One of the most common dilemmas that marketers face today are whether to focus on engagement which will ultimately lead to conversion, or have a conversion focused approach which will eventually (hopefully) engage audiences.
Though both are equally important it is important to get a fine balance between the two. The key probably is in understanding which one is probably more (a tiny bit more) important than the other, especially when busy marketing teams need to keep up with tight deadlines, key campaign dates, critical product launches while multi-tasking with measuring, recording as well as reporting ROI.
This in my opinion divides marketing into two broad categories.
1. Customer service engagement
This includes using social media network almost as an additional channel to service the customer. This often includes answering queries, creating awareness about the services and products, ensuring response times are short, troubleshooting is relevant and appropriate and handling POS enquiries is prompt. Almost as if replicating the effort of a customer service team, but in a faster and a wittier manner.
I found it interesting how Sainsbury’s a major super market brand (for those outside UK) turned around a situation with an unhappy customer ensuring matter is being looked into. Many a times that is all that matters;
It is not just a matter of responding to customers with humor when they complain but also when they need to be engaged with the brand which keeps them coming back.
Customers often need to have a dialogue and love it when they establish a relationship with products/services they like, while also equally get their dislike across towards those they passionately hate. Whatever the matter there is always a way to turn it around to the benefit of the company by being creative and adding a bit of humor to it.
This is applicable to even super niche sectors. Geico in the insurance sector has a mascot the gecko, which has its own Facebook and Twitter accounts.
2. Social media for marketing engagement
The marketing engagement type of marketing would mean measuring how many people engage with the brand on social media networks, how many favorite, like, RT, pin or share the content. There are various tools in the market today to measure the ‘Klout’ score. This often gives the sentiment about the company and measures their popularity. Some of the best ways to increase the customer service engagement score is to maximize the results through paid search, promoting tweets, paid search on LinkedIn and Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest especially for visually prominent information. @Oreo are a great example of engaging with audiences getting them to comment, tweet, like, pin or share and actively participate with the brand.
#MyOreoContest was a way in which the brand encouraged their audiences to not only help them come up with a new flavor but the ‘right flavor’ that will sell! With a contest that could win one lucky person $500,000 was a huge hit.
The call to action was simple,
-Create an idea for the next Oreo flavored cookies
-Share the suggested flavor via social media
-Respond to social media posts using #MyOreoContest and #Contest.
And bam! You’ve just registered yourself to win $500,000 if chosen!
Right there was an awesome way in which the brand encouraged its customers to participate in the process and enjoy its outcome in the form of a favourite flavored Oreo on the shelves!
There is no doubt that both of them are equally important, and more so important to get the right balance between having both approaches on your corporate social media networks. But it is important to understand that the marketing engagement through social media is more a nice-to-have rather than a must-have. It does not critically impact the brand if they do not post a ‘good morning’ message, or delay declaring the results of their competition by a few hours. On the other hand customer experience must-be answered or dealt with before it turns into a massive negative outrage of an infuriated customer complaining about their dissatisfaction. This could have a larger negative impact on the hard work done so far in building the brand image in the first place. One of the most common and best known ways to deal with customer service is giving freebies to compensate for the bad taste a particular brand has left in its customer’s mouth. As per one of my personal experience of getting reimbursed a few 1000 miles for finding a bug in my burger on an airline, did leave a nice taste in my mouth.
It is key to get the right balance between the two to reap the benefits of increased engagement as well as prompt customer service – which often results in happy, loyal and increasing number of customers for your business.
The key is to remember that no matter what your conversion rates are, they can always be better – ALWAYS!!
Good luck!
