Social media represents a large opportunity for driving loyalty, but is often underutilized, according to Clay Walton-House, Senior Manager, Lenati and Marc Steiner, Principal, Lenati.
During their workshop session, “Harnessing the Full Power of Social Media to Drive Customer Loyalty,” at the 7th Annual Loyalty Expo, presented by Loyalty360 – The Loyalty Marketer’s Association, Walton-House and Steiner helped attendees define social CRM strategy.
“An integration of social media into a comprehensive multichannel CRM strategy, leveraging the unique advantages of each respective channel for a particular business and customer base,” Walton-House offered as the definition.
Lenati is a management consulting firm that specializes in designs, and implements and optimizes marketing and sales strategies for companies that want to build stronger customer connection.
Walton-House said using social media can help brands driving the following loyalty objectives:
• Connecting customers to the brand
• Increasing brand affinity
• Increasing engagement
• Increasing retention
• Increasing revenue
“Social media represents a large opportunity for driving loyalty, but is often underutilized,” Walton-House said because of the following reasons:
• Historically a channel focused on brand and acquisition
• An organizational function often separate from loyalty marketing teams
• Often integrated with loyalty strategies on an ad hoc basis
“Converting on the opportunity presented by social media requires an intentional approach,” Walton-House said.
He said that 65% of consumers use social to connect with brands and research products, and one in five customers engages with a brand on social media after a purchase to make sure they are getting as much value out of their purchase as possible.
“Brand fans are 11% more likely to continue using the brand, and spend 43% more than non-fans,” Walton-House added. “And 40% of ‘leader’ companies prioritize incorporating social media touch points into CRM (compared to 26% of ‘follower’ companies).
Here are some unique opportunities marketers can use with social media:
Near real-time provides immediacy
Peer-to-peer
Enables two-way conversation
Customers own and influence the experience
Just where does social media and loyalty intersect?
Engaging and building relationships with the base
Intercepting detractors and mitigating churn
Leveraging promoters
Engaging and building relationships with the base
Retention and loyalty optimized content
Exclusive offers
Loyalty program integration
Peer-to-peer Engagement
Identify at-risk customers
Mitigate low engagement/churn risk
Mitigate detrimental brand impact
Walton-House said many companies face significant challenges in harnessing social media.
“Only 52% of companies have executives that are informed, engaged, and aligned with social strategy,” he cited. “Only 48% of companies state that they have a clear vision of how social media will improve customer relationships. Only 34% of companies have clear metrics that associate social activities with business outcomes.”
Some of the common challenges that prevent loyalty marketers from harnessing social media include:
Lack of organizational alignment
Lack of customer insights related to social media
Technology and data limitations
Social media functionally siloed or highly matrixed
Social KPIs not aligned to overarching business objectives
Executive skepticism
Unknown ROI
Weariness over less controlled conversations and properties
Customer desires for social engagement are unknown
Customer social usage behaviors are unknown
Social media technologies have not reached scale, Walton-House said, such as:
Listening
Tracking, measuring, and reporting
Automation
Data is distributed and difficult to leverage
Social media data is separate from other customer data sources
Difficult to append data from social properties to broader customer data
Difficult to identify and match customers to social media profiles
Steiner offered Four Steps to a Social CRM strategy:
1. Confirm customer base marketing goals
2. Assess current state
3. Identify opportunities and required investments
4. Prioritize and plan implementation
Find out what percentage of customers are followers/friends/fans, and what percentage of followers are customers.
“You can’t address loyalty without discussing social media,” Walton-House said. “You need an intentional approach. The social media landscape continues to mature.”
Steiner added that a two-way conversation makes it more impactful.
“Social is really an augmentation,” Steiner said. “ROI is a big question and a lack of executive buy-in due to lack of customer insights related to social media.”
When a brand assesses its current state, that’s where it all happens, Walton-House said.
“Assess programs and capabilities, survey the landscape, and understand your audience,” Walton-House said. “Prioritize and plan your implementation. What percentage of customers are followers, but aren’t actively engaged with the brand? Outline opportunities, engage the customer base, intercept detractors, leverage promoters, and target KPIs.”