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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 that’s 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 Media………………………………………….4-24
 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 Walmart's Facebook page? A lot by many measures
Chapter 2: Social CRM…………………………………………..25-29
 16 case studies that prove Social CRM
Chapter 3: SEO……………………………………………………..30-33
 10 case studies prove ROI of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Chapter 4: Social Commerce…………………………………34-44
 12 case studies that prove Social Commerce ROI
Chapter 5: Customer Service…………………………………45-51
 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 Promotion…………………………………52-65
 10 case studies prove ROI of social media promotion
 9 case studies where social media took out the middleman
Bio: Rob Petersen………………………………………………………66
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33 case studies prove Social Media ROI
“How do I measure social media ROI?” 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: Let’s 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 ROI’s when businesses: 1) Have a clear business strategy, 2) Aren’t
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. 250,000 coupons were downloaded and 2,830 tweets were recorded an
hour.
2. AJ BOMBERS: Owner Joe Sorge used Twitter as social maître’d 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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“Foursquare Day”to earn a Swarn Badge and increased sales +110%.
3. BEST BUY (Twelp Force):Best Buy employee communities grew to 2,200 employees
within 3 months and responded to over 13,000 customers on social networks answering
public questions, concerns, and opinions. The Twitter feed @twelpforcenow counts over
29,000 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 1,000,000 fans and a 10% increase in same-store
sales.
5. CADBURY (Wispa Chocolate Bar):22,000 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 $100,000′s.
7. CLOROX: Launched online community, CloroxClassrooms.com, 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: Started“Comcast Cares” Twitter customer service center and attracted 2,700
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 (Hunt’s Ketchup):Advocates of Hunt’s pleaded with ConAgra through
Facebook to stop putting high fructose corn syrup in what they believe is the “best
ketchup ever.” The company acts responsibly and stops. Ok. This might not track to
direct sales but it’s a great use of social media for a greater good.
11. DELL: Used Twitter to create “Dell Outlet” and booked $3 million in revenue in one year
from Twitter postings.
12. DOMINO’S: 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, “Create Dunkin’ Next Donut,” through social
networks to award grand winner with $12,000 plus year’s supply of donuts. It
generated more than 130,000 submission for 174,000 votes and “a healthy response in
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sales during the promotion period,” according to manager of interactive and
relationship marketing, David Tyler.
15. HARLEY DAVIDSON: (HDTalking.com):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. HDtalking.com now
has 35,000+ and cost to Harley is negligible.
16. HISPANITO: Major hispanic online community, www.hispanito.com, created entirely
through social network. Within a year, it had 56,000 registered users plus 150,000
unique visitors with 6,000,000 pages viewed every month.
17. IKEA: Used one of the most popular and basic functions on Facebook, tagging pictures,
and used it to IKEA’s 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 17,000 internal blogs, 100,000 employees using
internal blogs and as many as 500,000 participants in company crowd-sourcing
“jams.” 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 44.1% gross profit margin
19. INDIUM: A company that manufactures special alloys isn’t 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 company’s 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 1.5 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
65,000 followers and 300 to 800 customers every time the truck parked.
22. LIVESTRONG: Raised $10.8 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
1,500 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 44,113
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followers that resulted in a 600% increase for sign-up. As another result of the
promotion, “Moonfruit” and “Moonfruit Twitter” rose to top-ranking search term on
Google for website builders.
25. NECU JADRANU KOSOR ZA PREMIJERKU!300 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 100,000+ fans.
26. ORACLE: Layered social networks on top of current communication channels and
trained 25,000 partners, while reducing costs, boosting satisfaction and increasing PR.
27. PIZZA HUT: iPhone app for ordering accounted for 50% of orders and generate
$1,000,000 in revenues.
28. PROCTER&GAMBLE: Launched social community for Tampax and Always with website,
Beinggirl.com. The site focused on the shared interest of early teen girls. Social
community outperformed traditional channels with ROI of 4-to-1. Beinggirl.com 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 “best practices.” 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
10,000 followers.
31. STARBUCKS (MyStarbucksIdea.com): Went to customers for new product ideas. “We
used to launch a new product and it cost millions of dollars. Now, when we launch a
new product, we already have millions of fans,” 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: Used“ promoted tweets” 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, we’ve 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 “failed” 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. I’ll let you judge who
showed good social media manners and bad. They’re below as well and were referred by Tom
Chernaik, a friend in NYC and Co-Founder of Cmp.ly, 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 (e.g. 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. “One person can
take a photo. One person can post a message…..and it changes our understanding of a
situation immediately,” said Macon Phillips, special assistant to the President.
