Today over 90% of marketing spending goes to advertising and retail promotions. Yet the the single most powerful impetus to buy today is often someone else's advocacy via social media. Why do most brands and marketers continue to underestimate the value of social media ? Because they don't understand a basic fundamental change in marketing: consumers today have a lot more power thanks to the Internet.
Instead of focusing on how to allocate marketing across different media channels marketers need to target stages in the decision journey. They need to develop a decision tree analysis to identify first hand where they can impact purchase decision behavior and how they impact purchase decision behavior.
Web analytics can provide you with powerful information on how consumers are arriving at purchase decisions for your product & brand. I have found that few people actually look at paths through the site especially for those visitors who become customers. This data is worth a LOT to marketers but rather than look at the raw data they need someone who can say "hey, there is a major opportunity here !"
Now it's important to understand that not all products warrant an investment in key consumer touch points via social media. I doubt, for example, that someone does a lot of research before trying a new brand of ice cream or frozen dinner. But for other products people do go online and compare notes before making that decision to open their wallets.
Too many companies allow bureaucracy to get in the way of implementing and even listing to social media. Manager's who "get it" are often bogged down doing and re-doing Power Point presentations just to convince management that the brand needs to listen to people via social media. There are some really big brands and companies from the Fortune 100 list who have maybe one or two people listening to social media and answering consumers questions or comments. If you fail or hesitate to engage consumers on social media you are in essence failing to adapt and your adversaries are going to overtake you because they "get it". For many this means "we're on our way. Sure we're making mistakes but we are learning and we will become better marketers as we learn".
The rise of social media should be an opportunity to marketers not a threat. Brands that do well with social media often find that traditional marketing channels are not working as well as before. Brands should use new media to deliver on four basic principles:
1. Offering and communicating a clear customer promise
2. Building trust by delivering on their promise.
3. Continually improving their promise and value proposition.
4. Innovating and rewarding Linchpins.
As my visitors read this I wonder how many of you are still trying to be heard when it comes to value of social media ? How many see social media as just another sales channel and try and use it to sell consumers rather than talk with them ? Do your managers know that often the most read sections of Facebook pages are ones with information that comes across as honest, informal and caring ? That type of information wins consumers over.
We have come a long way in social media but at times I feel we are still trying to tell the emperor that he has no clothes while he talks to the masses.