Engagement marketing has long suffered from a “hard to measure” reputation. Traditional online/offline metrics don’t readily apply – there’s nothing as neatly packaged as a two-decimal point clickthrough rate from the last email program, or even a solid conversion/revenue figure.
In the age of choice, businesses know engagement is critical, and the thrashing about for measurable results has gone on for years. In one sense, it’s odd that businesses – which were generally content to throw big budgets at print-and-broadcast-based “brand” campaigns for years – are reluctant to fund engagement (and check out the Nike+ site for runners if you don’t think some businesses are moving forward).
A Tokyo Web developer posted an excellent presentation on Social Media ROI, where he contends the problem isn’t one of a lack of metrics, but a focus on the wrong metrics. While his ideas won’t necessarily make the spreadsheet mavens happy, his ideas readily apply in the engagement world (as is the quote he uses to begin his presentation):
From his presentation (posted on the Zygote.egg blog):
It sounds like I’m stating the obvious, but the key to measuring returns is… knowing what to measure. This is the area where businesses – without proper guidance, or internal knowledge – start seeing fuzzy returns. Often the reason organisations or marketing teams don’t see recognisable returns or returns that are hard to quantify for social media campaigns is because they are using the wrong metrics. Choosing the right success metrics (or KPIs if you’re an MBA-type) is the first challenge of implementing a social media campaign you can measure.There are infinite things that can be measured when you’re talking about digital communication / transactions. It’s so tempting to go into bean-counter mode and just start measuring any metric that keeps going up (because up is good, right?) when what you need to do first and foremost is: figure out what success metrics translate easily into a business context for your organisation.
Some will see YongFook’s ideas as a way to promote social media without accountability. (Can’t find the right metrics? Then lower the bar to make less-meaningful metrics seem more meaningful.)
My take? Engagement marketing (and social media) are still largely in their infancy, and while I’m all for looking hard before diving into massively hyped media channels which (so far) lack any hint of ROI, I’m also aware of the value of an engaged customer.
While engagement often occurs via channels other than social media, both concepts face similar challenges, both in metrics and credibility.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.