3. BARACK OBAMA: Social media campaign for the President on My.BarackObama.com
raised $30,000,000 from over 70,000 personal fund-raising pages, 400,000 blogs, 35,000
groups and 200,000 offline events. I sometime wonder, when social media was so
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successful getting the President elected, why it’s 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 “generate happiness” and published on social networks. It
enabled global promotion execution among 3,500 Coca-Cola marketers around the
world.
7. COLGATE: Launched Wisp, disposable toothpaste, through “Be More Kissable” social
media video campaign (+30 more involvement) that ran on YouTube, Twitter and
Facebook. It achieved reach of 10,000,000+ rivaling mass advertising at small fraction of
the cost.
8. DIGITAL: Magazine/blog/website with pay-per-click business model linked social media
outreach to SEO for site authority. Goal was to deliver 10,000+ viewers to show
profitability; social media delivered 100,000+ viewers for sustainable success.
9. FORD FIESTA: Used social media for U.S. 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 6,200,000
views with 132,000 consumers raising their hand for more information. On Flicker,
there were 750,000views; 83% were new to Ford. On Twitter, there were 40,000,000
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 “it’s rare for even a walk-in customer to come
in and not have be read our blog or seen our tweets.”
12. FELA: Off Broadway play, Fela, created Facebook campaign, aimed at Facebook users
with interests like theatrical shows or Afro beat. They spent $4,400 in time,
management and Facebook ad costs and generated $40,000 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 “Friskateers” 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 “FastLane,” one of the first blogs personally written by
senior executives. Customer feedback given through a blog saved the company
$180,000/year versus traditional focus group research not to mention the enormous
good will of company executives responding to consumers, not a focus group
moderator.
16. H&R BLOCK: Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business. H&R used Facebook and
Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the “Get It Right”
social media campaign. The effort secured 1,500,000 unique visitors and answered
1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no
social media “Get It Right” 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
didn’t behave so responsibly.
18. JIMMY CHOO: Best known as a designer for women’s 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 4,000
participants in his Twitter effort.
19. JOHNSON&JOHNSON (BABYCENTER.COM)8 year old online/social media community
connected and engaged 8,000,000 new and expectant moms in the U.S. (78% of total)
and another 16.5 million in 21 countries. A major profit center for J&J 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 $79/night deals to its Twitter account of 10,000 followers
and Facebook page of 5,000 fans. It booked roughly 1,000 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 42,000,000 leads. That’s
2,180,000 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 country’s National Thank You Day. Website,
http://www.thankyoudayphilippines.com/museum, and social network outposts
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generated nearly 500,000 hits and Toblerone sales escalated 132%.
24. MARS (PEDIGREE): As part of integrated “Pedigree Adoption Drive,” Pedigree created
“Become a fan, help a dog” Facebook group. When campaign started, there were
55,000 fans. At the end, there were 1,000,000+. In terms of involvement, users sent
6,000 photos, 50 videos, 1,000’s of comments and, most important, made donationfor
1,100,000 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
Ratings&Reviews 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 PETCO’s top-rated
products.
27. PIPERSPORT AIRPLANES: Sold $140,000 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
reports/scores, home value report and mortgage recommendations. Quizzle.com
received over 425,000 visits and 70,000 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), wouldn’t 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, AXERide.com, 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 30,000 visits and four times the number
of entries as compared to previous AXE competitions.
31. VITABIOTICS: Health supplements manufacturer builds community of 13,000 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 $100,000’s annually versus traditional
research and test marketing.
32. WET SEAL: E-commerce teen clothing store for girls created “community” section on the
web site for users to design their own clothes, publish for reviews and leverage “wisdom
of the crowd.” They saw a 21% increase in revenue driven by a 10% increase in sales
and a 10% increase in the average purchase per customer.
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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.
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6 Social Media ROI case studies with
something in common, courage
I’ve 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 “How do I measure social media
return on investment?”
