I must confess - I’m on Facebook. I’m LinkedIn. I tweet and I blog.
I know there’s no better, faster or cheaper way to connect with people than social networking. And if you’re looking for a job, it can work very well.
But does social media work in direct marketing? Are there any case-histories or campaigns that have driven ROI?
The answer is "yes" according to a Nielsen/Facebook study. (Surprise, surprise!)
According to Frank Conignola, Consumer Insights Manager at Kraft Foods, “Nielsen studied more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns and concluded that:
"When a Facebook user advocates for an ad, recall grew from 10% to 16%, awareness doubled from 4% to 8% and purchase intent quadrupled from 2% to 8%. "
But as every direct marketer knows, purchase intent doesn’t always equate to purchase.
I did find a number of interesting case-histories of companies that use social media. Many of them were along the lines of the following:
Curtis Kimball operates a small cart that goes from neighborhood to neighborhood, selling creme brulee. (Only in San Francisco!) He has no marketing budget, so he turned to Twitter.
Kimball quickly garnered over 12,000 followers. Some of them are actual followers - because Twitter is the only way you can find the cart’s location for the day.
It’s a charming story - but how many creme brulee’s can you sell in a day?
When it comes to big companies, Dell is often cited as a pioneer in social marketing. Their Dell Outlet for refurbished computers and electronics resides on Twitter and has gotten a great deal of buzz.
After three years, the site was recently heralded for reaching $2 million in sales!!!
Pretty impressive, except when you consider that Dell has sold $200 billion in those three years - all using non-social media (Is that a word?)
And so I come back to the question: Can social marketing really make a difference in your business? Or is it just a shiny new toy that can distract you from doing the basics of marketing?
In an article I wrote for Inside Direct Mail some time ago, I challenged readers to share case-histories where social media actually drove significant revenues and profits.
I got a great response - but everyone who e-mailed me had pretty much the same comment.
“I would also love to see those case-histories!”
