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Dedication

This is dedicated to the people featured in these case studies who proved Social Media Marketing ROI

You taught me to achieve results beyond your expectations technological know-how and money runs a very distant second to a belief in yourself your brand and courage

Acknowledgements

Something happened in compiling these case studies I never expected The people I wrote about wrote back Maybe thatrsquos what differentiates Social Media Marketing

Through a Google Alert they saw someone had written about them so they reached out to help In the process this eBook turned into a global collaboration People told their story from places ranging from Korea the Netherlands England Chicago and Atlanta to Milwaukee proving the principles of social media marketing work everywhere

More important friendships were developed and I learned around the world how tied the values of relationships are to social media marketing success

Special thanks and much appreciation to

David Berkowitz

Toby Bloomberg

Tom Dickson

Eric Greenburg

Augustine Fou

CK Kerley

Mari Luangrath

Mike Moran

Stan Phelps

Joe Sorge

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Social Mediahelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip4-24 33 Case Studies Prove Social Media ROI

Another 33 Case Studies Prove Social Media ROI

6 Social Media ROI case studies with something in common courage

12 case studies prove social and traditional media work better together

What is the ROI of Walmarts Facebook page A lot by many measures

Chapter 2 Social CRMhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip25-29 16 case studies that prove Social CRM

Chapter 3 SEOhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip30-33 10 case studies prove ROI of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Chapter 4 Social Commercehelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip34-44 12 case studies that prove Social Commerce ROI

Chapter 5 Customer Servicehelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip45-51 12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI

How 12 companies built trust using Twitter for customer service

Chapter 6 Social Promotionhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip52-65 10 case studies prove ROI of social media promotion

9 case studies where social media took out the middleman

Bio Rob Petersenhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip66

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33 case studies prove Social Media ROI

ldquoHow do I measure social media ROIrdquo is the 1 social media question people ask according to Social Media Examiner

Recently at lunch with David Berkowitz Senior Director of Emerging Media and Innovation at 360i and blogger behind 100 Ways to Measure Social Media this question came up and we thought Letrsquos compile case studies that prove social media ROI

Here are 34 social media case studies that prove ROI These 34 case studies cover B2C B2B profit and non-profit areas They include businesses big and small They prove social media ROI based on

Sales

Shorter Sales Cycles

New Leads

Improved Company Operations and Innovations that resulted in a better way to do business

Conclusion Significant results are proven to occur in social media where low out-of-pocket investments lead to high ROIrsquos when businesses 1) Have a clear business strategy 2) Arenrsquot afraid to jump in 3) Use their imagination to make the most out of social channels customer engagement and brand relationship

Each case study has a summary headline with key results and links to reference sites for more complete details So next time someone at your company questions whether social media demonstrates ROI you can give them these 34 case studies you can also let them know there are more on the way

33 CASE STUDIES PROVE SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

1 AFTER STEAZ Organic Tea doubled sales through coupons downloaded and shared on Facebook and Twitter with discussion of the how and why organic teas mattered 250000 coupons were downloaded and 2830 tweets were recorded an hour

2 AJ BOMBERS Owner Joe Sorge used Twitter as social maicirctrersquod to build relationships with 75 of his customers at his Milwaukee burger joint and weekly sales were up +60 a year later without spending $1 in traditional media AJ BOMBERS also declared a

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Social Mediahelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip4-24 33 Case Studies Prove Social Media ROI

Another 33 Case Studies Prove Social Media ROI

6 Social Media ROI case studies with something in common courage

12 case studies prove social and traditional media work better together

What is the ROI of Walmarts Facebook page A lot by many measures

Chapter 2 Social CRMhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip25-29 16 case studies that prove Social CRM

Chapter 3 SEOhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip30-33 10 case studies prove ROI of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Chapter 4 Social Commercehelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip34-44 12 case studies that prove Social Commerce ROI

Chapter 5 Customer Servicehelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip45-51 12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI

How 12 companies built trust using Twitter for customer service

Chapter 6 Social Promotionhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip52-65 10 case studies prove ROI of social media promotion

9 case studies where social media took out the middleman

Bio Rob Petersenhelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphelliphellip66

barnraisersllccom

4

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33 case studies prove Social Media ROI

ldquoHow do I measure social media ROIrdquo is the 1 social media question people ask according to Social Media Examiner

Recently at lunch with David Berkowitz Senior Director of Emerging Media and Innovation at 360i and blogger behind 100 Ways to Measure Social Media this question came up and we thought Letrsquos compile case studies that prove social media ROI

Here are 34 social media case studies that prove ROI These 34 case studies cover B2C B2B profit and non-profit areas They include businesses big and small They prove social media ROI based on

Sales

Shorter Sales Cycles

New Leads

Improved Company Operations and Innovations that resulted in a better way to do business

Conclusion Significant results are proven to occur in social media where low out-of-pocket investments lead to high ROIrsquos when businesses 1) Have a clear business strategy 2) Arenrsquot afraid to jump in 3) Use their imagination to make the most out of social channels customer engagement and brand relationship

Each case study has a summary headline with key results and links to reference sites for more complete details So next time someone at your company questions whether social media demonstrates ROI you can give them these 34 case studies you can also let them know there are more on the way

33 CASE STUDIES PROVE SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

1 AFTER STEAZ Organic Tea doubled sales through coupons downloaded and shared on Facebook and Twitter with discussion of the how and why organic teas mattered 250000 coupons were downloaded and 2830 tweets were recorded an hour

2 AJ BOMBERS Owner Joe Sorge used Twitter as social maicirctrersquod to build relationships with 75 of his customers at his Milwaukee burger joint and weekly sales were up +60 a year later without spending $1 in traditional media AJ BOMBERS also declared a

barnraisersllccom

4

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33 case studies prove Social Media ROI

ldquoHow do I measure social media ROIrdquo is the 1 social media question people ask according to Social Media Examiner

Recently at lunch with David Berkowitz Senior Director of Emerging Media and Innovation at 360i and blogger behind 100 Ways to Measure Social Media this question came up and we thought Letrsquos compile case studies that prove social media ROI

Here are 34 social media case studies that prove ROI These 34 case studies cover B2C B2B profit and non-profit areas They include businesses big and small They prove social media ROI based on

Sales

Shorter Sales Cycles

New Leads

Improved Company Operations and Innovations that resulted in a better way to do business

Conclusion Significant results are proven to occur in social media where low out-of-pocket investments lead to high ROIrsquos when businesses 1) Have a clear business strategy 2) Arenrsquot afraid to jump in 3) Use their imagination to make the most out of social channels customer engagement and brand relationship

Each case study has a summary headline with key results and links to reference sites for more complete details So next time someone at your company questions whether social media demonstrates ROI you can give them these 34 case studies you can also let them know there are more on the way

33 CASE STUDIES PROVE SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

1 AFTER STEAZ Organic Tea doubled sales through coupons downloaded and shared on Facebook and Twitter with discussion of the how and why organic teas mattered 250000 coupons were downloaded and 2830 tweets were recorded an hour

2 AJ BOMBERS Owner Joe Sorge used Twitter as social maicirctrersquod to build relationships with 75 of his customers at his Milwaukee burger joint and weekly sales were up +60 a year later without spending $1 in traditional media AJ BOMBERS also declared a

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5

33 case studies prove Social Media ROI

ldquoHow do I measure social media ROIrdquo is the 1 social media question people ask according to Social Media Examiner

Recently at lunch with David Berkowitz Senior Director of Emerging Media and Innovation at 360i and blogger behind 100 Ways to Measure Social Media this question came up and we thought Letrsquos compile case studies that prove social media ROI

Here are 34 social media case studies that prove ROI These 34 case studies cover B2C B2B profit and non-profit areas They include businesses big and small They prove social media ROI based on

Sales

Shorter Sales Cycles

New Leads

Improved Company Operations and Innovations that resulted in a better way to do business

Conclusion Significant results are proven to occur in social media where low out-of-pocket investments lead to high ROIrsquos when businesses 1) Have a clear business strategy 2) Arenrsquot afraid to jump in 3) Use their imagination to make the most out of social channels customer engagement and brand relationship

Each case study has a summary headline with key results and links to reference sites for more complete details So next time someone at your company questions whether social media demonstrates ROI you can give them these 34 case studies you can also let them know there are more on the way

33 CASE STUDIES PROVE SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

1 AFTER STEAZ Organic Tea doubled sales through coupons downloaded and shared on Facebook and Twitter with discussion of the how and why organic teas mattered 250000 coupons were downloaded and 2830 tweets were recorded an hour

2 AJ BOMBERS Owner Joe Sorge used Twitter as social maicirctrersquod to build relationships with 75 of his customers at his Milwaukee burger joint and weekly sales were up +60 a year later without spending $1 in traditional media AJ BOMBERS also declared a

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ldquoFoursquare Dayrdquoto earn a Swarn Badge and increased sales +110

3 BEST BUY (Twelp Force)Best Buy employee communities grew to 2200 employees within 3 months and responded to over 13000 customers on social networks answering public questions concerns and opinions The Twitter feed twelpforcenow counts over 29000 followers and the number of questions averages 100-125 per day and is considered a key value-add by customers and the company BLENDTEC CEO Tom Dickson ran viral commercials on YouTube to sell blenders direct-to-consumers and increased company sales +700

4 BURBERRY Social microsites secured 1000000 fans and a 10 increase in same-store sales

5 CADBURY (Wispa Chocolate Bar)22000 fans of Cadbury Wispa petitioned the company on Facebook to bring back the discontinued chocolate bar 40 million bars were released and sold out in 18 weeks a rate of 4 per second

6 CISCO Launched a new router and achieved goals using only social media It saved the company $100000primes

7 CLOROX Launched online community CloroxClassroomscom with blog and Twitter effort on Labor Day weekend at the beginning of the school year Twitter page was among the Top 10 trending topics over Labor Day weekend and blog was recognized by the Marketing to Mom Coalition and mommy bloggers for excellence in terms of delivering sharable information

8 COFFEE GROUNDZ Used Twitter as a direct ordering channel between the company and its customers Coffee Groundz reported 20-30 increase in company sales and market share via Twitter