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. Here’s 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 Rutgers’ class via Skype. Someone asked why start
tweeting? In Joe’s case, he said, “I 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
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my burgers, I jumped in.” Good feedback from customers on Twitter helped build
relationships and Twitter followers soon accounted for 75% of AJ Bomber’s customers. AJ
Bombers now has 11,000+ Twitter followers, success with Foursquare, a ”Food Wars” 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. Here’s 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 1970′s was having flat sales. They produced commercials for YouTube that
cost less than $1000. Company sales then increased +700%. The “ Will It Blend” 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
9,000,000+ 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 “Friskateers” to
reach the underutilized channel of small retailers. It resulted in a 3X increase in company
sales. But it didn’t begin that way. According to Suzanne Fanning, Director of
Communications at Fiskars Americas, it started as a way to have an “emotional bond with
consumers.” 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
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Luangrathsays,“we know every single one of our customers by name. We’ve probably had a
good Twitteror Facebook conversation with them before they even call us.” That’s 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 44.1% gross
profit margin. Best of all, they did by relinquishing control and letting employees set up the
own blogs and “crowdsourcing ‘Jams’” to collaborate with one another globally. There was no
IBM corporate blog or Twitter account but there were 17,000 internal blogs, 100,000
employees using internal blogs and as many as 500,000 participants in company
crowd-sourcing “jams.” IBM showed courage by relinquishing control. It generated a huge
amount of cash.
6. DECREASE IN CUSTOMER ISSUES (BEST BUY): Imagine if you said, “I’m going to poll
my customers on the customer service they want and deliver it on their terms.” That’s 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 2,200 employees within 3 months and responded to over 13,000 customer
questions, concerns, and opinions. The Twitter feed @twelpforce now counts over 32,000
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, I’ve 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 it’s 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 globe– 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, CloroxClassrooms.com, 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 “generate happiness” and published
on social networks. It enabled global promotion execution and integration among 3,500
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 ”Be More Kissable” viral videos. They created a
Facebook App called “Spin the Wisp” and partnered with 8 online publishers. The videos
received over 4.1 million views and the App was downloaded over 40,000+ times. Colgate
learned the value of engagement because Colgate’s U.S. market share in the toothbrush
category increased 5.6 points to a record 35.6% 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, “agents”
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 6.5 million YouTube views and 50,000 requests for
information about the car—-virtually none from people who already had a Ford in the garage.
Ford sold 10,000 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 “What’s You Flavor” 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 people’s 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 India’s history.
7. H&R 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. H&R used
Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the“Get It
Right” social media campaign. The effort secured 1,500,000 unique visitors and answered
1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social
media in the marketing mix.
8. HARLEY DAVIDSON: (HDTalking.com) : 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. HDtalking.com nowhas 56,000+ and cost to
Harley is negligible.
9. HOULIHAN’S: Showed that social media drives ROI for small businesses. The restaurant
showed that social technologies can be used in different ways to drive customers. Houlihan’s in
the U.S. has around 100 restaurants, compared to their main competitor Applebees, which has
over 2,000. 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 ‘HQ’ and was
launched in early 2008. By combining their social media campaign with email marketing, they
managed to quickly build up 10,000 members and estimated that “7,000 to 13,000 people
heard about our newest promotion because of an HQ member”. 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 1.6 million followers.
11. MTV: Premiered Skins —- an Americanized version of the acclaimed British teen drama. In
addition to traditional media and Skins.tv, a central community regularly updated with content
(including trailers and sneak peeks), a Tumblr blog – we are skins, Twitter handle
–@skinsTV and a Facebook Fan Page, MTV used a number of innovative social apps to develop
awareness and brand affinity for the show: Skins drew 3.26 million total viewers, outperforming
the launches of competitive scripted shows across both cable and network in its core demo
(12-34), including CW’s “Gossip Girl” and ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars.”
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 ‘Mustafa’, 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 Walmart's 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, WALMART’S FACEBOOK PAGE IS WORTH $586,787,180. According to
WOMMA, the average value of a Facebook fan is $71.84 and Walmart has 8,167,973
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. $71.84 is an average. It’s generally higher for well known
brands.
2. WALMART HAS 11,366“CHECK INS;” THAT’S A GROUP OF LOYAL CUSTOMERS WAITING TO
HEAR ABOUT SPECIALS. Facebook “Check-Ins” let retailers offer deals based on people’s
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.
