Jonathan Chiriboga asked:
The answer to this question is contingent upon your analytical skills. My tool of choice to prove the value of social media to lead generation and sales-focused people is Google Analytics.
In order to make this determination, goals and goal values in Google Analytics must be set up first. Once you’ve got goals and goal values, go into Google Analytics and find the Conversions menu on the left hand side:
Once you’ve found the section called Assisted Conversions and clicked on the item mult-channel funnels, you should see a screen that looks like this (assuming that you have goals and goal values operational):
What we see above is that social media has driven real revenue. In this particular case, since this is my personal website, Google Analytics is measuring eCommerce activity from book purchases. Social media drove 44 last touch purchases (meaning a social network post was the last thing someone did before buying) worth 142.53. Social also drove 24 assisted purchases (meaning that the social network post was part of the value chain but not the last thing someone did before buying) worth77.70. Combined, social was worth $220.53, or 15.3% of my sales.
No VP of sales would dare throw away 15% of their sales revenue, not if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Now, if you’re B2B or complex B2C (because they’re the same thing), you’ll instead be measuring the inferred value of the leads you create, rather than the transactions themselves.
When you can prove that social media has a direct tie to sales, it becomes straightforward to sell in social. At this point, social media is a relatively known quantity, and there are case studies all over the Internet on sites like MarketingProfs and MarketingLand that you can show a skeptical VP of Sales or CMO. By explaining the above measurement strategy as part of your social program, you’ll prove that you’ve got your eye on what really matters to them, and that will go a long way towards getting their approval.
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