The Connected Consumer: Brand Advocacy Trends from 100+ Social Campaigns

The Connected Consumer: Brand Advocacy Trends from 100+ Social Campaigns

About Us SocialTwist is a powerful, easy-to-use referral marketing platform that drives customer acquisition strategies for businesses, using the social connections of their customers. The platform enables consumers participating in marketing programs like membership drives, product launches, promotions, branding to engage their friends on behalf of brands, using email and social media channels. Since 2009, we ve run social marketing programs for some of the largest global brands across industries that include consumer products, financial services, retail, e-commerce, membership organizations, and others. Every program precisely measures the impact of consumer referrals on product awareness, brand affiliation and purchase, proving clear assessment of ROI. This study is derived from analysis of actual marketing campaigns. Contact us at or call 866-660-6044 to find out more. 2

The Study As an overwhelming share of consumers (92%) seek the advice of their friends to help them make consumption decisions including what to purchase or not marketers face extreme pressure to join in this dialogue. But in an environment controlled almost entirely by consumers, brands and their marketers are falling out of sync with customer expectations and preferences what consumers want, how they connect, and how they make decisions. To find out, we collected data from 119 Social Referral Marketing campaigns run by some of the world s leading brands (some examples are Sara Lee, Kimberly-Clark, Barnes & Noble, Unilever, Western Union, and MetLife). The study covers all major industries including Consumer Products, Financial, Membership Organizations, Retail, and E-commerce. We tracked and measured consumer actions to see how they connected and shared information with others as they acted on behalf of brands. 18 Consumer Products, Financial, Membership Organizations, Retail, E-Commerce, Pharmaceutical, Others Months 119 Social Referral Marketing Campaigns 3.2 Million Consumers 3

Anatomy of Social Referral Program... 5 Industries Represented... 7 Consumer Participation by Geography... 7 The Shift from Consumer to Influence... 8 How Influencer and Advocacy Works... 9 It s Official, Email Wins... 10 The Sweet Extras... 12 The Takeaways... 13 In Conclusion... 14 4

Anatomy of a Social Referral Program Brands are feverishly building social media programs to be where their consumers are. Most marketers seek intangibles such as likes and followers, but a successful social media engagement does not stop here. It gets consumers to engage not just with the brand, but also with their friends. To make this all work, brands should create engaging offers, drive traffic using owned and paid media and build in authentic incentives for credible consumer engagement. Creativity is often at play here we ve seen incentives like coupons, sweepstakes, games to cloud data storage, and free recipes. Below is a sample campaign by leading diaper brand Huggies. 5

How It Works 1. Consumer clicks on an online ad 2. Consumer is linked to a program landing page that presents a branded program (in this case a promotion program that rewards consumer with a valuable coupon, should she refer her friends to the program). This program may be presented on a website, a microsite or the brand s Facebook page and the coupons are redeemed either online or at select retail outlets. 3. Consumer registers with only her name and email address 4. As easy-to-use referral widget facilitates a referral using any communication channel of her choice in this case, Email, Facebook, or Twitter 5. Consumer completes her referral 6. Consumer receives a reward email 7. Referred parties connect again with the brand at stage (2) 6

Industry & Consumer Participation Industry Breakdown Other 13% Me6% mb ers hip 5% Financial 14% Consumer Products 35% 76% of all programs were from the consumer products, retail and financial services industries Retail 27% Share of programs (total = 119) Where are the participating consumers? 57% Other Michigan 6% 6% California 23% Ohio 7% 8% All other of all participating consumers came from 4 states - California, Florida, Texas & New York Illinois Florida 12% 8% 8% Pennsylvania 13% New York 11% Texas Geographic distribution of participating consumers 7

The Shift From Consumer To Influencer Almost a fifth of all participating consumers became influencers of the 3.2 million participating consumers, over 600,000 (19%) served as advocates and referred products (or services) to their friends. 56.1% % Consumers who became advocates Average 19% ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 17.6% Retail 15.4% Membership Consumer Products 8.5% 5.3% 0.4% Financial Other According to Nielsen s Trust in Advertising report, 92 percent of consumers say they trust recommendations from their friends and family, above all other forms of product information. Well-designed marketing programs can build consumer engagement with other consumers into their program design and execution. We have observed that, on average, one in five consumers refer their friends. 8

How Influencer & Advocacy Works 3.2M 602,000 9M 302,000 19% of visitors became Influencers 15X Friends reached per Influencer 3% of friends reached became new customers 50% New customers as a % of all influencers 9.5% ---------------------------------------- New Customers ------------------- Friends ----------------------------- Influencers ---------------------------------------- Visitors New customers as a % of all visitors Consumer advocacy starts with a referral that creates awareness, hence new impressions, among the friends referred. This follows the classic marketing funnel where awareness among friends of products, services, and offers leads to engagement (clicks, site visits, etc.), brand affiliation (likes, list opt-ins, brand following, etc.), and finally conversion (sign-ups, purchase, etc.). This is also the path to consumer loyalty. Social referral programs are uniquely capable of creating and building advocacy that leads to loyalty, especially when businesses spot and engage their influencers. 9

It s Official. Email Wins. Consumers still prefer to use email to refer others and we see this trend across industries. Social marketing programs must integrate email. Email Facebook Twitter 90% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 80% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 70% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 60% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 50% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 40% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Retail Other Consumer Financial Memberships Products How consumers referred others, across industries 10

More New Visitors Were Reached Through Email Than Other Means Other 0.4% Although more consumers are reached through Facebook, Email results in greater response. Twitter 26.8% Email 50.8% Marketers must focus on making referrals easy, personal, quick, and trackable Facebook 22.0% Distribution of new visitors, by method of outreach of their friends What are the implications for marketers? Marketers should avoid falling into perception traps like email marketing is somehow vastly different from social marketing. Anything that connects consumers is social. The most successful campaigns we analyzed were laser-focused in enabling consumers to use multiple communication channels including email and simultaneously tracking and measuring all the outcomes, across channels. 11

The Sweet Extras In addition to engagement and conversion, 260,000 consumers opted-in to brand lists and newsletters a bonus to the main campaign objectives % of Advocates opted-in 62% 40% 34% 29% 23% Consumer Products Membership Retail Financial 9% 0.4% Other 12

The Takeaways 1. Consumers are the biggest source of influence over other consumers 2. Every business has important consumers who greatly influence others about their product - do you know yours? 3. Referral marketing programs motivate customers to reach others - something they naturally do 4. Such programs must be designed with clear marketing goals and integrate email and social media 5. Yes, you can believe it! - everything can be measured and analysed 13

In Conclusion Getting closer to customers on social media is a key focus for most marketers but if you don t focus on what your consumers really value in social media, you may be missing the boat. Authentic incentives can turn casual interactions to advocacybased engagement. Pulling all this together in a repeatable and measurable way and tying it to ROI is what a social marketing platform can do for your business. We invite you to take a look at us. Contact us at or call 866-660-6044 to find out more.