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3. 40% OF CONSUMERS VISIT A RETAILER’S FACEBOOK PAGE BEFORE THEIR WEBSITE AND THE
AVERAGE NUMBER OF RETAILERS THEY FOLLOW IS 6. These statistics come from
Shop.org. 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 2X/day. 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, you’d see results a lot faster.
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If you spend time on Walmart’s Facebook page, you’ll 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 Facebook’s 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%)Company’s 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, “Social” and “CRM,” belong
together.
I’m a big believer in Social CRM but I think the phrase is still being defined. One reason is
the graphic above. It’s 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 is“…..designed
to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide a mutually beneficial
value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company response to the
customer’s owning of the relationship.”
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Michael Fauschette says: “Social 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
etc…..”
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, 250,000 were downloaded and 2,830
tweets were recorded in an hour.
2. BARACK OBAMA: Social media campaign for the President on
My.BarackObama.comraised $30,000,000 from over 70,000 personal fund-raising pages,
400,000 blogs, 35,000 groups and 200,000 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 2,200 employees
within 3 months and responded to over 13,000 customers on social networks answering
public questions, concerns, and opinions. The Twitter feed @twelpforcenow counts over
29,000 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, CloroxClassrooms.com, 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: Started“ Comcast Cares”Twitter customer service center and attracted 2,700
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 “Fiskateers”to 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? They’ll 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 page,” says owner Mari Luangrath.
9. GENERAL MOTORS: Launched “Fast Lane,” one of the first blogs personally written by
senior executives. Customer feedback given through a blog saved the company
$180,000/year 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 Bay’s Special Olympics, Pop Warner Football, Feed
the Children and other community causes. They do this through the player’s personal
stories and the sales of 4,000 Packers signed merchandise items at auctions. They’ve
built a Facebook presence of 221, 843 fans and a Twitter following of14,682. More
important, in 2009, they generated $248,000,000 in a town of 106,000 for an average
sale of $2,340 per citizen.
11. H&R BLOCK: Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business. H&R used Facebook and
Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the “Get It
Right”social media campaign. The effort secured 1,500,000 unique visitors and
answered 1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when
there was no social media “Get It Right” 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. HDtalking.com now has 40,000+
members and cost to Harley is negligible.
13. INDIUM: A company that manufactures special alloys isn’t 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 company’s employees personally.
14. JOHNSON&JOHNSON (BABYCENTER.COM): 8 year old online/social media community
connected and engaged 8,000,000 new and expectant moms in the U.S. (78% of total)
and another 16.5 million in 21 countries. A major profit center for J&J 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
reports/scores, home value report and mortgage recommendations. Quizzle.com
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received over 425,000 visits and 70,000 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 “natural,” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”), 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, it’s 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 what’s 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, completeplumbingsource.com’s 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 “Dickies” related phrases as well as more generic phrases such as
“workwear” and “safety boots” etc. Within six months, Dickies Store dominated the SERP’S
(Search Engine Results Page) for “Dickies” 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, dollardays.com used videos for its eclectic product offering to capture long
tail key words. They also video indexed each product video for Google’s 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 entrepreneur.com. That’s 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) 250,000 visitor
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per month, 2) 84% in organic traffic and 3) 70% in online reservations bookings.
6. PHILLYDENTIST.COM: 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,
“Philadelphia dentist,” 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,
rottentomatoes.comwas 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 “Tomatometer” 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
Gore’s 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. VOICES.COM: One of the leading marketplaces for voice-over talent, voices.com 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,
watergallery.net 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 business’s goals. If you’re clear about who you want to attract and the action(s) you
want them to take on your once they get to your site, you’ll 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.
It’s a marketing combination that’s 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 don’t know them
 83% of consumers share information from people they know
 81% says they’ve 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 P&G 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 you’re 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 27,000 to 163,000. Within 9 days, sharing took the size of the
community and their heavy user base from 163,000 to 900,000. Best Buy has 3,281,961
Facebook Fans and WOMMAestimates the value of a Facebook Fan is $72.
2. CARS.COM: 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 consumers’
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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
saw:426 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. Here’s 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.
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4. EVENTBRITE: Sharing is one of Eventbrite’s 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 $2.52, a
share on Twitter equals $0.43 and ashare on LinkedIn equals $0.90. 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 were:300% increase in site
traffic40,000 to 250,000 increase in referrals per month40% increase in
click-through-rateAverage user click back to the Moviefone site 7X
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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:+78.5% increase in click-through rate+23.8% increase in conversion+196.6% gain in
revenue+183.3% increase in new buyers.
