparation when you go to the office of a government agency to do what
is expected of you as an upright citizen.
Just
look at the work Google has done to capture consumers at the most
important moment in purchase, what is called the “zero moment of
truth”—the moment when consumers are deciding what to buy, even before
encountering a particular product.
The
possibilities such technologies open for brands to understand and
influence customer purchase behavior really are staggering. And I just
don’t mean consumer purchase behavior in general. Brands will be able to
personalize the digital experience around a purchase based on who and
where individual customers are.
As
far as company size goes, I think the essential challenges are always
the same, I do see size giving companies different advantages. A rowboat
turns faster than a cruise ship, as they say, and I think smaller
companies can apply the insight they gain from listening to
conversations much more easily than large ones.
On
the other hand, larger companies have more resources, which means they
can listen to more of the conversation, and use more sophisticated
filters and metrics in doing so. But again, for any company, the
essential skill is not keeping up, but understanding how to listen.
Social
media is, well, social. And social engagement often takes a more
frivolous or consumer-based tone. But the simple fact is, no one makes
any decision—especially a costly business decision—without first going
online to conduct research about a
company or category. Used right, social-media channels can enable
businesses to “own” that search with relevant content and keywords. As
they say, if you’re not on page one of Google or Yahoo, you simply don’t exist.
So,
to me, online and offline are becoming indistinguishable. And from a
brand perspective—and from a personal perspective, too—I find the
possibilities that creates extremely exciting.
***
Bubuwit Squeaks
Talent Spotter
Food
shows are perennially popular on TV, because the viewers like to see
good food presented well, and because they are effective programs for
selling advertising to supermarkets. One manufacturer decided to recruit
a celebrity chef to promote their products. The clever part was that it
was not someone who was already famous—they identified a relatively
unknown newcomer to the celebrity chef scene and signed him up, while he
was still relatively unknown. They got him to use upmarket,
state-of-the-art utensils on the show, and to pose for photo shoots.
Photos were sent to magazines with stories and where it was
appropriate—recipes. The celebrity chef was the glue that held together
the components of a big campaign and signing up the chef early in his
career meant they did the campaign relatively cheaply compared to using a
high-profile and already famous face.
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