Return on Impression: This is a hard metric that marketers often measure to determine campaign performance. Tracking the return on impression is to track the number of people who actually see your ad, or other marketing material, but this metric only scratches the surface.

Return on Perception: The return on perception is a soft metric that focuses on the consumer perceptions of you brand. After all, it’s not companies that build brand, it’s their customers. Social media has allowed people to share their feelings about brands faster and easier than before. Therefore your marketing department needs to analyze how your marketing campaign will affect the perceptions of your brand.

Return on Engagement: Once you have identified the online sentiments about your brand, you need to analyze how people are engaging with you and your content. There are tools that track website traffic, comments, social sharing and so on, but ultimately, you have to understand the relationship between your consumers, influencers and brand. Understanding why people interact with your brand is extremely valuable and will help you create effective marketing campaigns down the line.

Return on Objectives: With traditional ROI, it’s hard to tell whether your marketing campaign has moved your business objectives in the right direction. For example, we all know having a blog, Facebook page and Twitter will help to build your long-term branding goals. Understanding how marketing efforts assist with long-term business objectives will give you the ability to create a comprehensive integrated marketing plan and a data tracking strategy that delivers the best results.

Today, only focusing on traditional ROI just doesn’t tell the whole story. But understanding the new ROIs mentioned above will give you edge over your competitors who are still stuck in 20^th century marketing.

Earlier this year, RBM announced new management changes and a pivoting of business strategy around the belief that “there is magic in the data.” “We are very excited about the sales momentum that we have achieved with our new corporate pivot and leadership.” said Elliott Easterling, CEO.

RBM will guide high-performing, data-driven digital marketing programs encompassing social media, SEO, paid media, analytics, and Web development for its new clients, who join an existing client roster that includes industry-leading companies like Hitachi GST and DYMO Endicia.

One in Five

The average consumer based off a sampling of the general population are willing to spend up to 13% more on excellent service for their products. Consumers who have used social media on the other hand are willing to spend up to 21% more. Social media-savvy consumers also tend to tell more people about good service experiences, having an average reach of 42 people, nearly three times the 15 people reached by those belonging to the ‘General Population’ category. The same holds true when it comes to bad customer service experiences as well, with the more social media-savvy consumers reaching an average of 53 people compared to 24 people reached by the ‘General Population’. Social media-savvy consumers also tend to abandon the purchase process due to poor customer service with 83% saying that they have done so in the past twelve months.

So what does this mean?

It’s a clichéd phrase but companies must realize that their brand’s reputation is no longer theirs to dictate to their customers. As more consumers continue to embrace social media, that 17% of consumers will continue growing. Their expectations are higher and their reactions more amplified, therefore their effects on your brand’s social perception are larger as well.

Social-media savvy consumers are not going away and they are increasingly becoming an integral in the creation of brand perception.  Compromising on customer service can lead to far-reaching negative effects on your brand’s reputation.

Make it easier for your consumers to become your advocates.  Give them the great service they crave and not only will it help you improve your bottom line, it will also help you manage your brand reputation and ultimately foster enduring loyalty among your consumers.

The fragmentation in relation to media channels occurs when the buyer and seller hold different plans for the same media channel. The solution is to implement a platform that is capable of monitoring a campaign holistically – tracking delivery and downstream actions, optimizing media allocation and creative in real time.

In order to achieve overall campaign success and maximize client happiness, marketers and agencies need to adopt programs which provide comprehensive insights into campaign performance, while also providing proactive recommendations for further optimizations.

Here are some interesting facts from the infographic:

• Facebook’s new cover photo is 170% larger than the previous profile picture
• Pinterest hit 10 million monthly uniques faster than any other site in history
• Instragram has hit 27 million accounts—up from 15 million at the end of 2011*

*As of the writing of this, Instagram has hit 50 million accounts

Infographic courtesy of John Lanigan

• Digital Natives switch their attention between media platforms 27 times per hour, about every other minute
• 54% of Digital Natives prefer texting people rather than talking to them vs. 28% of Digital Immigrants
• 65% of Digital Natives take their devices from room to room with them vs. 41% of Digital Immigrants

These statistics speak considerably to not only the lower attention span of Digital Natives, but their lower emotional engagement level.  The implication for marketers then is that content created for Digital Natives needs to be more gripping and relevant.

This ongoing trend of channel fragmentation will continually be shifting the ways we approach content creation, curation and marketing.

• “Lots of unstructured data can be used to gain access to your customers.”
• “More content about your company exists off your website than on, you need to market to where those conversations are.”
• “Harnessing competitive intelligence gives a map of opportunities in real time.”
• “Social listening provides real time insight, enabling marketers to make relevant, timely decisions.”

And a very insightful quote from Diana during the presentation:

• “It’s important to be part of the conversation, not THE conversation.”

Don’t worry if you missed out on attending Elliott’s speaking spot last night.  Both Andy Leinicke, our Director of Media & Customer Insights, and Peter Vaughan, our Senior Director of Integrated Solutions, are speaking at Digital Hollywood down in LA.

If you were there at the BMA event Wednesday night, please feel free to share your thoughts on it in our comments section.

The venue claiming process used to rely on snail mail and a national database of phone numbers that caused a lot of issue for businesses like Food Trucks and retailers with multiple locations.  With this update, merchants can use any phone number to instantly claim their business, making things quick and painless. The $10 fee is said to be more of a deterrent for invalid venue claims, rather than a play to monetize the platform by Foursquare.

Foursquare hopes to roll this change out internationally “very soon”.  Stay tuned for info on how this test update evolves and if this rolls out to all merchants in the future.

Current venue claim process

Image courtesy of Foursquare

The Client frame of mind:  “We want an agency that is versatile enough in its structure, systems and business practices to be able to emulate an in-house department.”

The Agency frame of mind: “Consumer behavior has changed… But, our internal processes haven’t.”

Take a look at some highlights from the webinar that illustrate how to morph your agency’s internal processes to align with your clients’ needs and expectations:

• An Agile Agency: composed of small teams empowered to make decisions on the project, they participate in DAILY collaboration to improve work based on customer feedback.
• Who makes up an agile team? A strategist, relationship manager, project manager, creative lead, technologist
• Insights (magic) vs. Information (logic): Clients are interested in insights not information. All brands today have access to massive amounts of information, though they need someone to distill down the information into actionable insights.
• Multichannel Solutions: Consumers today utilize multiple channels throughout the day to interact with content and media they are interested in and passionate about. It is not the job of the consumer to interact with the brand; it is the job of the brand to interact where their consumers are most active and passionate.
• Clients today want the agencies they work with to be proactive rather than reactive. Meaning, clients want their agencies to come to them with fresh and innovative ideas without having to ask. They are looking for more than just a partner— they are looking for a leader.

Agencies need to adapt to the changes in the digital landscape by creating innovative programs and processes that inspire engagement across various channels. This requires extreme dedication and commitment to your initiatives, while continuing to measure and re-asses your current path and overall goals.

Thank you again to Tim Williams of Ignition Consulting for his insightful Webinar.

“More communication about a brand or product happens off the brand’s website than on it. Brands are losing their tight grip on their message as social channels proliferate. How can brands better leverage these social channels and harness the rich prospect and customer communications that span the social graph?”

Tickets for the events are still available for purchase on the NorCal BMA website.