Monetizing Social Media: New Benchmark Data Identifies Most Effective Channels

As previously reported in StrongMail's "2010 Marketing Trends Survey," 59% percent of businesses plan to invest in social media in 2010.  It's clear that businesses are rushing to leverage social media to enhance their marketing efforts, but these efforts will be compromised without a clear understanding of the most effective channels for various objectives: awareness, retention, conversions, etc.

Instead of relying on trial and error, marketers now have access to a valuable new resource for indentifying the most effective social media channels for their business.  The December 2009 "Social Influence Benchmark Report" recently published by StrongMail features benchmark data drawn from millions of sharing activities across the StrongMail Influencer platform during Q3 2009.  By analyzing the channels that consumers actually use to share data and the extent to which those activities drive awareness or conversions, this new report provides marketers with the information they need to develop campaigns that take full advantage of the intrinsic value of various sharing methods.

Preferred Sharing Methods
According to the benchmark data, email generates 86% of all sharing activity, firmly establishing this proven channel as consumers' top sharing method.  Facebook and Twitter come in next at 6% and 4% respectively, but don't count these channels out.  A closer look at the data shows that these two channels are much more effective than email at extending viral reach.

Twitter and Facebook are Top Channels for Extending Viral Reach
While consumers are still more likely to share content via email, when they do post to Twitter or Facebook, these activities are highly effective at extending viral reach. Sharing via email generates a 41% click rate, which would seem to be fairly impressive when viewed in the context of traditional performance metrics.  However, at 223%, sharing via Facebook is almost six times as effective.  But Facebook has nothing on Twitter.  Every Twitter post generates 18.71 clicks, which translates to a 1,837% click rate.  This data clearly establishes Twitter and Facebook as go-to channels for driving brand awareness and extending your reach into new networks.  While most companies recognize the value of social network for driving awareness, most have not yet figured out how to leverage it to drive conversions.

Sharing via Email and Blogs Generate Highest Conversions
If conversions are you goal, the benchmark data reveals that sharing via email and on blogs is most effective at getting consumers to follow through with a prescribed activity, whether that be making a purchase, becoming a member or signing up for a mailing list.  In terms of this critical metric, email remains supreme, generating a 36.8% conversion rate on click activity from peer-to-peer invitations.  Email's ability to drive conversions is well established, and getting your consumers to share your content and offers via email only strengthens its ability to achieve key marketing objectives.

While email's top ranking here might not come as a surprise, the next best performing channel likely will.  Allowing consumers to take your content and offers and easily embed them into blogs and websites generates a 20% conversion rate, making it nearly 7 times as effective as Facebook (3%), which itself is 10 times better at driving conversions than Twitter (0.35%). 

Leveraging the Data
The Social Influence Benchmark report provides some valuable insight for the best ways to monetize social media and meet key marketing objectives.  Based on the data, marketers need to understand that while email is by far the preferred sharing method, they can't ignore channels like Twitter and Facebook, which are much more effective at extending viral reach.  As a result, any branding-focused campaign should heavily leverage these channels.  On the other hand, email should continue to be relied upon to drive conversions.  More specifically, combining the two channels can be an effective strategy for leveraging the strengths of each channel for meeting a brand's objectives. To succeed, marketers should look for ways to further target, incent and optimize their socialized email programs.

Marketers would also be well served by using available tools to define and identify key influencers within their databases. Knowing who your top influencers are will allow you to create targeted programs that leverage their influence to extend your message to new audiences. Finally, the benchmark data clearly shows that marketers shouldn't ignore providing the ability to enable consumers to share via blogs and websites. Not only do bloggers help to accelerate reach by promoting links and badges to their online networks, those links and badges actually convert at a higher rate than any other social channel, including Facebook.

Back to top

.................................................................................................

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010
StrongMail Clinic: Email and Social Media

Location: InterContinental Hotel ~ Miami, FL
Date: January 20 - 22, 2010

StrongMail will work with you to put together a customized recommendation for how to best integrate social media into your email marketing programs in order to achieve the following objectives:

• Acquire new customers
• Extend the reach of your brand
• Maximize customer loyalty and retention

Click to Advance RSVP >>

Download StrongMailís inaugural Social Influence Benchmark Report and find out not only which sharing methods are most preferred by consumers, but which channels generate the most viral reach and conversions. Before you develop a strategy for social media marketing, learn the latest trends that will enable you to maximize your success.

Advances in Video in Email Techniques Warrant a Second Look

Ask an email marketer about adding video into their promotional campaigns, and you'll likely get one of two answers – 1) It's not practical, as videos are largely blocked by receiving ISPs or 2) They mimic video in email by using a static image that links to a streaming version that's hosted on a web page. However, it is possible to have video render in a recipient's email client. This feat can be accomplished via two distinct types of technologies: the video .GIF and Goodmail's CertifiedVideo.

