A wonderful colleague of UnderstandingMarketing.com, John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing, recently blogged about the Return On Investment (ROI) of social networking for small business. In his blog post, and as to be expected, he mentions that virtually every small business owner and entrepreneur asks about measuring the success of a social networking or social media campaign. Small business owners are numbers people, and rightfully so. We’re in business to make money.
Mr. Jantsch goes on to then make an excellent point on the subject. When considering the ROI of social networking campaigns, it’s equally fair to examine the ROI of any in-person networking event. Surely any small business owner will admit that there can be great reason to attend many in-person networking events. Is it easy to credit direct sales to those networking events? Sometimes yes but more often, no. The same can be applied to social networking strategies and campaigns since they’re heavily reliant on relationships fostered, opportunities created and customers educated about you and your business - all in a virtual environment.
One could arguably make the exact same comparison to PR activities, campaigns and strategies. In general, PR isn’t meant to be a leads generator but instead an awareness generator. Does awareness alone lead to sales? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. However, much of that awareness can be described as “buzz.” And since the majority of small business owners are constantly saying they’d like more “buzz” about their company, well, PR is a big part in helping to accomplish this. But it’s not necessarily going to lead directly to a sale today. Instead, your PR efforts work in concert with an integrated marketing campaign (direct response, brochures, email marketing and social networking) to create sales today AND tomorrow.When a prospective customer reads about you in the local newspaper one day and receives an email marketing message a week later, there’s a good chance you’ll get a better response from that customer because he/she will have already become familiar with you through the PR efforts. In a nutshell, over time PR can quickly turn a cold lead into a warm lead.
Getting a great profile story on your company in the local television news may or may not lead to direct sales - much like meeting several people at your last networking event may not lead to direct sales. Generating buzz is exactly that - excitement. It’s this excitement that helps create more sales as time goes on.
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