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Archives for January 2015

Brand Social Customer Service is Failing Consumers

question marksConsumers want social customer service, but according to the fourth quarter 2014 data from Social Bakers’ Socially Devoted study, consumers are very disappointed in the customer service they’re actually receiving from brands on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.

To put this problem into perspective, Social Bakers reports that the telecom industry offered the best social customer service during the fourth quarter of 2014, but even that industry leaves a lot to be desired. If you asked a question via social media that was directed to a telecom brand during that time period, there was a 33% chance it would be answered if asked on Facebook and only a 14% chance if it had been asked on Twitter. And that’s the best performing industry! No wonder consumers are disappointed in the social customer service they receive from brands.

What all companies need to understand is that social media isn’t just for brand marketing. Consumers expect companies to offer customer service through brand social media profiles and pages, too. In the retail industry, the demand for social customer service increased by 22.1% during the fourth quarter of 2014! Other industries where the demand for social customer service increased the most during the fourth quarter are e-commerce (up 20.5%), software (up 17.2%), services (up 14.4%), and industrial (up 13.8%).

Social Bakers points out that providing customer service via social media increases social interactions with “socially devoted” brands getting 3.4-times more interactions than “non-socially devoted” brands. In other words, every one of those interactions could lead to a conversion or sale—directly or indirectly.

The Top 5 Brands Offering Social Customer Service

The five brands that provided the most social customer service on Facebook during the fourth quarter of 2014 were:

  1. KLM – 99.1% response rate and 99 minutes response time
  2. Robi Axiata Limited – 99.0% response rate and 20 minutes response time
  3. Grameenphone – 95.9% response rate and 88 minutes response time
  4. Banglalink Meia – 98.8% response rate and 41 minutes response time
  5. Telkomsei – 65.3% response rate and 35 minutes response time

The five brands that provided the most social customer service on Twitter during the fourth quarter of 2014 were:

  1. Telkomsei – 70.6% response rate and 7 minutes response time
  2. STC – 81.6% response rate and 32 minutes response time
  3. ASOS Here to Help – 71.1% response rate and 316 minutes response time
  4. Virgin Media – 67.6% response rate and 256 minutes response time
  5. O2 in the UK – 67.6% response rate and 371 minutes response time

Follow the link at the beginning of this article to get the full top 10 brand lists as well as all of the statistics from the Social Bakers study.

One thing is certain, consumers want brands to offer customer service via social media, and they expect the response rate to be high and the response time to be low. If you’re not delivering on those wants and expectations, you’re disappointing your customers.

Image: Benito LeGrande

Facebook’s Growing Problem – Passive Users

keyboard passiveFacebook is the most popular social networking site in the world (except China) with the most members (81%) and the most active users (42%) according to December 2014 data from GlobalWebIndex. However, Facebook was the only large social network to see its active usage drop in 2014 (by 9%). At the same time, Facebook is facing an even bigger problem, which GlobalWebIndex refers to as passive Facebooking.

As 2014 drew to a close, GlobalWebIndex reports that only 52% of Facebook users were active users, which is a significant drop from 70% in 2012. When they do use Facebook, users are just browsing without actually posting or commenting on anything they read or see. In December 2014, two out of five Facebook users (not including China) used the site passively to browse but not to interact.

What’s causing the shift to passive Facebooking? Is it that people are becoming more interactive on other social media sites? Are they unhappy with privacy and tracking policies used on Facebook? Are they using their mobile devices to access Facebook which makes them less likely, statistically, to interact rather than just consume content? Have changes to how Facebook presents information in users’ news feeds affected their behavior?

While Facebook is seeing a decline in active usage (although still at levels higher than other social media sites), competitors are seeing huge gains. Pinterest grew its active users by 97% in 2014 while Tumblr grew active users by 95%. Snapchat was the fastest growing social/messaging application in 2014 (+57%), and YouTube is getting visits from more people (82% of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64) than Facebook (73%).

GlobalWebIndex also reports that the total amount of time that people spend on social networks continues to increase. In 2012, they spent an average of 1.61 hours per day on social networks, and in 2014, that number increased to 1.72 hours per day.

Bottom-line, social networking and social media overall continue to grow, but Facebook appears to already be moving past the maturity stage into the decline stage. If the trend toward passive usage continues, the company could be in big trouble very soon. Already, brands are unhappy with how Page updates are displayed to fans, making it nearly necessary to pay for advertising to get any brand exposure on the the site. For a site that depends on interaction of its users for many things, passive usage is a very big problem.