7. PREMIERE BEAUTY: Beauty Salon offered 60% off through Groupon and turned beauty into
a social business with:500 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
in100,000′s of Likes600% increase in SharesFacebook user showed greater loyalty and bought
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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
saw:2X 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, Gilt.com. 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.
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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 friend’s 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 saw:2X 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
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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 is“How do I measure social media return on investment?”
On this blog, we’ve 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 TripAdvisor.comand Bookings.com. The company wants to listen, learn
and engage with what customers are saying about the Accor brand and approximately 12,000
competitors’ hotels so it can then establish dashboards to act on the data. Accor has found this
type of customer service not only improves the company’s 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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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 $1.60 on a live call; live agents can handle only 500 calls/hour while their web site can
handle 20,000 calls/hour; just as important, not one negative comment occurred when the
company made this switch.
3. AT&T: Has over 1.6 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 AT&T’s Facebook staff gets some of their best customer service ratings
while also delivering some of the company’s 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 2,200 employees within 3 months. They
respond to over 13,000 customers on Twitter answering questions, concerns, and opinions. The
Twitter feed @twelpforce now counts over 40,000 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
company’s 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. Here’s Frank explaining just what Comcast did.
7. DIRECTV: Has problems with churn among its 18.5 U.S. 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 600,000
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 15,000 call center
agents to conduct real-time data queries and analysis throughout the day—-using dashboards,
e-mail delivery, and end-user reporting tools—-eliminating the reliance on outdated weekly or
monthly reports.
8. FORD: The way we buy cars is changing. A 2011 survey of 2,485 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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9. H&R BLOCK: Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business. H&R uses Facebook and Twitter
to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the“Get It Right” social media
campaign. The effort secures 1,500,000 unique visitors and answers 1,000,000 questions for a
15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media “Get It Right”
program. Here’s 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
Scores…..plus ideas from the community result in new product innovations.
11. MACY’S: Handles 130 orders every minute online from over 1,000,000 unique visitors every
day. Macys.com and Bloomingdales.comlink production to online orders and give access to 100
employees to optimize customer flow. For the first time, Macy’s 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 university’s Facebook page before
they go to university’s 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.
We’ve produced results like these for our client and have case studies of our own to share on
the website. We’re proud of the results and ROI achieved and the demonstration these
business principles work. We’d 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. Today…..71% 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? Here’s 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 19,910 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 where“the interactions were more phone tag.
We’re getting in touch with the customer the way they want. It’s something that’s
easier and fits the customer’s style,” say Frank Eliason, SVP of Social Media. (8.088
followers)
3. @AmericanExpress: American Express found consumers who begin a customer service
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dialogue through Twitter“are 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 grow,” says Jim Bush, an AmEx EVP.
4. @AskHalifaxBank: With no response from other channels, an angry customer resorted
to Twitter: “Good LORD @askhalifaxbank how can 1 company make SUCH a mess of Isa
transfers? I’m on hours of phonecalls, branch visits&still not sorted.” She got a response
within minutes her complaint had been forwarded and return tweet: “If we can help
with anything in future, feel free to tweet.” She says she would use Twitter again.
5. @ClevelandClinic: The Cleveland Clinic uses Twitter to dispense health advice to over
52,000 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 has“best practices” for every tweet they
receive. “We aim to respond to a tweet within an hour and whilst it’s difficult to put a
figure on it, at the moment it has definitely improved the time to resolution, which was
already good,” says a spokesperson.
7. @HRBlockAnswers: During tax season, a long response time can mean a lost
customer. For example, @r_wett tweeted “HR block, how is it that the FREE SC e-flie
[sic] costs me $30 to file?” A short seven minutes later, @HRBlockAnswers replied,
“@r_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 Fitness’s
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 customer“eeded to update a client’s 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 blocked,” she “twittered (tweeted?) about the
connection issues asking if anyone else was having the same problem.i was hoping to
just get some additional information on what the problem may be, instead, i got a
response from NetSol support within the hour.” Her Tweet to Gerry was followed up by
an email and phone call from Sam who fixed the problem within minutes. ”I won’t
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 be.”
