Everyone talks about wanting to measure the volume of leads generated for bottom line ROI of social media efforts, but don't forget to consider the value of the conversion rate! While you may not be seeing the volume yet, the propensity to convert may be looking you right in the face.
Be sure to have a mechanism in place to know when a lead comes from social media. Most businesses use the combination of a URL shortener and "cookie" history to attach a campaign to an incoming lead. Hootsuite has now integrated Google Analytics into their URL shortener for a more seamless transition for metrics in analytics. Some companies are still using proprietary shorteners and other companies are still trying to future out how to do it …show more content…
This makes it easier to justify your budget dollars to integrate social media into a sales process.
To add a control group, use the same metrics you use to run against a group that has never interacted with media and compare the stats. Look for how social media companies in areas such as lead conversion rates, retention rates and costs.
4. Marketing Campaign History
Review how your company reports on "cookies" related to a sale. Look at the big picture of the first cookie the prospect received and report on the originating campaign, along with the campaigns responded to in between and the converting campaign.
This will help you know and determine all the drivers to the sale and adjust your costs related to the sale to get closer to a true ROI as well as look for the right mix in reaching your target audience. Even if your sales process is not online, you should be sure your CRM system allows you to track your marketing efforts through the entire sales cycle and your team is appropriately trained to track the information.
5. Growth …show more content…
Retention Rates
Just as important as the ability to convert a customer is the ability to keep a customer. Compare the fondness of new customers to staying customers with and without social media interaction. You will see that those participating in social media are more engaged and likely to retain as better long term customers.
To do this, keep all leads converted in (1) Conversion Rates above and track them over time. If there is an ongoing fee, measure how long the customer stays. If your company is focused more on one time sales, measure if the customer comes back and buys something else and how often this happens. Compare this data against the control group of those who did not interact with social media and determine if there are any improvements worth noting.
7. Cross-Selling
Determining if social customers are more or less likely to purchase additional serviced is an important element of using social media. First, determine how much revenue per customer was generated using social media compared to non-social media customers. Then, determine how much revenue was generated from additional purchases and/or additional products for media customers. After you compile this information, compare this to your control group and you will be able to determine if social media has an impact on up-selling or even cross-selling for your