4. Increase marketing efficiency. With this goal, you seek to realize increases in marketing performance while decreasing the amount and time you spend on marketing. I realize this may scare marketers who are consistently asked “to do more with less.” However, it is far better to control the terms of your efficiency through Proprietary Audience Development than to have them foisted upon you in an unrealistic time frame.
Inspiration: Nike (@Nike), which scaled back its advertising costs by 40 percent while increasing investments in Owned Media.4
5. Increase Owned Media ROI. Proprietary audiences and content are opposite sides of the same coin. Accordingly, if your organization is keen on seeing its Owned Media (content) pay rich dividends, it may be wise to align your PAD Goals with those of the Owned Media/Content Marketing team. This partnership should prove mutually beneficial.
Inspiration: PetFlow (@PetFlow) generating over $10 million of its $30 million in 2012 revenues from social media.5
6. Increased Earned Media. PR professionals have long understood that media mentions provide measurable value to companies. If your company isn’t dominating the blog, press, and social headlines in your industry, it may be time to focus on developing AMPLFIERS capable of producing more Earned Media mentions for you.
Inspiration: The Oreo (@Oreo) Super Bowl XLVII blackout tweet that garnered more Earned Media buzz than Oreo’s paid advertisement.6
7. Increase CUSTOMER satisfaction. According to J.D. Power (@JDPower), 87 percent of highly satisfied consumers believe that social media interaction with brands “positively impacted” their likelihood to purchase. If your customer satisfaction scores are suffering, it may be worthwhile to set your sites on Proprietary Audience Development as a means to get them moving in the right direction.
Inspiration: United (@United) investing more in social media to improve customer communications and service.7
8. Decrease CUSTOMER service costs. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, FANS are sometimes your first line of customer service—rushing in on Facebook and other social channels to answer CUSTOMER questions and address complaints before you can get to them. If social media is proving to be a costly channel for your company to manage directly, Proprietary Audience Development may be able to assist by delivering larger, more engaged AMPLIFIERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS to cap or even reduce those costs.
Inspiration: Dreamfields Pasta (@HealthyPasta) has built a base of loyal Facebook FANS who answer questions regarding product availability, pricing, and use quickly and at no additional cost to the company.
9. Increase EMPLOYEE satisfaction. This may seem like an odd goal, but communication lies at the heart of Proprietary Audience Development. Therefore, if you’re experiencing a drop in EMPLOYEE satisfaction, it may be worth examining how focusing more intently on their needs could positively impact morale. Sometimes, it’s as simple as implementing a daily communication to EMPLOYEES or sending automated birthday, anniversary, and special occasion wishes.
Inspiration: Bonobos (@Bonobos) trains EMPLOYEES outside of customer service to manage social media inquiries. It speeds response times and boosts EMPLOYEE job satisfaction.8
10. Increase PARTNER satisfaction. As with EMPLOYEES, much of your PARTNERS’ satisfaction boils down to communication. Accordingly, helping to improve communications with and promotion of PARTNERS could be a goal that yields not only greater satisfaction but also greater PARTNER sales opportunities.
Inspiration: Cisco (@Cisco) pushing channel partners to become more active on social media to their mutual benefit.9
Whatever PAD Goals you choose, be sure to think like your boss. Results are what matter most in the boardroom; hence, you want to have a SMART strategy to support your goals.
4. Articulate Your PAD Strategy
A SMART strategy is:
Specific—Measurable—Achievable—Relevant—Timely
This classic planning acronym is most often associated with goal setting, but I prefer it to shape strategies, because they require more specific “above the shoulders” thinking than goals. Here’s a handy way of thinking about how your PAD Goals, Strategy, and Tactics fit together:
PAD Goals = Key objectives (your destination on the horizon)
PAD Strategy = Plan to get there (above-the-shoulders thinking)
PAD Tactics = Means to execute plan (below-the-shoulders action)
Here’s how one PAD Strategy may support one of the PAD Goals we discussed in the prior chapter:
PAD Goal = Increase Paid Media ROI
PAD Strategy = Use Paid Media not just to sell but also to build our proprietary audience of email SUBSCRIBERS
PAD Tactics = Creation and placement of advertisements containing unique CTAs that drive email opt-in