Knowledgeistics

Archive for the ‘social media marketing’ Category

Quantitative metrics are key to understanding one’s market. Now, more than ever, marketers have access to a wealth of data to help make decisions. However, I’m going to argue that this new resource is often emphasized at the expense of qualitative knowledge, which is instrumental to creating effective strategy.

Today in the New York Times, they covered the efforts of big firms like M.R.I. to better quantify the impact of advertisements in magazines. A small detail stuck out as I read. Ad revenues at magazines are not falling as fast as they are at newspapers. One obvious explanation for this is that magazines come with built-in psychographic and demographic targeting. Want to reach snowboarders? Why not try Transworld Snowboarding?

The underlying message of the article was also pretty clear. Quantitative metrics are indispensable for marketers and advertisers. Online advertising and marketing offer quantitative analysis undreamed-of before the advent of the Internet. Print advertising offers metrics that have resisted improvement for decades- ergo, print advertising loses.

At Compete, Stephen DiMarco underscores this point by drawing a line between marketing undertaken on the basis of intuition, “Powerball Marketing” and marketing informed by substantial statistical analysis, “Moneyball Marketing”. His key points, roughly paraphrased, are that:

1) Desired outcomes of marketing campaigns should be specifically quantified

2) Advanced quantitative measures should primarily guide marketing initiatives

On point 1, I agree with Stephen wholeheartedly. All projects need clear-cut objectives, and woe to the firm that allocates hard money to soft, unquantified “improvements” or “increases”.

On point 2, I have to disagree, in part. Success in marketing-by-numbers can’t explain the persistence of magazine ad revenues over newspapers’, given that both media lack robust quantitative measures. Online marketing and market research provides a veritable fire hose of consumer data to the savvy marketer. This leads to a tendency to ignore or discount qualitative knowledge, despite its necessity, as demonstrated by those plucky glossies.

Quantitative data can accurately describe consumer behavior, and be used to predict it to some extent. Qualitative data is valuable when the quantitative data you have doesn’t provide the ability to rationally explain a behavior, or make rational strategic decisions. When the beliefs, attitudes and motivations of one’s customer or consumer are well-understood, it’s possible to make good decisions when quant data can’t do it for you.

For example, if your analytics show that conversion rates have fallen off sharply after introducing a new tagline, the most the numbers can do is identify that the tagline is the problem. With a robust qualitative dataset, and a good understanding of the beliefs, motivations, and other relevant pyschographic factors expressed in that dataset, you’ll be able to identify the unintentional use of a new slang word used to describe terrible body odor in the tagline. The quantitative data would allow you to replace the tagline and fix the problem. The qualitative data would allow you to replace the tagline, as well as spin the faux-pas, make a knowing joke with your consumer, and salvage brand image.

Part of a marketer’s job is to understand their customer or consumer. Clickstream data, correlates of conversion rates, or even surveys won’t really illuminate human beliefs, attitudes, or motivations. SMMR provides a unique opportunity to collect, oftentimes, both quantitative and qualitative knowledge simultaneously. It’s important for marketers to remember that both types of information are essential. Remember: Pizza and beer separately are great, but together they make a balanced meal.

Mashable has a post up discussing Ford’s dominance in the social media space vis-à-vis competitors. The point is that Ford has been massively more successful in creating a social media presence, as measured by:

• Blog mentions
• Videos tagged on YouTube
•  Photos on Flickr

The author is not the only social media expert to use these metrics like these. It’s an understandable temptation – followers, re-tweets, and tags are easy ways to measure progress. However, there isn’t a discussion of why these metrics are valuable to Ford. It’s not clear, after all, that a twitter follower is in any way more likely to buy a new Ford – particularly since a large percentage of these followers are themselves social media experts.

Here are the three most important metrics for social media. If you can’t measure these, and don’t have a line of sight to measuring these, your initiative is in trouble:

1. What did you learn? Understanding your customer or community better is a fantastic goal and one that we fully support. The functionality of social media market research has high value potential, and should be considered a positive ROI investment in the way that focus groups or surveys are generally valued.
2. Who did we reach? If your B2B company has run a successful campaign and generated multiple sales leads, congratulations — you’ve run a successful social media campaign. However, if you have no idea how reaching more targets impacts your top line, it might be time to rethink your strategy. And if you’re having a hard time knowing if you’re reaching customers or just other marketers it is definitely time to rethink the strategy. 
3. What was the ROI? If you are able to measure a direct top-line result of your campaign you’ve solved the paradox of social media marketing. You did it!

As with any initiative, understanding the rules for success is critical. Make sure you agree to them upfront with your social media consultant.