What do you think? Should Facebook be worried? Are you investing your 2015 social media time and online advertising budgets into Facebook at the same levels you have in the past or are you shifting your brand to other social sites? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Teresa Howes

State of Marketing 2015

calendarLeads, acquisition, and technology top the list of marketers’ highest priorities and biggest challenges in 2015 according to Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s 2015 State of Marketing report.

It’s important to note that marketers from around the world participated in the Salesforce survey, so these results are representative of a diverse pool of marketers, companies, and industries.

While challenges abound for marketers in 2015, budget increases will focus on digital marketing, particularly social media and mobile marketing.

In total, 84% of respondents to the Salesforce survey indicated that they plan to increase digital marketing spending in 2015 with the most common budget increases going to: social media engagement (67%), location-based mobile tracking (67%), mobile applications (66%), mobile-push notifications (65%), web personalization (65%), marketing automation (63%), and content marketing (62%).

Despite these budget increases for digital marketing strategies and tactics, calculating return on investment did not rank as one of the most important metrics for marketers in 2015. Revenue growth ranked as the most important metric for 32% of marketers who responded to the survey followed by customer satisfaction, which ranked as the most important metric for 30% of respondents. Only 23% of respondents said that customer retention, acquisition, and ROI, collectively, was the most important metric to track marketing performance.

Taking a closer look at the high priority challenges identified by marketers for 2015, respondents ranked 20 specific challenges. The full breakdown is shown below. Notice that the gap from the top priority challenge and the lowest priority challenge is only 19 percentage points (not including the “Other” response). In other words, marketers have a lot of challenges and they’re all priorities.

Marketers Top Challenges in 2015

  1. New business development = 27%
  2. Quality of leads = 27%
  3. Remaining up to date with current marketing technology and trends = 27%
  4. Customer acquisition = 26%
  5. Quantifying marketing’s return on investment = 25%
  6. Integration of marketing tools and systems = 25%
  7. Demand and lead generation = 23%
  8. Budget constraints = 23%
  9. Building deeper customer relationships = 22%
  10. Creating personalized, cross-channel experiences = 22%
  11. Producing unique, original content = 22%
  12. Using existing data to drive more relevant messages and experiences = 21%
  13. Keeping pace with competitors = 21%
  14. Staying ahead of social media trends = 21%
  15. Talent acquisition and retention = 20%
  16. Understanding what data to analyze = 20%
  17. Shifting consumer demographics = 19%
  18. Channel expansion and device adoption = 18%
  19. Enterprise-level system optimization = 18%
  20. Other = 1%

It’s not surprising to see the expected increase in digital marketing budgets in 2015 given the positive results marketers have had with social media and mobile marketing. The Salesforce study found that 68% of marketers believed their email marketing and social media marketing efforts were effective. Other digital marketing tactics were reported as effective by 58% or more of the survey respondents.

Comparing marketers’ opinions about their top challenges, anticipated budget increases, and prior program effectiveness, it’s not surprising to see digital marketing as a top priority for marketers in 2015. Now, they just have to ensure their investments are driving leads and converting those leads into new customers. Of course, that’s a challenge that never stops for marketers.

 Image: Felipe Wiecheteck

Kia Rolls out Brand Repositioning Ad Campaign

kia hood ornamentThis month, Kia is making headlines in the United Kingdom with its new ad campaign that includes television, print, digital, and social. It’s not the ads themselves that are driving buzz about the Kia brand, it’s about the goal of the ads—to reposition the Kia brand.

For years, Kia has been known as the affordable car brand. It comfortably occupied that space in the marketplace and consumers were familiar with and trusted the Kia brand promise where value equaled affordability. Now, Kia is trying to reposition its brand as a different kind of value brand than what consumers have come to expect.

According to Sara Spary from BrandRepublic, “The ad, Kia claimed, has a ‘premium feel’ and is designed to communicate the brands ‘quality, reliability, design and technology’, positioning it as a value brand.” Using the word ‘premium’ makes it clear that Kia’s new brand positioning won’t be all about price value. Now, value will translate into higher quality, and what customers will anticipate will eventually translate into higher prices.

Will the brand repositioning work? It did for Hyundai.