9 COMCAST StartedldquoComcast Caresrdquo Twitter customer service center and attracted 2700 followers Many who were critics of the company changed to raving fan Quality of attention and dialogue serves as model for the the company

10 CONAGRA FOODS (Huntrsquos Ketchup)Advocates of Huntrsquos pleaded with ConAgra through Facebook to stop putting high fructose corn syrup in what they believe is the ldquobest ketchup everrdquo The company acts responsibly and stops Ok This might not track to direct sales but itrsquos a great use of social media for a greater good

11 DELL Used Twitter to create ldquoDell Outletrdquo and booked $3 million in revenue in one year from Twitter postings

12 DOMINOrsquoS Credited Foursquare with a 29 pre-tax profit through promotions that encourage people to check in to their stores

13 DR VAKSMAN (DENTIST)Dentist with five month old dental practice in San Francisco attracted 320 new clients through social media presence including Facebook Twitter LinkedIn and YouTube

14 DUNKINS DONUTS Ran annual promotion ldquoCreate Dunkinrsquo Next Donutrdquo through social networks to award grand winner with $12000 plus yearrsquos supply of donuts It generated more than 130000 submission for 174000 votes and ldquoa healthy response in

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sales during the promotion periodrdquo according to manager of interactive and relationship marketing David Tyler

15 HARLEY DAVIDSON (HDTalkingcom)Harley owners created website and social community totally funded by users and user-generated content Here Harley owners trades photos jokes where to find hard to find parts advice on Harley models and ownership plus there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times HDtalkingcom now has 35000+ and cost to Harley is negligible

16 HISPANITO Major hispanic online community wwwhispanitocom created entirely through social network Within a year it had 56000 registered users plus 150000 unique visitors with 6000000 pages viewed every month

17 IKEA Used one of the most popular and basic functions on Facebook tagging pictures and used it to IKEArsquos advantage to promote its showroom products from sales people to regular people creating recommendation and advocates all over the world and a +15 lift in sales

18 IBM Decided to let company employees set up their own blog and Twitter accounts to service customers and reported the following stats There was no IBM corporate blog or Twitter account but there were 17000 internal blogs 100000 employees using internal blogs and as many as 500000 participants in company crowd-sourcing ldquojamsrdquo Results showed Crowd-sourcing identified 10 best incubator businesses which IBM funded for $100 million and generated $100 billion in total revenue for a 10-to-1 ROI with a 441 gross profit margin

19 INDIUM A company that manufactures special alloys isnrsquot sexy neither is convincing 14 of its engineers to start blogs But that exactly what the company does It increased leads prospects conversions and sales by double digits plus it gave customers the opportunity to know the companyrsquos employees personally

20 JETBLUE Started a Twitter account to have more direct relationship with customers and potential customera and to listen and respond how they could serve them better and deal directly with any complaints They now have over 15 million followers

21 KOGI A Food Truck serving Korean BBQ in LA used Twitter to let them customers know where the truck was and when it would be in their neighborhood They had over 65000 followers and 300 to 800 customers every time the truck parked

22 LIVESTRONG Raised $108 million with the Livestrong Challenge which occurred through social media channels with a blog serving as the hub This occurred in 2009 in the midst of a deep recession that was particularly hard on non-profits

23 LOUIS E PAGE INC Fencing supplier really took off when now-owner Duncan Page added a blog to the business website Duncan himself was surprised to find an article about how to use woven wire fencing to build a horse paddock attracted more than 1500 views alone The result traffic media coverage and an 850 increase in sales leads

24 MOONFRUIT Website builder offered free Apple product via Twitter and got 44113

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followers that resulted in a 600 increase for sign-up As another result of the promotion ldquoMoonfruitrdquo and ldquoMoonfruit Twitterrdquo rose to top-ranking search term on Google for website builders

25 NECU JADRANU KOSOR ZA PREMIJERKU300 member Croatian Facebook group used Facebook and Twitter to break news of sudden unexpected resignation of prime minister of Croatia a few minutes before mainstream media They became the largest Facebook group in Croatia within 24 hours and now have over 100000+ fans

26 ORACLE Layered social networks on top of current communication channels and trained 25000 partners while reducing costs boosting satisfaction and increasing PR

27 PIZZA HUT iPhone app for ordering accounted for 50 of orders and generate $1000000 in revenues

28 PROCTERampGAMBLE Launched social community for Tampax and Always with website Beinggirlcom The site focused on the shared interest of early teen girls Social community outperformed traditional channels with ROI of 4-to-1 Beinggirlcom was expanded to 21 countries

29 SICKKIDS The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto Ontario set up a wiki Casafin Ontario Wiki for Doctors to access resources and share ldquobest practicesrdquo Over 400 physicians participated in the Wiki and comparisons were made between those who did and did not Cafasin Ontario Wiki users reported higher levels of practice change greater CAFAS knowledge and greater satisfaction with CAFAS implementation supports Not only did they feel their learning curve had been accelerated thanks to the wiki they felt more comfortable with transition

30 SNAPPLE Created Twitter account to share simple facts about its beverages and gained 10000 followers

31 STARBUCKS (MyStarbucksIdeacom) Went to customers for new product ideas ldquoWe used to launch a new product and it cost millions of dollars Now when we launch a new product we already have millions of fansrdquo say Chris Bruzzo Vice President Brand Content and Online at Starbucks

32 TURBOTAX TeamTurboTax launched Twitter campaign to respond and answer questions during key tax season and found customers were 71 more likely to recommend TurboTax because of their interactions with the company through Twitter

33 VIRGIN AMERICA Usedldquo promoted tweetsrdquo to offer additional values to travelers and revenues to Virgin American and saw 6-15 of travelers logged on through WiFi connections for 300 to 500 inflight tweets per day

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Another 33 case studies prove Social Media ROI

Last week we published 33 Case Studies that Prove Social Media ROI This week wersquove added another 33 to bring us to 66 case studies that prove social media ROI

The purpose Prove (with 67 examples) the value of social media and understand the ROI principles at work to help any brand thinking about using social media to build their business

The business principles Clear business strategy + Defined measurements goals + Willingness to jump in + Imagination + Commitment = $$$ ROI

We asked for input along the way Reineke Reitsma a Forrester Analyst in Amsterdam asked for some social media programs that failed We have two one from KFC and one from Starbucks While both ldquofailedrdquo because the companies were not prepared for overwhelming consumer response they show the ability of social media to drive demand When customers came en masse the two companies reacted in entirely different ways Irsquoll let you judge who showed good social media manners and bad Theyrsquore below as well and were referred by Tom Chernaik a friend in NYC and Co-Founder of Cmply who I thank

So the next time someone at your company questions whether social media has proven ROI refer them to these You might also ask Are there 67 case studies that prove ROI for what our company does

ANOTHER 33 CASE STUDIES THAT PROVE SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

1 ADIDAS Used social networks to do guerrilla marketing on mobile (eg Facebook Twitter SMS) in and around NBA All-Star Game and increased retail sales 20X goal in Las Vegas (where All-Star Game occurred)

2 AMERICAN RED CROSS During Hurricane Katrina multiple organizations had trouble coordinating and sharing information connecting children to their parents Because 44 of web users found social network as an alternative social media reconnected more families than organized support and regular media combined ldquoOne person can take a photo One person can post a messagehellipand it changes our understanding of a situation immediatelyrdquo said Macon Phillips special assistant to the President

3 BARACK OBAMA Social media campaign for the President on MyBarackObamacom raised $30000000 from over 70000 personal fund-raising pages 400000 blogs 35000 groups and 200000 offline events I sometime wonder when social media was so

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10

successful getting the President elected why itrsquos not being used more strategically now

4 BARE ESSENTIALS Makeup manufacturer used combination of e-mail and social media to achieve unique visitor engagement rate of 75 and equivalent conversation rate to mass media channel at a small fraction of the cost

5 BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH The updating of personal status on social network pages for women with breast cancer received more media attention on CNN and newspaper networks than the paid efforts of numerous PR firms The difference of course was the former was a marginal investment and later was paid support

6 COCA-COLA Achieved strongest global marketing integration ever with Expedition 206 a social media promotion where a small group of travel ambassadors went to 206 countries over 365 days to ldquogenerate happinessrdquo and published on social networks It enabled global promotion execution among 3500 Coca-Cola marketers around the world

7 COLGATE Launched Wisp disposable toothpaste through ldquoBe More Kissablerdquo social media video campaign (+30 more involvement) that ran on YouTube Twitter and Facebook It achieved reach of 10000000+ rivaling mass advertising at small fraction of the cost

8 DIGITAL Magazineblogwebsite with pay-per-click business model linked social media outreach to SEO for site authority Goal was to deliver 10000+ viewers to show profitability social media delivered 100000+ viewers for sustainable success

9 FORD FIESTA Used social media for US launch to generate mass reach build relationships with key targets and achieve reservations-to-conversion sales rates that were 10X higher than expected On YouTube Ford Fiesta generated 6200000 views with 132000 consumers raising their hand for more information On Flicker there were 750000views 83 were new to Ford On Twitter there were 40000000 impression 30 were car buyers under 25

10 EMC B2B social media effort that achieved business transformation by creating a global company-wide social community EMC ONE This connected and increased collaboration resulting in double-digit revenue growth in more than 60 countries

11 EMERSON SALON Saavy used combination of blogs Facebook and Twitter to reach 75 of their customers and drive positive reviews on Yelp This built business because 90 of all purchase decision begin on the internet and 85 are looking for an independent review Co-Founder Matt Buchon said ldquoitrsquos rare for even a walk-in customer to come in and not have be read our blog or seen our tweetsrdquo

12 FELA Off Broadway play Fela created Facebook campaign aimed at Facebook users with interests like theatrical shows or Afro beat They spent $4400 in time management and Facebook ad costs and generated $40000 in ticket sales for ROI of 9-to-1

13 FISKARS 300 year old Finnish company that makes fine cutting tool created online social community of crafting enthusiasts called ldquoFriskateersrdquo to reach underutilized

