Applying Social Media Measurement to the Sales Funnel

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1 02 Sales By: Nichole Kelly - Social Media Measurement Coach In Partnership with HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard

2 Review of Core Measurement Philosophies As we learned in the first section of this document, three core marketing goals that show where social media adds value are: Brand Awareness, Customer Retention and Lead Generation. 1. Brand Awareness focuses on measuring how many people saw your message and aligns nicely with metrics commonly used for public relations and TV/radio/banner advertisements. 2. Customer Retention concentrates on the ability to keep customers, either by length of time, frequency of purchase, or increased dollars spent at each visit. 3. Lead Generation is built upon the ability to deliver two types of leads; the lead forms and sales. It s important to translate these social-specific measurements into metrics commonly used to gauge the success of a campaign: sales, revenue and cost. The new language of social media does not directly connect to the value of social media against the bottom line. For more detail on this topic, download the first White Paper in this series. This paper will expand on these findings by translating your metrics to the sales funnel. 2

3 Applying Social Media Metrics to the Sales The sales funnel is an important point of reference by which most executives understand sales, revenue and cost in relation to marketing activities. You can leverage the sales funnel to create a visual representation of where social media provides value to the organization. There are 5 main categories of social media metrics that can be identified within the sales funnel. It s important to recognize that philosophically people start at the top of the funnel and work their way down. Ideally, an individual shouldn t be represented in multiple categories. 3

4 Metrics to the Sales Exposure Exposure is a measurement of brand reach. This level of measurement rests at the top of the sales funnel. By putting more people in the top of the sales funnel, it is assumed that more people will convert or buy at the bottom. Influence What significance does each Like or follow have on your brand? HootSuite provides Klout scores which determine follower influence. Being mentioned by an influencer can be compared to a recommendation by a friend they tend to have loyal fans that trust their credibility and therefore convert at a higher rate. Those who were exposed to your brand by an influencer move one step further down the funnel. Engagement To move to the next stage in the funnel a person must actually engage with your brand. If they mentioned your brand, ReTweeted your message, clicked on your link, visited your site, commented on your status or took any other action as a result of being exposed to your brand, they move to the third step in the funnel. Conversion Often, conversion measurement is spread out over two phases. The first phase usually involves a lead form of some kind and results in the acquisition of the lead s contact details. 4

5 Metrics to the Sales This opens the door to direct communication in order to generate a sale. The second phase is the actual sale of your product or service. This can happen with or without the first phase. The sale is the final stage in the sales funnel and results in revenue for your company. Retention The cycle does not end with a sale. You continue to nurture the relationship and hope to generate future sales and/or keep them as a customer for as long as possible. This is an area of the relationship that is commonly overlooked as an opportunity to increase profitability. For example, imagine a Twitter follower who has traveled through each phase in the buying cycle. Measurement will determine how quickly he or she moves through the phases, how much and how often he or she bought, and how long he or she remains a customer. These details will position social media leads against other marketing channels to determine if the results are better, worse or the same, allowing you to adjust your tactics accordingly. 5

6 Translating Social Media Goals to the Sales The three social media goals can be aligned with the buying cycle: 1. Exposure, Influence and Engagement are the result of Brand Awareness activities. 2. Conversion is a result of Lead Generation activities. 3. Retention is a result of Customer Retention activities. 6

7 Using Campaigns to Track Leads through the The hardest part of measuring through the sales funnel is knowing how many leads are at each stage at any given time. While it isn t a perfect science, campaign tracking provides a clearer picture. What is campaign tracking? In sum, campaign tracking allows you to follow a person from a source to a conversion. Marketers use campaigns to segregate different marketing activities and correlate the cost of those activities to the return they provide. 1. Using custom URL parameters in Ow.ly links you can track click-thrus 2. Because Google Analytics is built into your campaign links, you ll follow the customer from source to conversion page 3. With the cookie attached you see if they convert (or buy) 4. Conversion will show up in your report telling you which sources were most successful (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) 7

8 Using Campaigns to Track Leads through the Campaign Tracking is a Requirement for Measurement In order to determine which sources are most successful (and which aren t) you need to be able to identify leads by the source that generated them. This requires that you attach a campaign to each lead; a small technical effort, but by adding a piece of code to your conversion pages, you will gather measurable results. HootSuite has Built In Campaign Tracking You can append campaign tracking to every shortened link by using the Ow.ly shortener. HootSuite has integrated Ow.ly with Google Analytics campaign tracking technology to track your social leads through to conversion. TIP: You can use Ow.ly to add a campaign and shorten any link, even if the link is not sent through the HootSuite interface. 8

9 Summary Utilizing the sales funnel to explain social media results will more clearly demonstrate how your actions are measuring up against goals. Campaign tracking will allow you to identify where leads are within the process and correlated numbers with each stage in the funnel. When you combine with sales, revenue and cost data you will be an unstoppable force of ROI and profit generation in the company. The time is now your data is waiting. This white paper is the second in a series dedicated to understanding social media measurement. An Introduction to Social Media Measurement began the series. Stay tuned for future topics: Measuring Social Media for Brand Awareness, Measuring Social Media for Lead Generation and Measuring Social Media for Customer Retention. The entire series will include tutorials for how you can use HootSuite to accomplish these measurement strategies. HootSuite Social Analytics provide a new level of insight on the impact of social media on your business, providing deep decision-making metrics beyond fans and followers to help you evaluate your strategies. How HootSuite Can Help HootSuite s new social analytics dashboard can help you get there. Check out these How-To guides so you can start gathering the metrics you need to apply these measurement strategies. 01. How-To Integrate Google Analytics and HootSuite 02. How-To Add Google Analytics to your web site 03. How-To Add Goal Tracking and Campaigns to Google Analytics 04. How-To Shorten URLs in HootSuite and Append Campaigns 05. Creating a Custom Social Analytics Overview Report 9