So you’ve gotten lots of “likes” and “tweets” for your online store, but business has not really improved that much. Now what? If this were, say, a Soprano family enterprise, you could cozy up to your enemy’s enemy, knowing they could probably be turned into a friend. Instead, it’s just another fraught day at the online store.
Improving business is tied to knowing, not just your friends (and enemies), but their friends…and those friends’ friends. The key for online merchants is to understand both the social networks and online social activities of your site visitors and customers, says the executive of Chicago start-up The Echo System, which focuses on growing “return on social” (ROS), short for “return on social media.”
Sharing on Social Media
ROS riffs off of the phrase “return on investment,” (ROI) that perennial worry of all business owners. And, just like ROI, you need to know ROS to figure out how to improve the bottom line.
Social (at least in the online context) means a lot more these days than just “liking” and “friending” people, all the while tweeting about a one-day-only sale. For instance, it can mean examining the friends of those folks who “like” your store (they all have some), and what those friends of friends like, and whether your tweets are being re-tweeted, and by whom, says Lance Neuhauser, CEO of The Echo System. Read more
How to promote ROI mindset and mature from an activity-based to a result-driven retailer. There are many suggested options from marketers but the standard things are to build performance metrics, host weekly metrics meet and make the staff accountable for measurable results.
Performance metrics should start with every project having a performance scorecard that includes key performance indicators or KPIs. Weekly metrics meets allows marketing staff to review, discuss and reset direction based on ROI results. And finally ensuring the staff is accountable requires setting personal incentives within individual performance reviews and reward the abilities to meet or exceed the established targets. Read more
With online leading the pursuit of higher marketing ROI and accountability, behavior targeting can connect a backend purchase to the front-end targeting. this improves effectiveness and efficiency and optimize cross and up sell opportunities. From a marketing ROI perspective, there is a consumer journey with an identifiable path that leads to the transaction (purchase or registration) and further.
Retailers should know that when it comes to deploying ROI-focused marketing, brands must clearly define all steps that ultimately contribute to a potential sale and assign a distinct value to each action to ensure ROI metrics are in place every step of the way. In addition to these standard metrics, retailers can also implement a visit quality index which is a weighted composite of measures like key interaction rates, conversions, content paths, visit frequency. The visit quality index gives a snapshot of performance in terms of driving shoppers to the site’s highest value content and tools. Read more
Many retailers possess high performance analytic tools but at one point they find that these tools are not providing what it required and expected. Higher end solutions like Web Trends, Omniture or Coremetrics have capabilities which may outrun what a basic retailer requires from their sites. No tool would automatically improve site performance right out of the box – marketers have to select and configure as the first step. Read more
