ROI Requires Focus

The point of all the activities that surround marketing is to win customers over, to have them choose you over the other company/product/service. Stephen Denny writes that you could be doubling your ROI by winning in the last three feet. I'll give you the punch line: it's all about focus on execution.

This is particularly important when resources are scarce and times get tough. For your budget to be working - in funds and efforts - focus needs to come in at the moment of customer engagement, the point of influence.

ROI was the topic of yesterday's Blog Council meeting and unconference. How can a company and a business be at the point of influence with customers? In addition to being present and engaging in the physical place where they will be making the decision, of course. Some of the thoughts I had center around:

• building outposts, as Chris Brogan describes. This means extending Web sites to be more than just the corporate home. Sean has a post on that at Buzz Canuck, he calls them Web Assets. Part of that are a corporate blog, a cause-related site, an online community, a crowd-sourcing developer/idea site. Sean also outlines Web Extensions, which are sites not owned by the company, where the business has a presence - among them are social networks, customer/shopper forums, selling sites, social aggregation sites, expert sites, event sites, etc. The Pepsi Cooler on FriendFeed is an example of that, but only when it stops being so product-centered and becomes more story-centered wrapping around customer experience. Product being the reason for the social event.

Where are your customers online? Given that, what are the deal breakers in execution?

• paying attention to the outliers - as Malcolm Gladwell defines them in his new book (in stores November 18). This is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. He uses the definition to dig deeper in our understanding of success. There is a strong correlations between culture and success. While we're normally focused on examining what the individual has done, we should look at the context more. Things like the 10,000 hour rule can be helpful in framing this discussion.

In the same way that success is a group project, ROI is the result of a coordinated execution. What kind of collaboration can you orchestrate inside your company? Where do you need to focus your work to be at the point of influence? Hint: it's about doing what it takes to get it done.

• understanding the psychology of persuasion - according to Robert Cialdini, there are six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. People do go on automatic pilot. We are easily manipulated by our desire to be and to appear to be consistent with our past actions and statements, swayed by what the crowd is doing, etc. Social media plays a very important role on providing evidence for our already predisposed herd mentality, for example.

One ethical application of the principles of persuasion is of course to provide outstanding products and services that solve a problem, fill a need, respond to a want.

What is your point of influence in the buying process and how can you focus on that?

___________

Related posts:

ROI in Social Media is Not a One Time Deal
Measurement and ROI for Social Media
What's the "R" in Your ROI?
Return on Influence

Comments

[Maria Reyes-McDavis Social Media]

Valeria, thanks for the summary, this is great stuff! It's so very important, even for the little guy to really understand the return on their influence, you have to focus to really leverage all your social media efforts. Great stuff!

[jon burg]

Great post! Thanks for sharing!

In my experience, it's a question of level setting with the client or brand. What constitutes a return? How does that socially generated return substantiate it's value?

It's more of a question of value generated by investment than just direct return (dollars/sales). Thanks for posting.

[Jen]

Good ideas.
I'm all for the value in social media, but what about reaching the right public (to engage with)? How can we know that the people we're chatting with are the ones we want to be talking to?
I know that in print media, circulation auditing is big (www.buysafemedia.com for more info), but what about online media? Any thoughts

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Maria - I think it may become even more important for small businesses to understand their influence in the coming years.

@Jon - setting expectations and having a strategy are key. There's been many a time when everyone jumped right on the tactics without talking about what they are trying to accomplish. Value has always been big, it's going to become an even bigger consideration in a tight economic cycle.

@Jen - One thought is to engage those who are already talking about us. Online, it's fairly easy to find out who that is. Many online hubs of traditional print publications have circulation numbers - traffic, etc. That is also true for many sites that are part of an advertising network or that accept advertising. A good barometer is also the content offered by a publication - if it's sustainability, chances are really good that you're reaching that demographic.

[jnavarre]

Thank goodness for Pepsi that the logo is not the brand. Looking across the Biscayne Bay there is a row of Carnival Cruise ships with their logo painted on their smoke stacks. It is 99% identical to the new Pepsi logo - with one minor difference - the red is where the blue is and the blue is where the red it. But in my mind they look the same. Why would Pepsi spend millions on a new logo and not take into account the extreme similarity. Granted, not everyone out side of Miami sees Carnival ships on a regular basis, but all the same, every time I see them I think Pepsi. And now when I see Pepsi I'll think Carnival. Uh oh!