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channel of small retailers for a 3X increase in company sales

14 FOILED CUPCAKES Generated 93 of its business through social media leads to surpass revenue target by +600

15 GENERAL MOTORS Launched ldquoFastLanerdquo one of the first blogs personally written by senior executives Customer feedback given through a blog saved the company $180000year versus traditional focus group research not to mention the enormous good will of company executives responding to consumers not a focus group moderator

16 HampR BLOCK Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business HampR used Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for QampA in the ldquoGet It Rightrdquo social media campaign The effort secured 1500000 unique visitors and answered 1000000 questions for a 15 lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media ldquoGet It Rightrdquo program

17 KFC (BAD EXECUTION BUT HONORABLE BEHAVIOR) Ran coupon promotion on Facebook and Twitter for a Free Grilled Chicken dinner High value resulted in coupons passed around virally on the internet and KFC franchises ran out of food yet they honored everyone who came with a coupon eventually and people appreciated their responsible behavior Check out Starbucks for a similar promotion and a company who didnrsquot behave so responsibly

18 JIMMY CHOO Best known as a designer for womenrsquos shoes Jimmy Choo used Twitter to geo-locate and feature upscale stores where their sneakers were available and saw a +33 increase in sneaker sales a 40 increase in positive mentions and 4000 participants in his Twitter effort

19 JOHNSONampJOHNSON (BABYCENTERCOM)8 year old onlinesocial media community connected and engaged 8000000 new and expectant moms in the US (78 of total) and another 165 million in 21 countries A major profit center for JampJ and in fact a major social brand

20 JOIE DE VIVRE A company that operates 33 luxury hotels in California on Tuesday nights broadcasted special $79night deals to its Twitter account of 10000 followers and Facebook page of 5000 fans It booked roughly 1000 rooms that would have stayed empty with virtually no investment

21 JUSTIN BOOTS Attributed 95 of sales to social media on a budget that was half of traditional media

22 KINAXIS B2B supply chain management company used 18 employee bloggers and focused on category thought leadership and it generated over 42000000 leads Thatrsquos 2180000 per blogger

23 KRAFT (TOLBERONE) In the Phillipines Kraft wanted to make Toblerone a Swiss chocolate bar synonymous with gratitude The company established October 20 as the countryrsquos National Thank You Day Website httpwwwthankyoudayphilippinescommuseum and social network outposts

barnraisersllccom

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generated nearly 500000 hits and Toblerone sales escalated 132

24 MARS (PEDIGREE) As part of integrated ldquoPedigree Adoption Driverdquo Pedigree created ldquoBecome a fan help a dogrdquo Facebook group When campaign started there were 55000 fans At the end there were 1000000+ In terms of involvement users sent 6000 photos 50 videos 1000rsquos of comments and most important made donationfor 1100000 bowls of dog food

25 PAGANUM FARMERS MARKET Small network of UK farmers proved blogs and social network advertising produced better return on investment than any other online or offline consideration

26 PETCO Leveraged the voice of their customers by implementing the Bazaarvoice RatingsampReviews solution which went live on their site As a results website clicks were nearly 5 times higher Top-Rated Products category had a 49 higher conversion rate and customers spending saw a growth of nearly 63 on PETCOrsquos top-rated products

27 PIPERSPORT AIRPLANES Sold $140000 airplanes online through search optimized video content and social networks The sale of the 1st plane drove ROI through the roof

28 QUICKEN Launched social community and blogger outreach to build long-term relationships with future and potential customers and provided free credit reportsscores home value report and mortgage recommendations Quizzlecom received over 425000 visits and 70000 accounts were created without a dollar spent in traditional advertising

29 STARBUCKS (BAD EXECUTION AND BAD BEHAVIOR) Like KFC (above) Starbucks ran limited duration coupons through social media in limited markets Coupons spread virally on social networks but Starbucks unlike KFC above) wouldnrsquot honor them So Caribou Coffee did instead Their competitors gained a lot of new customers who better taste in their mouth for Caribou than Starbucks

30 UNILEVER (AXE)Launched an online contest through social media and created a website AXERidecom for registrants to interact The contest directed contestants to upload a digital photo of his car and explain in a short essay how tricking out a car would help them get the girl AXE received more than 30000 visits and four times the number of entries as compared to previous AXE competitions

31 VITABIOTICS Health supplements manufacturer builds community of 13000 that it uses for learning insights and trial of new products prior to going to market Product trials have 95 completion rate and save the company $100000rsquos annually versus traditional research and test marketing

32 WET SEAL E-commerce teen clothing store for girls created ldquocommunityrdquo section on the web site for users to design their own clothes publish for reviews and leverage ldquowisdom of the crowdrdquo They saw a 21 increase in revenue driven by a 10 increase in sales and a 10 increase in the average purchase per customer

barnraisersllccom

13

33 WHOLE FOODS Maintained 200 Facebook accounts and over 150 accounts While the accounts have different topics they all focus on business happenings supporting a clearly defined business strategy for social media

barnraisersllccom

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6 Social Media ROI case studies with something in common courage

Irsquove been to a good number of companies this year where there has been management resistance to social media The most often cited reason is a perceived inability to prove ROI Social Media Examiner says the 1 question companies ask is ldquoHow do I measure social media return on investmentrdquo

So one week in September I devoted an hour each day scouring the internet for case studies that prove social media ROI In short order I found 67 case studies Not a small number and too many to fit into one blog post I broke it into two 33 case studies that prove social media ROI and 33 more case studies In total there were 66 case studies that prove social media ROI through hard metrics like

Increased sales

Shortened sales cycle

Higher closing rate

New leads

Lower internal operating costs

Decrease in customer issues

Last week I had the pleasure of teaching a class on social media ROI at Rutgers and highlighted case studies in each of these areas Rutgers is among the first universities in the country to offer a Mini-MBA in Social Media Marketing 10 other teachers covered key topics in other areas of social media as well

Questions from students made me realize in addition to the numbers all the case studies had one other characteristic in common Courage Herersquos a sampling of the stories to explain why

1 INCREASED SALES (AJ BOMBERS) After six month of break-even sales and no money for traditional marketing Joe Sorge the owner of AJ Bombers a burger restuarant in Milwaukee started using Twitter to attract customers Within a year weekly sales increased +60 What happened Joe spoke to the Rutgersrsquo class via Skype Someone asked why start tweeting In Joersquos case he said ldquoI was sacred I opened a restaurant in Milwaukee at the worst time in the worst economy since the Great Depression I sat at my computer wondering how I could make this work When I found people on Twitter talking about my restaurant and

barnraisersllccom

15

my burgers I jumped inrdquo Good feedback from customers on Twitter helped build relationships and Twitter followers soon accounted for 75 of AJ Bomberrsquos customers AJ Bombers now has 11000+ Twitter followers success with Foursquare a rdquoFood Warsrdquo episode on the Travel Channel and the sales to go with it Joe recently started a company with Chris Broganto help small businesses called Kitchen Table Companies with a show on The Pulse Network Herersquos a video of a 2010 social media profile in courage

2 SHORTENED SALES CYCLE ( BLENDTEC) In 2007 Blendtec a company that manufactured blenders since the 1970primes was having flat sales They produced commercials for YouTube that cost less than $1000 Company sales then increased +700 The ldquo Will It Blendrdquo commerials featured CEO Tom Dickson Tom blended everything from broom handles to good balls to iPhones and iPads in Blendtec blender For a product who benefit has to be seen to be believed video was the perfect medium Some of the commercials have been viewed over 9000000+ times But the company took a big risk They put their CEO out there where he could be viewed as either a charismatic presenter or a clown The benefits of that risk and the courage of the management team are shown in the viewership numbers from Alexa once the commercials started on YouTube

3 HIGHER CLOSING RATIOS ( FISKARS) A 300 year old Finnish company that makes fine cutting tool created an online social community of crafting enthusiasts called ldquoFriskateersrdquo to reach the underutilized channel of small retailers It resulted in a 3X increase in company sales But it didnrsquot begin that way According to Suzanne Fanning Director of Communications at Fiskars Americas it started as a way to have an ldquoemotional bond with consumersrdquo Try selling that to a company of highly rational engineers But once the community started swapping product stories and generating new ideas resistance went away Now Fiskateers are a major company driver of innovation Not to mention a major cost savings on traditional focus group research

4 NEW LEADS ( FOILED CUPCAKES) A Chicago company that bakes cupcakes generated 93 of its business through social media leads to surpass revenue targets by +600 But the most impressive statistic is this company has no storefront (it sells only through a website) and no way for consumers to experience their product (before they buy) unless they establish a relationship with them through social media In an interview with Beth Harte owner Mari

barnraisersllccom

16

Luangrathsaysldquowe know every single one of our customers by name Wersquove probably had a good Twitteror Facebook conversation with them before they even call usrdquo Thatrsquos courageous customer relationship marketing

5 LOWER OPERATING COSTS (IBM) Invested $100 million in company generated new product ideas and saw a return of $100 billion in total revenue for a 10-to-1 ROI with a 441 gross profit margin Best of all they did by relinquishing control and letting employees set up the own blogs and ldquocrowdsourcing lsquoJamsrsquordquo to collaborate with one another globally There was no IBM corporate blog or Twitter account but there were 17000 internal blogs 100000 employees using internal blogs and as many as 500000 participants in company crowd-sourcing ldquojamsrdquo IBM showed courage by relinquishing control It generated a huge amount of cash

6 DECREASE IN CUSTOMER ISSUES (BEST BUY) Imagine if you said ldquoIrsquom going to poll my customers on the customer service they want and deliver it on their termsrdquo Thatrsquos what Best Buy did in creating the TwelpForce an employee community customer service group that works through Twitter to answer customers questions and concerns The employee community grew to 2200 employees within 3 months and responded to over 13000 customer questions concerns and opinions The Twitter feed twelpforce now counts over 32000 followers and the number of questions averages 100-125 per day and is considered a key value-add by customers and the company My guess is Best Buy is having a very good Christmas season so far with the help of TwelpForce

