8. Conversion doesn’t complete the cycle - it re-frames the relationship. Influencers may be outside the funnel Engagement drives loyalty and repeat purchases
9. Subscribers Your people: Followers, Fans, etc. Extend customer relationships online. Key Metrics: % customers subscribed Growth rate, growth drivers Hack: Ask for social connection at all customer touch-points. Link social subscribers to email subscribers. Quantify customers / subscribers.
10. Engagers People that raise their hand. Engagement moves subscribers down the funnel. Big assumption: positive revenue / engagement correlation. Metrics: Engagers / Subscribers – can you increase engagement? InteractionsbyContent – what made people pipe up? Interactions by Engager – which segments connect? Hack: Define “engagement” for your organization. Inspect your data from different perspectives.
11. Prospects People that convey interest. This stage may take different permutations. Key Metrics: Interactions per prospect Prospects by content Hack: Define the threshold between engager and prospect. Use web analytics parameters to build smarter links. Let others do the asking for you.
12. Conversions People that rang the register. Conversions should include repeat customers. Metrics: Revenue per content, per subscriber, per channel. Lead time – from subscriber to conversion. Hack: Use web analytics parameters to build smarter links. You can probably track this with existing tools. Rinse, repeat.
13. Room For Improvement These steps are squishy. Causation is a big leap from correlation. Attribution remains a problem. This is still a manual process. For now…
14. Try These Tomorrow: Find ways to differentiate your audience. Begin snap-shotting simple metrics that reflect the separate stages. Embed web analytics parameters into your social links. When you work on other marketing programs, ask yourself why your social program doesn’t have the same rigorous approach.
Break down the social channel just like any other marketing channel. PPC isn’t broken into searchers and buyers – there are lots of steps along the way. In the same way, social media isn’t about subscribers and convertors.You can’t optimize a two-step process. If you create stages and measure each one, you can calibrate your activity and optimize your results.You can’t improve what you do if you don’t know how well you’re doing.
Content needs to be engaging, even if “engagement” is not the goal. Content needs to reflect the medium. There is a reason it is called “social”.
Can be a vitamin that generates money or a painkiller that saves money.Support saves money.PR, direct, brand, loyalty drive money.
What gets measured, gets managed – Peter Drucker – iconic business thinker, coined the phrase “knowledge worker” – Drucker School @ Claremont.Time = value = moneyHow do you tell if it is working if you aren’t measuring it? If you can’t tell if it is working, then why are you doing it?
Sub-sets of sub-sets. We’ll step through each of these steps in greater details. We’ll spend time talking about measuring, differentiating each group. Propose strategies for pulling people through the steps.Subscribers, Engagers, Prospects, ConversionsWhy break them up? Better understanding of the economics of the channel. Don’t understand where people are stalling in the process. By tracking populations discretely, marketers can test, learn, and optimize.
This isn’t a lockstep funnel like pay-per-click for example.Engagers/prospects pull others down the funnel.Influencers outside of the funnel include competing brands, partners, etc.Existing customers can evangelize and/or disrupt. Speaks to marketing and support working together.Conversion doesn’t signify completion, but re-frames relationship between company and subscriber.
Normalizing numbers – measure percent growth in both numerator and denominator. Disparate pieces of the fraction may hide key insights. For example, 100 interactions over 80k fans vs 120 interactions over 88k fans. Subscribers grew by 10%, but interaction grew by 20%.Make sure to have different perspectives on your data.
Threshold suggestions – connections off of social platforms. B2B – lead, whitepaper download, B2C – shopping cart, email sign upExisting customers will become prospects again, qualified vs unqualified.You always want to know moved people down the channel. You’re now pushing prospects into other channels or into your existing marketing engine.