10. @SouthwestAirlines: An angry customer tweets a complaint about her flight
that ”Southwest=Suckage.” She gets another tweet back and then another tweet days
later ask how her return flight was. “I have to say that my Southwest Twitter experience
wasn’t just a single fire and forget incident as they twittered back again to check up on
me,” she says.
11. @Starbucks: To listen to customers and help with content management, Starbucks
tweets:“Hello Twitterville. I posted some news stories last week. Is that interesting for
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you. I’m here for you, so let me know what you want to see.” Couldn’t 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 2,200 employees within 3 months. They
respond to over 13,000 customers on Twitter answering 100-125 questions, concerns,
and opinions every day. The Twitter feed @twelpforce now counts over 44,000
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 “is not about being perfect, it’s about the response” said Deborah Mitchell, a
clinical associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University, in an interview with
Smartmoney.com. “People like to feel like the company was proactive in responding, and bent
over backwards to fix it.”
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 to“Like” them on Facebook but are surprised to learn the #1
reason people would be motivated to “Like” 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 was“coupons.” (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
volume.When 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 don’t 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.
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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
170,000 new fans and a double-digit increase in sales versus year ago.
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3. HAUTELOOK: Ran an “instand win” 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 “Feel Good Bucks” and a unique coupon
code generation functionality. They gave out ‘lucky’ 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 $10,000! 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 MACARONI&CHEESE: Used Twitter to encourage people, in their “Mac and
Jinx”campaign, to tweet something with the phrase “mac&cheese” 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 Mac&Cheese plus a t-shirt. The campaign took advantage of
the real-time nature of Twitter boosting the brand’s Twitter followers by 400% and at one point
gaining over 300 mentions of “Mac&Cheese” per minute on Twitter.
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6. PRETZEL CRISPS: Launched a$1.00 coupon on their Facebook page. Within 36,000 hours,
their fan base grew from 5,000 to 12,000. So, they launched another only coupons– Buy One,
Get One Free. Only this time they didn’t tell their fans. No matter, Fans found out on their own
and the “letting you in on a secret” factor had a viral effect that built the fans following from
14,000 and 29,000 and now it’s at over 62,000. 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 $2.50 coupon.
There was also a bonus coupon for $0.50 off on Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls. The campaign
saw over 65,000 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 250,000 coupon download at a 20% redemption rate.
6,000 blog and social media mentions. 3,000 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 they’ll 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 you/2 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 10,000 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 1000′s 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).
We’re 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,
there’s 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
you’re 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 globe– 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
170,000 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: (HDTalking.com): Harley owners created a website and social
community of over 3 million Facebook fans and 62,000 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. HDtalking.com now has 58,000+ Harley owner participating and cost to Harley for
operations is negligible.
5. H&R BLOCK: Used Facebook and Twitter during the tax season to provide immediate access
to a tax professional for Q&A in the“Get It Right” social media campaign. The effort secured
1,500,000 unique visitors and answered 1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus
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the prior year when there was no social media “Get It Right” program. Here’s 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 17,000 internal blogs, 100,000 employees
participating regularly and as many as 500,000 participants involved in company
crowd-sourcing“jams.” 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
44.1% gross profit margin.
7. MELROSE JEWELERS: An eRetailer sold high end watches like Rolex and Breitling where the
average sales is $5,000. They offered consumers $100 off on their next purchase if they“Like”
them on Facebook. They had an app on their Facebook page that functioned as a simple quiz
where, after taking the quiz your “watch personality” was revealed at the end (e.g. 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 30,000 to over 180,000 in one quarter and
sales went from a few hundred thousand to over $2,000,000.
8. PRETZEL CRISPS: Launched a$1.00 coupon on their Facebook page. Within 36 hours, their
fan base grew from 5,000 to 12,000. So, they launched another coupon– Buy One, Get One
Free. Only this time they didn’t tell their fans. No matter. Fans found out on their own and the
“letting you in on a secret” factor had a viral effect that built the fans from 14,000 and 29,000
and now it’s at over 62,000. 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. TORTILLALAND:Found 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 14,000 and insights into target consumers through survey research. They built brand
assets that would have cost 100′s for thousands of dollars through suppliers for a very small
fraction of that amount.
When developing your brand’s 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
EVP/Chief Strategy Officer for Omnicom and has held leadership positions at FCB, Euro RSCG
and Saatchi & 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 & 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 ROI’s 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.
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