Colleagues tell me 2011 is likely to be a year where more companies embrace social media as a valuable marketing tool The graph below from Google Trends indicates social media is here to stay But courage Irsquove learned from these case studies that are something that always supersedes trends

Do you think courage plays a role in social media ROI

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12 case studies prove social and traditional media work better together

The image above is of one hand clapping Perhaps itrsquos coming from the marketing plan that relies on only one type of media

It makes sense social and traditional media would work better together but as with any new form of marketing social media has more to prove so the two are sometimes compared as if they were in competition

Here are 12 case studies that prove social and traditional media were meant to work together

1 CLEVELAND CLINIC Was not the first in healthcare to experiment in social media but it achieved success where others failed By structuring a cross-functional team to enable education collaboration and smart governance Cleveland Clinic deepened engagement with its consumers around the globendash both providers and patients They used Facebook and Twitter for daily wellness tips LinkedIn for professional recruitment and YouTube for content on diseases and patient stories Since the Cleveland Clinic established social media as a cross-functional discipline it has seen a noticeable increase in website traffic attendance at health lectures and new patients making and keeping appointments

2 CLOROX Used traditional media to communicate the many uses for bleach in the home but

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supplemented with social media to encourage usage in places outside the house Clorox launched an online community CloroxClassroomscom with blog and Twitter effort on Labor Day weekend at the beginning of the school year The Twitter page was among the Top 10 trending topics over Labor Day weekend and the blog was recognized by the Marketing to Mom Coalition and mommy bloggers for excellence in terms of delivering sharable information

2 COCA-COLA Used social media strategically and achieved the strongest global marketing integration ever with Expedition 206 a social media promotion where a small group of travel ambassadors went to 206 countries over 365 days to ldquogenerate happinessrdquo and published on social networks It enabled global promotion execution and integration among 3500 Coca-Cola marketers around the world

4 COLGATE WISP Changed the target for the launch of a new disposable toothbrush from the traditional Moms to young urban men and women 18-25 who were active daters They supplemented the traditional media plan with 8 rdquoBe More Kissablerdquo viral videos They created a Facebook App called ldquoSpin the Wisprdquo and partnered with 8 online publishers The videos received over 41 million views and the App was downloaded over 40000+ times Colgate learned the value of engagement because Colgatersquos US market share in the toothbrush category increased 56 points to a record 356 driven largely by the Wisp

5 FORD FIESTA Gave 100 consumers a car for six months and asked them to complete a different mission every month At the direction of Ford and their own imagination ldquoagentsrdquo used their Fiestas to deliver Meals On Wheels They used them to take Harry And David treats to the National Guard They went looking for adventure some to wrestle alligators others actually to elope All of these stories were then lovingly documented on YouTube Flickr Facebook and Twitter Fiesta got 65 million YouTube views and 50000 requests for information about the carmdash-virtually none from people who already had a Ford in the garage Ford sold 10000 units in the first six days of sales The results came at a relatively small cost The Fiesta Movement is reputed to have cost a small fraction of the typical national TV campaign

6 FRITO-LAY Launched ldquoWhatrsquos You Flavorrdquo contest as part of an integrated campaign where social media was used as the vehicle for consumers to capture the diverse flavors and the diversity of peoplersquos imagination in India It leveraged the Frito Lays brand as a household name in India in a way that connected emotionally The campaign attracted more than 500 press coverage worth 54 crores the biggest in Frito Lay Indiarsquos history

7 HampR BLOCK Has learned in the weeks prior to April 15th every question that is not answered immediately is a lost sales Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business HampR used Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for QampA in theldquoGet It Rightrdquo social media campaign The effort secured 1500000 unique visitors and answered 1000000 questions for a 15 lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media in the marketing mix

8 HARLEY DAVIDSON (HDTalkingcom) Harley owners created a website and social community totally funded by users and user-generated content Here Harley owners trades photos jokes where to find hard to find parts advice on Harley models and ownership plus

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there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times HDtalkingcom nowhas 56000+ and cost to Harley is negligible

9 HOULIHANrsquoS Showed that social media drives ROI for small businesses The restaurant showed that social technologies can be used in different ways to drive customers Houlihanrsquos in the US has around 100 restaurants compared to their main competitor Applebees which has over 2000 With a small marketing budget their marketing manager managed to drive sales directly from a private social network run via Ning The network was called lsquoHQrsquo and was launched in early 2008 By combining their social media campaign with email marketing they managed to quickly build up 10000 members and estimated that ldquo7000 to 13000 people heard about our newest promotion because of an HQ memberrdquo This shows the strength in running your own social network and how sometimes a private network may be the way to go to offer people exclusivity and also encourage word of mouth

10 JETBLUE Started a Twitter account to have more direct relationship with customers and to listen and respond how they could serve them better and deal directly with any complaints They now have over 16 million followers

11 MTV Premiered Skins mdash- an Americanized version of the acclaimed British teen drama In addition to traditional media and Skinstv a central community regularly updated with content (including trailers and sneak peeks) a Tumblr blog ndash we are skins Twitter handle ndashskinsTV and a Facebook Fan Page MTV used a number of innovative social apps to develop awareness and brand affinity for the show Skins drew 326 million total viewers outperforming the launches of competitive scripted shows across both cable and network in its core demo (12-34) including CWrsquos ldquoGossip Girlrdquo and ABC Familyrsquos ldquoPretty Little Liarsrdquo

12 OLD SPICE Managed to gather some pretty impressive stats that show the money where the buzz is The reach of the Old Spice campaign is not in doubt but did it actually impact sales Since the original campaign launched with lsquoMustafarsquo sales increased by 27 year on year But in the 3 months after the height of the campaign sales were up by 55 reaching 107 in the final month of the social media campaign And of course Old Spice is now the 1 body wash brand for men However you choose to look at the campaign these figures stand up to show that a social media campaign well executed and combined with traditional media can drive significant ROI

Do these case studies prove social and traditional media work better together to you

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What is the ROI of Walmarts Facebook page A lot by many measures

Walmart accounts for 1 in every 5 consumer packaged goods products sold in America For a brand with this much retail clout what sort of ROI do you think they get from their Facebook page A lot by many measures Consider this

1 BY ONE ESTIMATE WALMARTrsquoS FACEBOOK PAGE IS WORTH $586787180 According to WOMMA the average value of a Facebook fan is $7184 and Walmart has 8167973 fans Facebook fans of a brand are 28 more likely to continue using the brand and 41 more likely to recommend it to a friend $7184 is an average Itrsquos generally higher for well known brands

2 WALMART HAS 11366ldquoCHECK INSrdquo THATrsquoS A GROUP OF LOYAL CUSTOMERS WAITING TO HEAR ABOUT SPECIALS Facebook ldquoCheck-Insrdquo let retailers offer deals based on peoplersquos Facebook Check-Ins when they visit You can run Check-In deals across multiple store locations and create different types of deals to achieve different business objectives Imagine how this can boost business

barnraisersllccom

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3 40 OF CONSUMERS VISIT A RETAILERrsquoS FACEBOOK PAGE BEFORE THEIR WEBSITE AND THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF RETAILERS THEY FOLLOW IS 6 These statistics come from Shoporg Are consumers buying from social networks after they visit See for yourself

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4 THERE ARE HIGH LEVELS OF CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT RELATED TO SALES Walmart posts roughly 2Xday Most of their posts are product related and conservatively get over 1000+ Likes and Comments each Here is a post about a special deal on an iPad Since 80 of people who are shopping on the internet right now are looking for reviews and recommendations do you think this post generated sales

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5 WALMART IS SAVINGS ON MARKET RESEARCH AND TRACKING OUT-OF-STOCKS What do consumers think of Klondike Bars and can they find them in their local Walmart You could spend a lot of money on market research and product tracking software or you could ask them on Facebook for free Plus yoursquod see results a lot faster

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If you spend time on Walmartrsquos Facebook page yoursquoll notice that not everyone is a fan of Walmart which I credit Walmart for publishing There are also a good number of more targeted Walmart retail Facebook site that serve as further testimony of Facebookrsquos sales value

There are manpower costs for Walmart to maintain track and measure results Based on the numbers my guess is the people at Walmart believe the ROI is worth it

If you manufacture a product with retail distribution have you considered the value of a relationship with your retailers on their Facebook pages

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16 case studies that prove Social CRM

Many expect Social CRM to be a hot phrase in 2011 It should be because the three most influential factors a person uses to decide whether or not to do business with a company are Personal experience (98)Companyrsquos reputation or brand (92)Recommendations from friends and family (88)

Source Cone Business in Social Media Study 2008

Since Social media amplifies all three it makes sense the terms ldquoSocialrdquo and ldquoCRMrdquo belong together

Irsquom a big believer in Social CRM but I think the phrase is still being defined One reason is the graphic above Itrsquos very good but it is shows Social CRM as a concept that requires visualization to be explained Another reason is two very smart people when asked give different answers

Paul Greenberg author and leading authority on SCRM stated that Social CRM isldquohellipdesigned to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide a mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment Itrsquos the company response to the customerrsquos owning of the relationshiprdquo

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16 case studies that prove Social CRM

Many expect Social CRM to be a hot phrase in 2011 It should be because the three most influential factors a person uses to decide whether or not to do business with a company are Personal experience (98)Companyrsquos reputation or brand (92)Recommendations from friends and family (88)

Source Cone Business in Social Media Study 2008

Since Social media amplifies all three it makes sense the terms ldquoSocialrdquo and ldquoCRMrdquo belong together

Irsquom a big believer in Social CRM but I think the phrase is still being defined One reason is the graphic above Itrsquos very good but it is shows Social CRM as a concept that requires visualization to be explained Another reason is two very smart people when asked give different answers

Paul Greenberg author and leading authority on SCRM stated that Social CRM isldquohellipdesigned to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide a mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment Itrsquos the company response to the customerrsquos owning of the relationshiprdquo

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Michael Fauschette says ldquoSocial CRM is the tools and processes that encourage better more effective customer interaction and leverage the collective intelligence of the broader customer community with the intended result of increasing intimacy between an organization and its prospects and customers The goal is to make the relationship with the customer more intimate and tied to the company by building a public ecosystem to better understand what they want and how they interact with the various company touchpoints like sales customer service etchelliprdquo

