In just a few years, the advent of social media has completely changed the way we communicate and interact with people in our lives. Combine this with the coming of the smart phone and all of a sudden everyone is online, all the time. Words such as ‘like’ and ‘share’ have taken on a new meaning and a whole new world of communication has been opened up to us.
As well as a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, social media also brings new choice, new opportunity and new ways of businesses keeping in touch with their customers. Every major brand now has a Twitter feed and a Facebook page, whether this is for the purposes of customer service, brand awareness or in an effort to generate sales leads.
Even small and medium businesses are popping up on social network channels in an attempt to keep their finger on the pulse of this rapidly shifting environment. In fact, the social channels are seen as so important to the successes of businesses both large and small, a greater proportion of businesses’ marketing budgets are being allocated to the development of this media year on year. In 2009, the average spending on social media for the purposes of lead generation was around 9% of the total lead generation budget. That figure had almost doubled in the following year to an average of 17%.
Corporate websites more effective than social media
So, is this money well spent? Are companies seeing a return on their investment in social media? Unfortunately, it would seem, following recent research by business consultants, Demandbase, that despite the efforts being made to move sales away from the homepage, the majority of companies’ trade is still conducted primarily through the company website. In fact, the study showed that a company’s corporate website is around seven times more effective in generating sales leads than any type of activity involving social media.
It appears that despite the trend for businesses to put their efforts into online marketing, these are merely spokes leading back to the ‘hub’ which is the corporate website. This is the place where consumer interest is truly harnessed and interest is converted into sales.
It’s true that for the majority of consumers, business transactions will take place at the company website regardless of where their attention was caught and if that company website is not up to scratch, the sale will fall at the last hurdle. While investment in email marketing, social media, search engine optimisation and other online marketing tactics is still going to be money well spent, companies need to remember to allocate a good deal of their budgets to keeping the website current, user friendly and cutting edge.
In the survey by Demandbase, executives at companies were asked to rank the top online source of sales leads and almost a quarter of respondents cited the website as the top performer, well exceeding email marketing at 14%, online advertising via banners etc. at 7% with social media coming in a poor runner up at just 3%. Despite this recognition that their website was their most powerful sales tool, 80% of respondents thought their website was not performing to the best of its abilities and 87% thought more investment was needed into tracking unregistered users of the site and seeing at what point the user abandoned the site.
However, this doesn’t mean companies should entirely abandon their efforts on social media. While overall the corporate website should have the primary focus in terms of generating leads, there are other benefits to using social media to keep in touch with customers. A number of recent surveys have shown social media to be important for customer service and for maintaining brand awareness for all businesses. Small businesses even report good levels of business won through social media, with Facebook being the channel of choice for many.
With around 65% of adult Internet users now accessing social media sites on a regular basis, according to a recent Pew Internet survey (double the figure of 29% in 2008), the scope for communicating with clients via these channels should definitely not be overlooked. The key to the success of using social media to sell is not to expect direct sales from these channels. The corporate website is key to converting interest into a sale, but social media can be a superb tool to bring people into this domain. In terms of investment, the website should always come first, but there should be something left in the budget for social media and other forms of online marketing.
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