Social media not integrated with overall branding (CMO's)

Social media not integrated with overall branding (CMO’s)

Spending on social marketing continues its upward trend. CMOs say their firms currently spend 6 percent of their marketing budgets on social media promotions, but that figure will triple to 18 percent over the next five years. These encouraging results come from the CMO Survey, a nationwide poll of chief marketing officers (CMOs) conducted twice annually by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association since 2008. The most recent CMO Survey queried 3,778 top marketing executives at Fortune 100, Forbes Top 200 and CMO Club companies.

“The growth in social media marketing will be exponential,” according to the survey. “Smaller companies — with revenues under $25 million — in particular will increasingly rely on social media outlets to market their products and services.” The survey noted that although firms of all sizes plan to increase spending on marketing via social media, CMOs don’t believe their social media activities are well integrated with their companies’ overall marketing strategies. In fact, 42 percent rate this integration as below average and only 11 percent of CMOs said their company was “very effective” in integrating social media into their marketing strategies.

This suggests an urgency to utilize social media even before a comprehensive plan is developed.

In this authors opinion this means that a lot of firms are going to fail at social media because they fail to develop a sound strategy or the resources to implement and measure their social media strategies.

Why the rush ?

Marketers have always been taught to “go where consumers are”. The problem with this of course is that consumers like talking to each other and don’t want to be interrupted by advertisers or brands that don’t know how to engage in a human conversation.

Even basic questions, such as, “if people who friend our brand on Facebook are current customers how do we get people who are consumers to become customers?” need to be asked before you implement a social media marketing strategy. The biggest reason for failure, however, is that marketers don’t understand how social media is part of an integrated marketing strategy and fits in with other digital marketing activities like brand websites and search engine marketing.

Here are the three biggest mistakes marketers make when their digital media campaigns fail;

1. Proper research isn’t completed ahead of time to help understand who the precise target audience is, what their spending habits and cycles are, or where they geographically reside. It is amazing how many brands fall short in this particular realm. With the availability of qualitative and quantitative data through multiple online resources, consulting firms, and agencies, one would assume this to be standard marketing protocol. Wrong! Information on your target consumer has never been more readily available, so use it to your advantage.

2. A clear success metric isn’t established ahead of time. There isn’t a single digital media test that should be implemented without a defined end goal. Is it a .15 percent click-through rate, a 10-percent conversion rate, a 40-percent increase in monthly e-commerce sales? Whatever your goal may be, defining the success standard for your product or service marketing campaign is paramount to understanding whether a pass or fail grade should be given

3. You don’t have the resources and processes in place to ensure success. Digital marketing is not easy to implement and requires processes in place to ensure success. For example, is a customer complains about your product on Twitter, who is going to answer and what authority do they have to make reach out to a customer and make them a brand ambassador ?What is your media plan for your Facebook page ? How often are we going to send out eMail and how are we going to measure success ?

4. You focus on the wrong channels. Marketers need to determine just how important digital channels are compared to other mass market avenues. I would argue, for example, that for some impulse purchases like ice cream, cookies and candies that the Internet is not as important for conversion as other products likes supplements, Rx drugs, cars, and electronics. An excellent digital marketing experience with a poor product experience is not going to solve your problems.

5. You don’t have the money to do it right. A good interactive strategy and website can cost well over $100,000 with research and usability studies but too many brands let the lack of money drive the strategy rather than looking at the Internet as a key brand touchpoint. OK, if you’re a small local business you don’t have the money to do that but you also have to know that consumer perceptions start at the first point of contact and if that’s your website and it’s poorly done you’re wasting money and more importantly loosing business.

I am always surprised that brands will spend lots of money on testing messages and even the commercials but when it comes to their website what is done always seems “good enough”. Good enough is the reason your brand may not succeed.