I favor a more matter-of-fact definition Social CRM = a 1-to-1 sales relationship that occurs through social media and is profitable sustainable and built on trust

To substantiate here are 16 case studies that prove Social CRM

1 AFTER STEAZ When an organic tea company started talking on Facebook and Twitter about why teas that are organic matter consumer listened In fact they not only listened they bought the product and sales doubled When downloadable coupons were then offered on these social networks 250000 were downloaded and 2830 tweets were recorded in an hour

2 BARACK OBAMA Social media campaign for the President on MyBarackObamacomraised $30000000 from over 70000 personal fund-raising pages 400000 blogs 35000 groups and 200000 offline events Based on approval ratings it also was probably the time when trust in the President was highest

3 BEST BUY (Twelp Force) Best Buy employee communities grew to 2200 employees within 3 months and responded to over 13000 customers on social networks answering public questions concerns and opinions The Twitter feed twelpforcenow counts over 29000 followers and the number of questions averages 100-125 per day and is considered a key value-add by customers and the company

4 CLOROX Launched online community CloroxClassroomscom with blog and Twitter effort on Labor Day weekend at the beginning of the school year Twitter page was among the Top 10 trending topics over Labor Day weekend and blog was recognized by the Marketing to Mom Coalition and mommy bloggers for excellence in terms of delivering trusted sharable information

5 COMCAST Startedldquo Comcast CaresrdquoTwitter customer service center and attracted 2700 followers More important from a Social CRM standpoint many who were critics of the company changed to raving fan Quality of attention and dialogue now serves as model for the the company

6 DR VAKSMAN Local Dentist with five month old dental practice in San Francisco attracted 320 new clients through social media presence including Facebook Twitter LinkedIn and YouTube

7 FISKARS 300 year old Finnish company that makes fine cutting tool created online social community of crafting enthusiasts called ldquoFiskateersrdquoto built relationships

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with underutilized channel of small retailers for a 3X increase in company sales

8 FOILED CUPCAKES A Chicago company that sells cupcakes has no store front only a web site When the product was readay but the launch of the website was delayed they relyed on Facebook and Twitter for CRM Social media generated 93 of its business through social media leads to surpass revenue target by +600 The reason You can tweet all day long You can update your Facebook page all day long But are people listening Theyrsquoll listen if they know you care about them So my personal mandate is that I reply to every single tweet and make a comment on every single post to our Facebook pagerdquo says owner Mari Luangrath

9 GENERAL MOTORS Launched ldquoFast Lanerdquo one of the first blogs personally written by senior executives Customer feedback given through a blog saved the company $180000year versus traditional focus group research not to mention the enormous good will of company executives responding to consumers not a focus group moderator

10 GREEN BAY PACKERS The Green Bay Packers Foundation is a philanthropic organization developed to give back to Green Bayrsquos Special Olympics Pop Warner Football Feed the Children and other community causes They do this through the playerrsquos personal stories and the sales of 4000 Packers signed merchandise items at auctions Theyrsquove built a Facebook presence of 221 843 fans and a Twitter following of14682 More important in 2009 they generated $248000000 in a town of 106000 for an average sale of $2340 per citizen

11 HampR BLOCK Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business HampR used Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for QampA in the ldquoGet It Rightrdquosocial media campaign The effort secured 1500000 unique visitors and answered 1000000 questions for a 15 lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media ldquoGet It Rightrdquo program

12 HARLEY DAVIDSON (HD TALKING) Harley owners created website and social community totally funded by users and user-generated content Here Harley owners trades photos jokes where to find hard to find parts advice on Harley models and ownership plus there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times HDtalkingcom now has 40000+ members and cost to Harley is negligible

13 INDIUM A company that manufactures special alloys isnrsquot sexy neither is convincing 14 of its engineers to start blogs But that exactly what the company does It increased leads prospects conversions and sales by double digits plus it gave customers the opportunity to know the companyrsquos employees personally

14 JOHNSONampJOHNSON (BABYCENTERCOM) 8 year old onlinesocial media community connected and engaged 8000000 new and expectant moms in the US (78 of total) and another 165 million in 21 countries A major profit center for JampJ and in fact a major social brand

15 QUICKEN Launched social community and blogger outreach to build long-term relationships with future and potential customers and provided free credit reportsscores home value report and mortgage recommendations Quizzlecom

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received over 425000 visits and 70000 accounts were created without a dollar spent in traditional advertising

16 TURBO TAX TeamTurboTax launched Twitter campaign to respond and answer questions during key tax season and found customers were 71 more likely to recommend TurboTax because of their interactions with the company through Twitter

Regardless of how it is defined do these 16 case studies prove Social CRM to you

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10 case studies prove ROI of Search Engine Optimization

Consider these facts

80 of consumers find your website by first writing a query into a box on a search engine (Google Yahoo Bing)42 chose the first site listed in organic search90 choose a site listed on the first page

These facts suggest for anyone doing business on the internet Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a first orders of business

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via the ldquonaturalrdquo or un-paid (ldquoorganicrdquo or ldquoalgorithmicrdquo) search results as defined by

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10 case studies prove ROI of Search Engine Optimization

Consider these facts

80 of consumers find your website by first writing a query into a box on a search engine (Google Yahoo Bing)42 chose the first site listed in organic search90 choose a site listed on the first page

These facts suggest for anyone doing business on the internet Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a first orders of business

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via the ldquonaturalrdquo or un-paid (ldquoorganicrdquo or ldquoalgorithmicrdquo) search results as defined by

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Wikipedia

Although there are plenty of SEO case studies it can be hard to find case studies that directly prove return on investment (ROI) In the quest for a top rank on Google and increased website traffic itrsquos easy to forget the most essential question to ask What action(s) do you want consumers to take when they get to your website

To show whatrsquos achievable here are 10 case studies that prove the ROI of SEO

1 COMPLETE PLUMBING SOURCE An e-commerce online source for homeowners and do-it-yourself plumbers who want quality and affordable plumbing supplies and tools from leading brands completeplumbingsourcecomrsquos number one goal was to drive targeted traffic to their site and generate product sales through a seamless online buying process Keyword discovery led to an optimization of the top revenue-producing pages and landing page optimization Within four months website traffic increased +169 conversion increased +202 and sales increased by +300

2 DICKIES An online store for Dickies Work Wear focused on the quality and quantity of organic search traffic They focused on keywords and phrase for those reaching the DickiesStore website with ldquoDickiesrdquo related phrases as well as more generic phrases such as ldquoworkwearrdquo and ldquosafety bootsrdquo etc Within six months Dickies Store dominated the SERPrsquoS (Search Engine Results Page) for ldquoDickiesrdquo related keywords an extremely competitive niche in which many suppliers of the Dickies brand are constantly competing for top rankings Within a year the SEO strategy resulted in an increase of 63 in non-branded traffic and 47 increase in sales

3 DOLLAR DAYS An online e-commerce wholesaler that helps smaller businesses compete against larger chain dollardayscom used videos for its eclectic product offering to capture long tail key words They also video indexed each product video for Googlersquos search algorithms using a video sitemap The result was a huge and immediate +75 increase in sales

4 ENTREPRENEUR Sought to increase site traffic and downloads of it huge number of articles at entrepreneurcom Thatrsquos because increases in site traffic and involvement increased advertising rates and revenues They instituted an SEO program in three stages In Stage 1 they optimized the web page In Stage 2 they optimized keywords links and content for descriptions of the articles In Stage 3 they integrated SEO into the entire business process The result was an estimated return of over $2 million dollars PER MONTH (calculated by determining the revenue from additional number of click-throughs since they began the SEO program minus the SEO expenses incurred)

5 MILLENIUM HOTELS A prominent hotel chain with over 110 hotels and resorts located in over 60 different destinations in 18 countries Millenium used SEO to 1) Achieve higher placements for highly competitive generic search phrase 2) attract seasonal traffic and 3) promote seasonal offers online Within a year Millenium saw increases of 1) 250000 visitor

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per month 2) 84 in organic traffic and 3) 70 in online reservations bookings

6 PHILLYDENTISTCOM Dr Ken Cirka DMD had no relevant keywords on his website in the areas of title tags body copy and headers some of the most important factors in search engine rankings for on-site optimization During this time he received one new patient per week However after making these changes he rose to the 1 position for the keywords ldquoPhiladelphia dentistrdquo and received nine new patients each week Nine month later Dr Cirka hired another dentist and additional staff

7 ROTTEN TOMATOES A movie review site that started out as a hobby rottentomatoescomwas built by SEO The Rotten Tomatoes team observed that most people searched for movie reviews by searching on the movie name or for actors in a film not for a movie review itself Therefore Rotten Tomatoes architected the site to give each individual movie its own Rotten Tomatoes mini-site to boost natural search rankings The SEO strategy was so successful that features such as ldquoTomatometerrdquo are now a high volume keyword and Rotten Tomatoes is one of the top 5 movie review sites in the world

8 VICTORIA INN a resort inn in a unique heritage building on the south shore of Rice Lake at Gorersquos Landing Ontario Victoria Inn wanted to use its website as a reservation sales tool to attract new bookings for the inn For the broadest possible sales and bookings the keyword phrases needed to work withlocal and regional geographical locator terms Victoria Inn achieved more than 370 top ten ranking positions and 152 1 ranking for an 85 increase in reservations bookings

9 VOICESCOM One of the leading marketplaces for voice-over talent voicescom studied competitive sites keywords visitor intensions between those looking to hire and those looking to hire voice-over talent The resulting site overhaul and SEO keyword discovery increased conversions rates on the site by 400

10 WATER GALLERY An internet-only business that offers handcrafted indoor water fountains that are designed to fit on walls or floors and made with stones pebbles and marble watergallerynet did a full site redesign to make it more search engine friendly and added PayPal buttons so people could pay online Sales increased +500 within 6 months and gross margin increased +300

These case studies prove whether company is large or small selling something that is familiar or new SEO is foundational for business building