In the early days of the Hyundai brand, it owned the word “cheap” in consumers’ minds. In order to reposition the brand, the company redesigned its cars to be more contemporary and launched an unprecedented warranty program that competitors are still trying to copy today. Consumer perceptions were changed as the new car styling attracted their eyes and the warranty appealed to their wallets as well as to their need for a sense of trust and security when making a big ticket purchase. Today, Hyundai’s brand reputation is much better than it was over a decade ago. Kia slid into the market position that Hyundai abandoned and has held that spot comfortably for years. If the new Kia brand positioning works, Kia won’t hold that spot for much longer.

Kia’s new ad campaign is focusing on building emotional connections with consumers with a goal to show consumers “how it feels” to drive a Kia according to Spary. She explains, “It depicts ‘real drivers’ describing what they want from their car.” This is a smart strategy that just might work.

What do you think? Does Kia have a chance at successfully repositioning its brand? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: James Case licensed CC BY 2.0

6 Sins of Marketing Automation

Today’s post is by Ryan Chester, who wanted to talk about automating marketing – and how it can go wrong. Over to you, Ryan!

marketing-automationBesides being the current buzzword, marketing automation has become a large thing, and a real thing. There are many billion dollar players in the space.

As an executive in a large corporation you’re constantly evaluating what software to invest in, and among them marketing automation software sits near the top. It has become the most in-demand tool for marketing professionals. It helps large companies turn leads into customers by nurturing them correctly, and create additional sales from existing customers.

It’s becoming undeniably useful, and helps you manage everything from landing pages, content marketing, email marketing and the list goes on!

While you’re starting off in adopting these things for your corporation, you want to make sure you avoid a few things that could cost your company some big bucks or worse – some jobs!

1st Sin – No Strategy

You can’t use marketing automation and not have a documented strategy. How do you expect your marketing team of 25+ people to know what to do?

This is where you take your company’s goals and tie it into the strategy. You have to work hard in the beginning to make sure there is good alignment. It’ll enable an easier time later managing and achieving your goals.

It doesn’t matter whether you use Hubspot, Marketo or Infusionsoft, make sure you have a strategy! The best tool can only do so much.

2nd Sin – Treating everyone the same

Even if you’re only using email marketing tools like Mailchimp or Constant contact, you’re able to segment your audience. This is one area that you can’t make excuses since it’s considered a rudimentary practice. Forgetting this, is like forgetting your own birthday.

You don’t want to blast everyone with the same content. If you’re asking why; it’s because you want to make sure your message is customized for every time of customer group. If you’re a large electronics manufacturer, your customers could be anyone from Boeing, Tesla, Northrop Grumman or Apple. Each one has a different set of needs, behaviours and interests.

3rd Sin – Just using the email marketing function

Most marketing automation tools are more than email marketing tools.

Traditional form of email marketing (or as I call it blasting) is dead. Now you have to be smarter, you have to segment and you have to customize your message based on the audience receiving it.

Today’s marketing automation tools will let you send specific emails based on the pages they visit on your website, or if they complete a specific sequence of events they perform such as visiting your website, downloading an eBook and signing up for a webinar. Make sure you use these tools to the full extent to gain your competitive advantage!

4th Sin – No good content

Content is king. This has been true for the last decade and will continue to be true for the foreseeable future. Think about it for a second. What else would you be sending your audience besides content?

Don’t just churn out any old content, put some deep thought into it and make it useful! If you’ve segmented your audience, you should also define a buyer persona for each group. This will give you an idea what type of content to create them. Additionally look at gaps in your content, and fill them! This way you won’t have difficulty turning visitor to a customer.

5th Sin – Absent marketing and sales process

If you’re like most companies, you’re using your marketing automation to generate leads for your sales team. This requires you to have an effective way of managing everything. If you don’t set up a process, then you might as well not use these tools.

Of course, this doesn’t substitute for an efficient sales team. You need closers still. Marketing automation will guide them, educate them and spark their interest, but it is still up to your team to close the deals.

6th Sin – Not nurturing

Lead management is key to help your sales team close deals. Lead nurturing is essential to keep them warm throughout the buying process, and to make sure your competitors don’t sneak in!

When your prospect comes to you in the beginning, you want to nurture them by sending useful content in forms of blog articles they should read, email notifying them of webinars, etc… This way you lead them out of the “interest” phase of the purchasing funnel right into the “desire” phase.

Thanks, Ryan!

Ryan Chester is a digital marketing connoisseur who loves anything related to search engine optimization, growth-hacking, pay-per-click, analytics or email marketing. He works at AnnexCore.com , developing digital marketing strategies for enterprises worldwide.