The end-result of any good marketing effort is to identify, engage and nurture the most qualified prospects, ensuring the leads generated drive the highest customer acquisition rate; or at least it should be.
There?s been a backlash towards the marketing industry, marketing professionals and even some marketing software platforms because of what many see as their inability to measure the direct result of their efforts vis-?-vis the business? bottom line.
Marketing ? and social media in particular ? is often criticized for being a soft-science.
Critics point to exercises such as branding, community building and social engagement as examples of efforts that may raise awareness of the brand name but are rarely able to link directly to the specific sales or profits generated by those activities.
The need to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media activities ? and by extension marketing ? has become a rallying cry of business executives and pundits alike.
Others claim that many modern social engagement programs are ineffectual due to their focus on short-term strategies instead of long-term value.
Influence, or Influential Fluff?
Here critics point to the trend in acquisition of simple measures of success such as followers, ?Likes? and shares, or even the use of social influence scoring platforms to identify brand advocates.
These short-cuts fall far short in identifying real influence, and instead drive poor and inaccurate results because they avoid the real work required to drive long-term business value and bottom-line results.
Criticisms aside, the practice of influence marketing must be re-strategized if it?s going to become an effective marketing tactic for businesses and gain the favour of executives that control marketing budgets.
The advent and use of social influence platforms where scores are the key metrics is not influence marketing. These platforms are a good exercise in product and brand amplification – but?true influence marketing is about measurable customer acquisition and lead conversion.
The practice of influence marketing needs to return to driving measurable sales instead of broad brand awareness. Our book, and this blog, will help your business drive that goal.
Stay tuned – it’s about to get interesting again.