But the 1 priority is focus on the desired business because SEO strategies and tactics vary based on a businessrsquos goals If yoursquore clear about who you want to attract and the action(s) you want them to take on your once they get to your site yoursquoll see the results and ROI a lot faster

What do these 10 case studies on the ROI of SEO prove to you

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12 case studies that prove Social Commerce ROI

Social commerce is the merger of social media and ecommerce

Itrsquos a marketing combination thatrsquos here to stay because it aligns with our buying behaviors

90 times in any given week people mention a specific brand

90 of consumers trust recommendation from people they know

70 trust recommendations from others even it they donrsquot know them

83 of consumers share information from people they know

81 says theyrsquove received advice on a product purchase from friends or followers on a social network site74 say that advice was influential

71 claims reviews from family members and friends exert a great deal of influence on what we buy

67 of consumers spend more online after receiving recommendations from friends

61 of people rely on information from reviews when making a purchase decision

14 of people trust advertising

Sources Econsultancy eMarketing ClickZ Internet Retailer Bazaarvoice

Social commerce provides strong evidence of social media ROI because direct sales occur on social sites In recent years and even months the numbers of apps and vehicles to enable social commerce has skyrocketed

The social network to show the greatest social commerce innovation is Facebook where the Like Buttonand plug-ins such as login-in with Facebook recommendations activity feed registrations Live Stream other social plug-insand the Facebook Store create a rich customer experience where people with similar interests share brand affinities with the convenience of making purchases without ever having to leave Facebook

As a result there is a sub-set of social commerce called f-commerce and companies like Coca-Cola Disney and PampG are actively involved There are the deal-of-the-day social networks Grouponand Living Socialand other social couponing sites

Not to mention apps like Wildfireand Involver that when added to social network sites like

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12 case studies that prove Social Commerce ROI

Social commerce is the merger of social media and ecommerce

Itrsquos a marketing combination thatrsquos here to stay because it aligns with our buying behaviors

90 times in any given week people mention a specific brand

90 of consumers trust recommendation from people they know

70 trust recommendations from others even it they donrsquot know them

83 of consumers share information from people they know

81 says theyrsquove received advice on a product purchase from friends or followers on a social network site74 say that advice was influential

71 claims reviews from family members and friends exert a great deal of influence on what we buy

67 of consumers spend more online after receiving recommendations from friends

61 of people rely on information from reviews when making a purchase decision

14 of people trust advertising

Sources Econsultancy eMarketing ClickZ Internet Retailer Bazaarvoice

Social commerce provides strong evidence of social media ROI because direct sales occur on social sites In recent years and even months the numbers of apps and vehicles to enable social commerce has skyrocketed

The social network to show the greatest social commerce innovation is Facebook where the Like Buttonand plug-ins such as login-in with Facebook recommendations activity feed registrations Live Stream other social plug-insand the Facebook Store create a rich customer experience where people with similar interests share brand affinities with the convenience of making purchases without ever having to leave Facebook

As a result there is a sub-set of social commerce called f-commerce and companies like Coca-Cola Disney and PampG are actively involved There are the deal-of-the-day social networks Grouponand Living Socialand other social couponing sites

Not to mention apps like Wildfireand Involver that when added to social network sites like

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Facebook Twitter and the company blog provide coupons offers and promotions to accelerate social commerce adoption

But if yoursquore still not convinced here are 12 case studies that prove Social Commerce return on investment (ROI)

1 BEST BUY Discovered their core users and heaviest purchasers were Facebook users Merely by asking for consumers to come check them out on Facebook with no offer or coupon their fans went from 27000 to 163000 Within 9 days sharing took the size of the community and their heavy user base from 163000 to 900000 Best Buy has 3281961 Facebook Fans and WOMMAestimates the value of a Facebook Fan is $72

2 CARSCOM Does not sell directly to consumers but puts consumers in control by giving them information on cars from other consumers In examining the impact of other consumersrsquo

barnraisersllccom

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recommendations pages on the website that had reviews and ratings were compared to those that did not and showed+16 conversion increase for pages with reviews and ratings+100 increase in traffic to locations for dealers+45 increase in consumers seeking financing options

3 DERRYNOID CENTRE A 40 suite conference and training center in Northern Ireland used Groupon to offer a 60 discount if a voucher was secured that day The Derrynoid Centre saw426 reservations from the offer88 of people fulfilled reservations for hotel stay+26 sustained increase in bar and restaurant sales resulted from the effort

The Groupon business model may not be for every business Herersquos how it works Groupon insists there be at least a 50 discounts off the full rate and Groupon takes 50 of each sale But it does seem suited for a small business with low awareness where unfilled seats rooms or idle workers create a financial drain that could otherwise be putto use

barnraisersllccom

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4 EVENTBRITE Sharing is one of Eventbritersquos most effective revenue generators When someone shares an event with their friends through social media the action results in real dollars Recent data shows that over the past 12 weeks one share on Facebook equals $252 a share on Twitter equals $043 and ashare on LinkedIn equals $090 In one year Facebook went from being the 15th top driver of traffic to Eventbrite to the number one driver to the site Eventbrite had over 17 million average monthly page views in 2010

5 MOVIEFONE Executed a full scale Facebook implementation using Login with Facebook Graph API Events API Like Button and the Activity Feed to enable social sharing and engagement Consumers could connect with their Facebook friends on the Moviefone site pushing unique content and driving traffic The results were300 increase in site traffic40000 to 250000 increase in referrals per month40 increase in click-through-rateAverage user click back to the Moviefone site 7X

barnraisersllccom

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6 OFFICE DEPOT Incorporated consumer reviews into their website around specific products Then they initiated paid search with the keywords consumer used in reviews The result were+785 increase in click-through rate+238 increase in conversion+1966 gain in revenue+1833 increase in new buyers

7 PREMIERE BEAUTY Beauty Salon offered 60 off through Groupon and turned beauty into a social business with500 new customers85 of customer now come through social media because the store uses Facebook and Twitter to promote offers

8 SHOE DAZZLE Leveraged Facebook Pages Like buttons and Graph API to import friends who shared the ShoeDazzle shopping and discovery experience with other friends It resulted in100000primes of Likes600 increase in SharesFacebook user showed greater loyalty and bought

barnraisersllccom

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more than non-Facebook users

9 SPORTING NEWS Implemented recommendations plugin on their Facebook page to provide a simple and intuitive way for people to share articles from Sporting News back and saw2X increase in site traffic within 3 monthsFacebook goes from 16th to Top 3 referrer in site traffic+30 increase in subscriptions

10 STARBUCKS For a business that is primarily offline Starbucks uses social commerce to gain an incremental online business with an advocacy component through their loyalty club MyStarbuckRewards They offer special high-end blends to the members of luxury bounty hunter Giltcom They set up social social commerce on Facebook that enables purchases from smart phones The activity show Starbucks believes social commerce is a significant source of business

barnraisersllccom

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11 STUDIO PE Pilates Studio used LivingSocial and changed its business model from personal sales to include group buys Owner Carla Vercoe claimed before LivingSocial no advertisement that she or the previous owner ever tried worked

12 TRIP ADVISOR Displayed friendrsquos reviews and opinions on Facebook that are directly relevant to planning and conversion Implemented Like button and other sharing functionality to help users share their experiences with their friends and saw2X more content contribution from Facebook users than non-Facebook users20 in site engagementTrip Advisor saw a direct correction between greater site engagement and increased conversion

barnraisersllccom

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In addition to showing ROI these case studies demonstrate how social media and the tools now available are transitioning businesses that traditionally operated offline to online sales at group multiples all to the betterment of their revenue and profitability

Do you think your business might benefit from Social Commerce

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12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI

Digital and social media are held to highly accountable standards when it comes to return on investment (ROI) For the last two years Social Media Examinerreports the 1 question marketers ask about social media isldquoHow do I measure social media return on investmentrdquo

On this blog wersquove highlighted over 100 case studies(see related posts at the bottom) and believe digital and social media demonstrate the proven principles of relationship marketing better than any other communication channel particularly when it comes to customer service

If there are people in your company who still need convincing here are 12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI

1 ACCOR has over 4000 hotels in 90 countries and has to manage over 5000 comments each month on sites such as TripAdvisorcomand Bookingscom The company wants to listen learn and engage with what customers are saying about the Accor brand and approximately 12000 competitorsrsquo hotels so it can then establish dashboards to act on the data Accor has found this type of customer service not only improves the companyrsquos online reputation it results in double-digit sales increases for key brands like Novotel

2 ALASKA AIR Is the first carrier in the world to let customers check-in from the internet and at self-service kiosks Traditionally weather delays and cancellation cause airlines to pull agents off inbound sales calls and handle affected customers The result is many customers are not

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12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI

Digital and social media are held to highly accountable standards when it comes to return on investment (ROI) For the last two years Social Media Examinerreports the 1 question marketers ask about social media isldquoHow do I measure social media return on investmentrdquo

On this blog wersquove highlighted over 100 case studies(see related posts at the bottom) and believe digital and social media demonstrate the proven principles of relationship marketing better than any other communication channel particularly when it comes to customer service

If there are people in your company who still need convincing here are 12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI

1 ACCOR has over 4000 hotels in 90 countries and has to manage over 5000 comments each month on sites such as TripAdvisorcomand Bookingscom The company wants to listen learn and engage with what customers are saying about the Accor brand and approximately 12000 competitorsrsquo hotels so it can then establish dashboards to act on the data Accor has found this type of customer service not only improves the companyrsquos online reputation it results in double-digit sales increases for key brands like Novotel

2 ALASKA AIR Is the first carrier in the world to let customers check-in from the internet and at self-service kiosks Traditionally weather delays and cancellation cause airlines to pull agents off inbound sales calls and handle affected customers The result is many customers are not

barnraisersllccom

47

handled effectively or in time plus new bookings are lost The internet provided a more time sensitive way to personally handle affected passengers without tying up sales staff The result Revenue and ROI increased because each customer costs 54 cents to re-ticket over the internet versus $160 on a live call live agents can handle only 500 callshour while their web site can handle 20000 callshour just as important not one negative comment occurred when the company made this switch

