Striking the Balance: Social Media Only an Ingredient in the Marketing Mix

Now that the dust is settling from the social media eruption, marketers are finally beginning to take a serious and strategic approach to the channel. Gone are the heady days of playing catch-up without a real strategy. However, some risky marketing behaviors remain, especially in regard to tracking and correlating results.

Marketers’ heavy investment in social media continues to grow. According to The CMO Survey released in February, conducted by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association, social marketing budgets will increase from 5.6 percent to 9.9 percent in the next year, and over the next five years social media is predicted to reach about 17.7 percent of all marketing spend. 

In the August 2010 CMO Survey, the report states, “Across the board, firms are still working to tie social media marketing to actual sales reports. Most marketers said their firms use social media metrics that aren't directly linked to sales, such as visits or page views (48 percent), and repeat visits (35 percent). Less than one-third of companies use conversion tracking or customer-level revenue-related analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of social media efforts.”

While social media continues to play an important — and growing — role for today's marketers, these statistics should be a wake-up call. How do marketers continue to justify investing more when they don’t know exactly what they're getting in return? Hard sales numbers can be difficult to link for many marketing campaigns, but this is a large and growing segment of marketers’ budgets devoted to an unknown.

Needless to say, too much social media marketing tunnel vision remains. It’s important to remember that it should be a part of your marketing mix. E-marketers, especially retailers, have a great opportunity to leverage the latest social media tools by combining them with tried-and-true marketing tactics.

You still need a safety net with social media marketing
Email marketing continues to be one of the most proven and effective ways to reach consumers. Direct mail continues to thrive, despite the recent uproar over possible postal rate increases. Promotional giveaways are inexpensive and produce significant impact with consumers.

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