Social Media Changing Marketers Approach

Social media is causing organizations to rethink and evolve their marketing strategies, according to a new study by Alterian.

The research indicated that 60 percent of organizations think that personal one-to-one engagement with consumers requires a new way of creating content and on-demand services, while 60 percent also feel the existing strategies for understanding consumers needs can be improved significantly.

Social media was identified as the channel which has had the most influence on the customer experience in the last twelve months (27%) and, is the channel which businesses expect to have the greatest effect on the customer experience in the next year (48%).

In terms of return on investment, over a quarter of respondents (28%) cited email as the channel that offered the greatest ROI and the second most popular channel (20%) for investment in the next twelve months.

Other key highlights include:

•  46% of respondents felt that strategy was the most important factor in defining the customer engagement agency
•  25% stated that the top obstacle to overcome in online marketing was the integration of online with database marketing and offline channels
•  The lack of ability to assess or manage internal infrastructure and culture challenges (25%) and the integration of all the technology to power the cycle (20%) were identified as the biggest factors in implementing the customer engagement cycle.