3 ATampT Has over 16 million fans on their Facebook page and a staff of 20 to engage manage conversations and when appropriate encourage sales The company trains and educates this team Surveys show ATampTrsquos Facebook staff gets some of their best customer service ratings while also delivering some of the companyrsquos highest sales per employees

4 BEST BUY (Twelp Force) Gives employees the opportunity to help consumers on Twitter Participation is voluntary and the community grows to 2200 employees within 3 months They respond to over 13000 customers on Twitter answering questions concerns and opinions The Twitter feed twelpforce now counts over 40000 followers and the number of questions averages 100-125 per day It is considered a key value-add by customers and the company

5 CARE ONE DEBT RELIEF SERVICES Opens an online community on Facebook Twitter and YouTube in 2009 to help consumers with questions about debt relief consolidation and budgeting By going directly to social networks there is no registration process and the companyrsquos staff is able to give them a faster response Lead generation is 179 higher forms are completed 6X faster customers make their first payment at a rate that was 7X better than non-social media customers

6 COMCAST Much has been written about ComcastCaresand the way Frank Eliason helped the company better handle the 3 million customer service calls (most unhappy) the company gets each year through blogs and Twitter with 3 simple words Can I help The company reviews 6000 blog posts and about 2000 Tweets each day to service more customers in a better and faster way than traditional inbound service Herersquos Frank explaining just what Comcast did

7 DIRECTV Has problems with churn among its 185 US customers as more cable service develop a presence in satellite-based television The best way to reduce churn is to increase customer satisfaction and one way to do it is optimize field technician routes for the 600000 service calls received each day DIRECTV implements Oracle GoldenGate to consolidate disparate data marts into a central warehouse This improves the timeliness granularity and accuracy of customer and service data It enables managers and more than 15000 call center agents to conduct real-time data queries and analysis throughout the daymdash-using dashboards e-mail delivery and end-user reporting toolsmdash-eliminating the reliance on outdated weekly or monthly reports

8 FORD The way we buy cars is changing A 2011 survey of 2485 consumers found that 28 visit websites five times or more during their car-buying process but only 11 visit dealerships that many times Ford in the UK designs a multi-channel contact and lead management system based on its intelligentContact (iContact) platform It manages every customer contact and increases agent efficiency by 25 Where some calls used to take a minute to answer now they are answered within 20 seconds

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48

9 HampR BLOCK Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business HampR uses Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for QampA in theldquoGet It Rightrdquo social media campaign The effort secures 1500000 unique visitors and answers 1000000 questions for a 15 lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media ldquoGet It Rightrdquo program Herersquos how Amy Worley explains how the company got it right

10 LENOVA Sees customers are talking about its products in third-party forums and is worried about being left out of these important conversations Using a peer-to-peer support community in social media Lenovo listens to customer experiences and establishes ownership of any problem The results 20 reduction in laptop support call rates an increase in agent productivity a shortened problem resolution cycle and an increase in Net Promoter Scoreshellipplus ideas from the community result in new product innovations

11 MACYrsquoS Handles 130 orders every minute online from over 1000000 unique visitors every day Macyscom and Bloomingdalescomlink production to online orders and give access to 100 employees to optimize customer flow For the first time Macyrsquos experiences no downtime during holiday peak period and increases online sales +40 for December and 29 for the year

12 SETON HALL UNIVERSITY relies on tuition for revenue They discover incoming freshmen are forming lasting impressions about colleges by reading a universityrsquos Facebook page before they go to universityrsquos website Seton Hall gets actively involved in Facebook conversations to answers questions participate in discussions and guide potential incoming freshmen They tag the web traffic coming from Facebook to the website Tuitions coming from Facebookare +18 and deposits are +25 than those who do not consult Facebook

Wersquove produced results like these for our client and have case studies of our own to share on the website Wersquore proud of the results and ROI achieved and the demonstration these business principles work Wersquod be glad to share what we see working so effectively in the marketplace for your brand

Do these digital and social media case studies prove Customer Service ROI to you

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How 12 companies built trust using Twitter for customer service

It takes 2X as much to get a new customer as it costs to keep an existing one Todayhellip71 of customers go online first when they have a problem with a product or a service (source TNS)

21 more sales result to companies that use social media to address consumer complaints (versus 11 for traditional methods like email and phone) and consumers then tell 3X as many friends about their positive experiences (source American Express)

You can do the math but could social media be better at building trust Herersquos what 12 companies learned using Twitter for customer service

1 AJBomber Restaurant owner Joe Sorge uses Twitter for outreach and as an extra pair of eyes and ears to listen and respond to customers As a results 75 of customers come from Twitter weekly sales increased +60 within a year and today AJBombers has 19910 followers Not bad for a restaurant with two locations in Wisconsin

2 AskCiti Citibank uses this Twitter handle to send a link via Twitter direct message to the customer to start a live chat Compared to navigating 800 number callback from the back of a credit card to a live operator whereldquothe interactions were more phone tag Wersquore getting in touch with the customer the way they want Itrsquos something thatrsquos easier and fits the customerrsquos stylerdquo say Frank Eliason SVP of Social Media (8088 followers)

3 AmericanExpress American Express found consumers who begin a customer service

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50

dialogue through Twitterldquoare willing to pay a 21 percent premium at companies that provide great service Ultimately getting a service right with these social media savvy consumers can help a business growrdquo says Jim Bush an AmEx EVP

4 AskHalifaxBank With no response from other channels an angry customer resorted to Twitter ldquoGood LORD askhalifaxbank how can 1 company make SUCH a mess of Isa transfers Irsquom on hours of phonecalls branch visitsampstill not sortedrdquo She got a response within minutes her complaint had been forwarded and return tweet ldquoIf we can help with anything in future feel free to tweetrdquo She says she would use Twitter again

5 ClevelandClinic The Cleveland Clinic uses Twitter to dispense health advice to over 52000 followers In return patients are better about keeping their appointments with physicians and the Cleveland Clinic has a noticeable increase in traffic to their website

6 FirstDirectHelp First Direct Bank hasldquobest practicesrdquo for every tweet they receive ldquoWe aim to respond to a tweet within an hour and whilst itrsquos difficult to put a figure on it at the moment it has definitely improved the time to resolution which was already goodrdquo says a spokesperson

7 HRBlockAnswers During tax season a long response time can mean a lost customer For example r_wett tweeted ldquoHR block how is it that the FREE SC e-flie [sic] costs me $30 to filerdquo A short seven minutes later HRBlockAnswers replied ldquor_wett Through the HRBlock website Federal returns can be completed for Free Fees apply for states In this case the exchange andthe quality of the dialogue secured a new customer

8 LAFitnessUKHelp When a frustrated customer wanted to know the LA Fitnessrsquos cancellation policy he spent 15 minutes on hold and hung us Instead he asked on Twitter and his tweet was answered within four minutes He stayed a member

9 NetSolCares When a customerldquoeeded to update a clientrsquos website which is hosted on Network Solutions we are based in the UK apparently due to some DDOS attacks some IPs (mostly from overseas) have been blockedrdquo she ldquotwittered (tweeted) about the connection issues asking if anyone else was having the same problemi was hoping to just get some additional information on what the problem may be instead i got a response from NetSol support within the hourrdquo Her Tweet to Gerry was followed up by an email and phone call from Sam who fixed the problem within minutes rdquoI wonrsquot discuss whether i feel NetSolis a good host provider or not but i will say i was incredibly impressed by their customer service and i found out just how useful a simple tweet could berdquo

10 SouthwestAirlines An angry customer tweets a complaint about her flight that rdquoSouthwest=Suckagerdquo She gets another tweet back and then another tweet days later ask how her return flight was ldquoI have to say that my Southwest Twitter experience wasnrsquot just a single fire and forget incident as they twittered back again to check up on merdquo she says

11 Starbucks To listen to customers and help with content management Starbucks tweetsldquoHello Twitterville I posted some news stories last week Is that interesting for

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51

you Irsquom here for you so let me know what you want to seerdquo Couldnrsquot any brand benefit if they followed this tweeting practice

12 TwelpForce Best Buy gives employees the opportunity to help consumers on Twitter voluntarily and the community grows to 2200 employees within 3 months They respond to over 13000 customers on Twitter answering 100-125 questions concerns and opinions every day The Twitter feed twelpforce now counts over 44000 followers and the number of questions averages 100-125 per day Someone I know was waiting on line at the Best Buy Help Desk and had her issue resolved faster on TwelpForce than in store

Customer service ldquois not about being perfect itrsquos about the responserdquo said Deborah Mitchell a clinical associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University in an interview with Smartmoneycom ldquoPeople like to feel like the company was proactive in responding and bent over backwards to fix itrdquo

What do these lessons from 12 companies teach you

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10 case studies prove ROI of social media promotion

Many companies want consumers toldquoLikerdquo them on Facebook but are surprised to learn the 1 reason people would be motivated to ldquoLikerdquo them in the first place is to receive discounts and promotions

Of all the words to convey a discount or promotion the word this Black Friday and Cyber Monday that generated the most engagement wasldquocouponsrdquo (source Buddy Media and Marketing Profs)

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10 case studies prove ROI of social media promotion

Many companies want consumers toldquoLikerdquo them on Facebook but are surprised to learn the 1 reason people would be motivated to ldquoLikerdquo them in the first place is to receive discounts and promotions

Of all the words to convey a discount or promotion the word this Black Friday and Cyber Monday that generated the most engagement wasldquocouponsrdquo (source Buddy Media and Marketing Profs)

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Promotions discounts and coupons are tried-and-true ways to encourage trial and boost sales volumeWhen they are delivered in social media they benefit from sharing and the efficiency of available apps like Wildfire that cost a small fraction of traditional methods In our experience social media promotions are some of the most effective affordable and profitable ways to build business and brand advocacy simultaneously

You donrsquot have to go to social promotion sites like Groupon or Living Social either Although effective in some cases their promotions require you discount your brand by 50 then they keep 50 of the remaining half leaving you with 25 of the original price

Imagination and resourcefulness are more effective and much more profitable Need proof Here are 10 case studies that prove Social Media Promotions ROI