For companies that want to leverage video to enhance their email marketing campaigns, most marketers rely on using a static image that links to a streaming video. While this approach is compatible with all email clients, it still requires users to click to see the video. 

Video .GIFs overcome this obstacle by providing video via what is essentially an animated GIF.  If that phrase just conjured up an image of dancing hamsters, you likely haven't been exposed to new techniques for creating video .GIFs that are of similar quality to the real thing – minus the audio. The upside of video .GIFs is they render across all email clients, with the notable exception of Outlook 2007. Of course, there are technical considerations to address, such as file size, bandwidth, etc., but companies like LiveClicker have emerged to handle these aspects, making it very easy for companies to adopt this method.

The other option is Goodmail's paid CertifiedVideo service, which streams video directly into the recipient's inbox at AOL.  If a good portion of your list is comprised of AOL addresses, CertifiedVideo will allow you to send an email with streaming video that is guaranteed to render and play when opened by the recipient. If AOL isn't one of your top recipient domains, keep an eye out for announcements of other email clients being added to the service.  Goodmail already has relationships with the top-tier ISPs for its Certified Email service, so it's likely a matter of time before many of these sign up for the CertifiedVideo service as well. 

If you haven't yet considered video in email, there are some impressive statistics from key brands that demonstrate the kind of impact it can have.  SAP added video to one of its campaigns and saw its click-rate jump from 7% to 32%.  Even more impressive, in June 2009 eBags reported a 66% increase in sales in a year-over-year test of campaigns with and without video.

Regardless of your approach to video in email, there are a number of best practices that can help maximize the performance of the campaigns and the experience for the end user.  The first rule of thumb is to use video as a tool to create engagement and not distraction.  As such, the video should be used as a call to action, rather than a supporting visual element. Also, make sure that the first frame of the video also works well as a standalone image, as that's how it may be rendered by some mail clients that only show static images. Using Flash or JavaScript should also be avoided, unless you're using Goodmail CertifiedVideo.  Finally, don't forget to measure audience engagement, which can provide you unique insight into your email audience.

When done properly, video in email can help your messages stand out in an otherwise cluttered inbox. Plus, it has the added benefit of creating a more rich experience for communicating value to your customers. The bottom line is that video in email can be extremely effective at increasing subscriber engagement, and there are a number of new technologies available to make it happen in a way that is rewarding for both sender and recipient.  It's worth doing some research to test what approaches might work best for your business.

Back to top

.................................................................................................

The Latest on Inbox Deliverability, Sender Reputation and More

With the holidays upon us, there's been a lot of discussion about the uptick in online shopping.  More and more people are discovering the convenience of buying gifts online (especially when you're snowed in, like the East Coast was this past weekend), but e-tailers are still finding deliverability to be a significant obstacle. According to a recent study by email deliverability company Pivotal Veracity, 24% of all email marketing messages were not delivered to recipients' inboxes on Cyber Monday. This failure of nearly a quarter of all messages highlights the importance of focusing on ways your organization can maximize delivery to the inbox.  The following are some tips and tools that can help.

As mentioned in the October edition of the Advisor, ISPs are increasingly looking at engagement metrics to determine whether your message should reach the inbox. If you've been dragging your feet to upgrade the creative and relevancy of your messages or to simply remove inactive subscribers from your list, this new direction in filtering should serve as a wake-up call.

Engagement metrics are just one piece of the puzzle. You should start by finding out the reputation of our IP address, and a new IP Reputation lookup tool by AOL should help you out.  AOL recently revamped its Postmaster site, and the IP Reputation tool is featured as a Quick Link at the top. While you're there, you should sign up for their feedback loop.  If you're unclear on the value, AOL Postmaster Team member Annalivia Ford of the AOL Postmaster Team writes a compelling article on the benefits, as well as tips to leveraging the information to improve deliverability.  Some of the highlights include removing those who complain from your list, and evaluating your mailings for factors likely driving the complaints.

Finally, Return Path has published some insight into Microsoft's "Windows Live Sender Reputation Panel," which classifies up to 300,000 messages per day as "junk" or "not junk."  The panelists are randomly selected and the data they provide is used in conjunction with other factors to determine the deliverability of your messages.  Some of the tips Return Path offers to help ensure the proper treatment by these panelists include having a consistent "From" line, clear branding and consistent message frequency.

You can keep up with these developments and more by bookmarking or subscribing to StrongMail’s blog, Maximizing Deliverability.

Back to top

.................................................................................................