Podcast: “New Social Marketing, New Engagement Measures: Or Is This All Useless Hype?”
(35 MINUTES)
MP3 File
The Internet is every direct marketer’s dream. Users’/customers’ actions can be defined, measured, saved and compared with ease. Many companies intuitively understand they have gobs of data available to them — yet few actively collect it or they’ve constrained their data gathering to revenue generating paths. This is Web Analytics 101. But in today’s world of social media, conversational marketing and user generated content, might merchants be missing something? How deep down the rabbit hole should one go with analytics and is revenue generation really the Holy Grail?
There are many things users do that relate back to a merchant in a non-revenue producing, yet beneficial, way. They may post on their Facebook profile they bought from Company X. They may write a blog… or leave a review about a product on the merchant’s site. Some are calling this “consumer engagement” and while it is non-revenue producing, they suggest this kind of activity should be collected and measured. Why? By analyzing THIS kind of data a merchant will be able to better nurture prospects, identify key “mavens and connectors” — consumers who influence other people’s purchases.
The gang helps listeners answer questions like:
* What are the tech and people obstacles marketers face if they track “consumer engagement”?
* What about in the lead-gen space? If a mortgage broker buys a lead, how should he/she interact with the data? How does standardization fit it?
* Is all this tracking necessary? Can — and do — merchants get a big enough lift to justify the costs?
* At what point does this “devaluation” of hard-core direct marketing ROI begin to promote “old fashioned”, somewhat sloppy, advertising practices?! OR are new “holistic” measures and analysis practices in order?
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