1 DELL Started DellOutlet a Twitter page where they offered products and customer service through Twitter Then they integrated coupons The Twitter page which was free to set up generated over $3 million dollar in sales to date and with the integrations of coupons accelerated to $1 million dollars within 6 months

barnraisersllccom

55

2 EDIBLE ARRANGEMENTS Through their Facebook page Edible Arrangements offered consumers a voucher for free chocolate dipped strawberries But to redeem the coupon fans had to visit an Edible Arrangements store providing Edible Arrangements franchisees the opportunity to promote their store to a slew of new customers This campaign generated 170000 new fans and a double-digit increase in sales versus year ago

barnraisersllccom

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3 HAUTELOOK Ran an ldquoinstand winrdquo coupon campaign at different values After becoming a fan of the Hautelook Facebook Fan Page entrants were presented with a coupon but the value of each coupon was a surprise and ranged from 10 to 20 and some had free shipping Not only did Hautelook generate thousands of new fans they also generated tens of thousands of sales in just one day and a return on investment of more than 5x and over 20 of purchasers were first time Hautelook customers

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4 JAMBA JUICE Gave their customers a choice with ldquoFeel Good Bucksrdquo and a unique coupon code generation functionality They gave out lsquoluckyrsquo coupons via our Facebook Connect Product and Facebook Fan Page Product that could be redeemed at Jamba Juice stores When consumers redeemed the coupons they either received $1 off their purchase orthe opportunity to win instant or cash prizes of $10000 Plus users could send Jamba Bucks to their friends in the form of fun Jamba-branded virtual gifts like smoothies bucks and cartoons The coupon campaign drove tens of thousands to Jamba Juice stores

5 KRAFT MACARONIampCHEESE Used Twitter to encourage people in their ldquoMac and Jinxrdquocampaign to tweet something with the phrase ldquomacampcheeserdquo in it at the same time Once those pairs were identified Kraft sent both a link The first one to click on the link and give Kraft her address got five free boxes of MacampCheese plus a t-shirt The campaign took advantage of the real-time nature of Twitter boosting the brandrsquos Twitter followers by 400 and at one point gaining over 300 mentions of ldquoMacampCheeserdquo per minute on Twitter

barnraisersllccom

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6 PRETZEL CRISPS Launched a$100 coupon on their Facebook page Within 36000 hours their fan base grew from 5000 to 12000 So they launched another only couponsndash Buy One Get One Free Only this time they didnrsquot tell their fans No matter Fans found out on their own and the ldquoletting you in on a secretrdquo factor had a viral effect that built the fans following from 14000 and 29000 and now itrsquos at over 62000 But fans just tell one side of the story The redemption rate for the fist coupon was 87 the redemption rate for the second was 95 and annual sales increase was 93

7 SARA LEE Ran a month-long campaign to promote Jimmy Dean D-Lights sandwiches Users

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were offered a $1 coupon on any one package of Jimmy Dean D-Lights 4 count sandwiches or if they chose to share the offer with three or more friends they could receive a $250 coupon There was also a bonus coupon for $050 off on Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls The campaign saw over 65000 visitors in 30 days and the 64 was through clicksfrom friend referrals The audience reach was primary in the South-Eastern states and referrals were made to people geographically close to each other The campaign delivers sales volumes and geo-targeting not possible with traditional coupon methods at a small fraction of their cost

7 STEAZ Used social media coupons blogs and Twitter chats to generate a buzz among moms about their organic teas The result was 250000 coupon download at a 20 redemption rate 6000 blog and social media mentions 3000 new fans and followers Store shelves that were emptied and sales that doubled from the effort

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8 TORTILLALAND Fresh uncookded tortillas from Circle Foods are different from pre-cooked tortillas that contain preservatives Once consumers try TortillaLand they swear by their superior fresh taste and say theyrsquoll never go back to buying the pre-cooked kind again But the brand has low awareness TortillaLand created a social sweepstakes where the prize was 3 iPads (1 for you2 for friends) The objective was to boost the Facebook Fan base of 900 and create a database from entrant to receive additional offers and news of store availability The sweepstakes boosted the Facebook base 7X in two month It created 10000 person database who nowreceive regular emails and show a 50 open rate The database also serves as brand community for market research and new product ideas with a significant ROI versus traditional methods like focus groups

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10 ZAPPOS Ran a unique sweepstakes with a chance to win a $500 voucher for use at Zappos but only after entrants visited the online store and put together a list of the items that they would purchase with the winning money This encouraged 1000primes to visit the Zappos site with list of their favorite items on Zappos which increased purchases (although Zappos did not release the exact sales increase)

Wersquore big believers in the business effectiveness of social media promotions We did the TortillaLand program for Circle Foods and see it for ourselves

Do these case studies prove the ROI of social media promotions to you

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9 case studies where social media took out the middleman

Buy it or build it

This is a primary question that involves thought for any business As it relates to marketing therersquos no shortage of ways to buy it from ads to affiliate relationships to list buying But with social media you build it And it often comes with a better return on investment because yoursquore taking out the middleman and building a more direct relationships with your customers

Want proof Here are 9 case studies where social media took out the middleman

1 CLEVELAND CLINIC Heavily regulated category like healthcare usually shy away from social media but not the Cleveland Clinic By structuring a cross-functional team to enable education collaboration and smart governance the Cleveland Clinic deepened engagement with its consumers around the globendash both providers and patients They used Facebook and Twitter for daily wellness tips LinkedIn for professional recruitment and YouTube for content on diseases and patient stories Since the Cleveland Clinic established social media as a cross-functional discipline it has seen a noticeable increase in website traffic attendance at health lectures and new patients making and keeping appointments

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2 EDIBLE ARRANGEMENTS Through their Facebook page Edible Arrangements offered consumers a voucher for free chocolate dipped strawberries But to redeem the coupon fans had to visit an Edible Arrangements store providing Edible Arrangements franchisees the opportunity to promote their store to a slew of new customers This campaign generated 170000 new fans and a double-digit increase in sales versus year ago

3 FOILED CUPCAKES Has shown extraordinary growth strong ROI and built a social community where 95 of their customers come from Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn When Foiled Cupcakes had their first Groupon promotion the promotion went live at midnight and fans bought 800 dozens by 8 am

4 HARLEY DAVIDSON (HDTalkingcom) Harley owners created a website and social community of over 3 million Facebook fans and 62000 Twitter followers that runs entirely on user-generated content Here Harley owners trade photos jokes where to find hard to find parts advice on Harley models and ownership plus there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times HDtalkingcom now has 58000+ Harley owner participating and cost to Harley for operations is negligible

5 HampR BLOCK Used Facebook and Twitter during the tax season to provide immediate access to a tax professional for QampA in theldquoGet It Rightrdquo social media campaign The effort secured 1500000 unique visitors and answered 1000000 questions for a 15 lift in business versus

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the prior year when there was no social media ldquoGet It Rightrdquo program Herersquos how Amy Worley explains how the company got it right

6 IBM Let employees set up internal blogs to promote collaboration and innovation within the company on a global scale There was no external blog and no pressure on employee to participate in internal blogs but but there were 17000 internal blogs 100000 employees participating regularly and as many as 500000 participants involved in company crowd-sourcingldquojamsrdquo Crowd-sourcing identified the 10 best incubator businesses which IBM funded for $100 million and generated $100 billion in total revenue for a 10-to-1 ROI with a 441 gross profit margin

7 MELROSE JEWELERS An eRetailer sold high end watches like Rolex and Breitling where the average sales is $5000 They offered consumers $100 off on their next purchase if theyldquoLikerdquo them on Facebook They had an app on their Facebook page that functioned as a simple quiz where after taking the quiz your ldquowatch personalityrdquo was revealed at the end (eg you are James Bond 200o Breitling man) to engage and secure email addresses of potential customers You also got $150 off after your purchase if you took a picture of your new watch and posted it on Facebook As a result Facebook fans went from 30000 to over 180000 in one quarter and sales went from a few hundred thousand to over $2000000

8 PRETZEL CRISPS Launched a$100 coupon on their Facebook page Within 36 hours their fan base grew from 5000 to 12000 So they launched another couponndash Buy One Get One Free Only this time they didnrsquot tell their fans No matter Fans found out on their own and the ldquoletting you in on a secretrdquo factor had a viral effect that built the fans from 14000 and 29000 and now itrsquos at over 62000 But fans just tell one side of the story Theredemption rate for the fist coupon was 87 the redemption rate for the second was 95 and annual sales increase was 93

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8 SETON HALL UNIVERSITY Was discovering that prospective students went to their Facebook page before their website to find out whether this was the right school for them So they engaged on Facebook to increase enrollment and revenue and tagged whether Facebook played a role Tuitions increased +18 and deposits increased +25 with 2X as many students coming to website from Facebook

9 TORTILLALANDFound social media was a great resource for building a database and conducting market research with consumers for their fresh uncooked tortillas In the space of a few months they ran a sweepstakes then a free coupon on Facebook that created a database of over 14000 and insights into target consumers through survey research They built brand assets that would have cost 100primes for thousands of dollars through suppliers for a very small fraction of that amount

When developing your brandrsquos growth strategy will you buy it or build it and take out the middleman

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Rob Petersen

Rob Petersen is President of BarnRaisers a ditigal marketing solutions company using social media the power of community and the proven principles of relationship marketing Rob was EVPChief Strategy Officer for Omnicom and has held leadership positions at FCB Euro RSCG and Saatchi amp Saatchi

Rob has been recognized by the American Marketing Association for building billion dollar businesses multiple times He has developed game changing consumer relationship platforms that have propelled brands from Abbott Coca-Cola Johnson amp Johnson MasterCard and Pfizer to market leadership

His accomplishments in business strategy and brand building have led to his thought leadership and expertise in social media He has developed and executed social media initiatives for the American Heart Association Colgate Mars and Shell all have built online communities with results and ROIrsquos that exceeded expectations

Rob is also a member of the MBA faculty at Rutgers University in Digital Marketing and Social Media Measurements and ROI He speaks at industry conferences and hold workshops on social media Rob is a graduate of Colby College in Waterville Maine