Cross channel marketing. We all know we're supposed to be doing it. Facebook pages promotions and ads, sponsored Tweets, pay per click ads, email campaigns, direct mail, billboards, QR codes - any combination of these marketing channels can be leveraged together to build a greater awareness of a brand or movement and funnel potential customers through one location. It all sounds so perfect and modern. But is your cross channel marketing campaign really working for you?
Sure, you're reaching multiple audiences through a variety of mediums. But are you retaining those customers? Can socially integrated marketing campaigns really be used for lead generation? You bet your sweet Tweetdeck they can.
A quick Google search of using social media for lead generation will lead you to a plethora of articles on how to engage new potential customers from your Facebook page and Twitter or how to successfully host a promotion on social media networks. This is all well and good but it's not necessarily taking social media to the level of lead gen that it can potentially reach.
Lets step outside the box here for a moment and think this through. Rather than just posting content (engaging though it may be) to a Facebook page, why not leverage your Facebook fans and email newsletters followers to do some marketing for you? It's possible - you just need the right tools.
There are several top brands out there that have latched on to this notion. The online electronic retail powerhouse Newegg.com recently won the Adweek award for Best Media Plan of the Year for its Mancave Madness campaign. In it, Newegg launched a successful cross channel marketing campaign that managed to bring in over 200,000 new customers to their site and customer database.
What gave the campaign wings however was its integration of SaaS marketing technology Dukky. By utilizing Dukky's Viral Peer Sharing technology, Newegg was able to leverage its current followers to blast their message and promotion to their social networks, allowing the company to meet customers it had never had access to before. A whopping 32% of the total entries came through social shares. And Newegg was able to track those new customers in real time and add them to their customer database for later marketing efforts.
It's important to remember in social media marketing that the process isn't over just because someone saw your ad or liked your page. Yes, consistent engagement of a fan base is the key to any successful online branding these days, but social media can be utilized to reach past your existing followers and bring in new ones. Word of mouth has become word of mouse. Don't just engage with your customers, leverage them and their influence over their social networks. It's possible to utilize these tactics to grow a customer database, you just need the right tools for the job.