How you can measure which social selling tactics yield the best results
Our blog often discusses strategies for leveraging social media to drive business conversations and convert them into tangible buyer actions. We also talk about how establishing programs equips sales teams with the necessary tools and messages to effectively engage with the right buyers at the right moment.
Today, let's show how various social selling tactics can optimize program outcomes, ensuring maximum utilization of its capabilities for optimal results.
Measuring results through analytics
Measurement of results attribution is essential to pinpointing the most effective social selling tactics for your company. Results attribution identifies which social selling tactics and subsequent client interactions contributed to achieving marketing goals. This process extends beyond social media channels to encompass the entire marketing funnel, drawing metrics from the customer journey to pinpoint the channels and messages that prompt potential buyers to act.
The ROI of a social selling campaign measures revenue, while attribution measures impact. Results attribution reveals the value of various points within your marketing channels, facilitating better connection with potential customers by illustrating how they arrived at purchasing from your business.
However, painting this picture isn't straightforward without a substantial amount of accumulated data over time. Nonetheless, it's a worthwhile endeavor. After all, determining the return on investment hinges on pinpointing how your social selling program contributes to sales. Social selling involves leveraging social media to initiate business conversations and ultimately convert them into buyer actions.
Attribution modeling
Attribution modeling involves assigning value to each customer interaction with your brand that ultimately results in a purchase. These models analyze the customer journey backward from the point of purchase, identifying and valuing all interaction points within the marketing funnel.
By utilizing attribution models, you gain insights into the effectiveness of your social strategy, identify the most and least significant stages in the customer journey, and determine where to concentrate your marketing efforts. Let's delve into the different types of attribution modeling to better understand their distinctions and applications.
Single source. Single source attribution models allocate all credit to one touchpoint, typically either the first or last touch.
The first touch attribution model credits how the customer initially learned about the product or service, focusing on the top of the marketing funnel.
Conversely, the last touch attribution model attributes credit to the customer's final interaction before completing a purchase.
Multi-touch. In the multi-touch attribution (MTA) model, every channel contributing to a customer's journey gets assigned credit, which presents challenges in tracking due to its detailed nature. The thorough nature of the MTA models makes them very challenging to manage, as tracking and analyzing touchpoints across various channels, from advertisements to webinars, requires suitable tools. There are many MTA models, but here are two basics.
In the linear multi-touch model, each interaction point is given equal weight, assuming all touchpoints hold equal significance, which might not be accurate.
The U-shaped model distributes 40% credit to both the first and last touch, with the remaining 20% distributed among intermediate touchpoints, acknowledging the importance of both initial and final interactions.
Weighted multi-touch. A weighted attribution model offers the most precise depiction of the customer journey, tailored to an organization's objectives. This algorithmic model assigns varying weights to touchpoints based on specific criteria, though it may require expert assistance for implementation due to its complexity.
Three attribution tracking tools:
Setting up an attribution model for your company might not be feasible at this moment, but that doesn't mean you should give up. There are accessible tools that you can utilize starting today.
Surveys are simple and effective tools for those just getting started. Incorporate a question in every lead generation process to inquire about how individuals discovered your company.
Bitly link shortening is a conversion and tracking solution that transforms lengthy URLs into unique, concise links. You can pay to have a branded one, so every short link generated has your company name.
Urchin Tracking Modules (UTM) enable the addition of tags to URLs, facilitating the tracking of link clicks and their association with specific campaigns. Particularly in social media, UTM tracking proves invaluable, providing insights into which networks warrant attribution.
Do the best you can.
Examining various models reveals why tracking attributes can pose challenges, yet the endeavor is worthwhile. We advocate for the adoption of several attribution tracking tools and prioritize the measurement of KPIs over immediate immersion in attribution models.
As you define objectives for your social selling team, these KPIs may evolve. With each campaign executed, data accrues, and proficiency in interpreting that data grows, enhancing the efficacy of your social selling team.
Are you prepared to incorporate attribution tracking tools or models into your marketing strategy? Which KPIs does your company presently assess? Share your insights with us on LinkedIn!
Photo by Serge Le Strat, Jeremy Ricketts, and Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash