The buzzword in marketing today is “conversation”. Social media gives you an unprecedented opportunity hear your customers, become a part of conversations, spread your message and build your brand. But marketers continue to face the challenge of converting conversation into sales.
A late 2008 Marketing Sherpa survey of social media marketers (as recapped by eMarketer) puts a spotlight on the issue.
The survey found, for example, that most respondents see social media as only “somewhat effective” at increasing online sales. In terms of measurement, 32% off respondents believe that “Blog or social network advertising” is accurately measured — the most of any social tactic listed — while only 16% found it a very effective tactic. 47% and 46% said that “user reviews and ratings” and “blogger and journalist relations”, respectively, are very effective, but only 15% and 11% believe these activities are very accurately measured.
The question, then, is how to bridge the gap from conversation to conversion. eMarketer cites an Epsilon report that finds e-mail click through rates in Q1 ’09 at 6.1%, while click-through rates in industries such as retail electronics and apparel saw declines from Q4 ’08 to Q1 ’09. And email is often a barrier to turning social media success into sales success. Collecting email addresses from social network interactions is difficult and considered undesirable in most social networking conversations.
ShoppeSimple bridges the gap from conversation to conversion. The ShoppeSimple TransactionalRSS feed system combines widely used RSS technology with proprietary SaaS-based publishing system to open an online channel to consumers who want merchant offers on their own time. It is inherently opt-in, anonymous and private for the consumer — and merchant offers can be accessed, purchased and shared through readers, browsers, from social networks and mobile devices.
You can see what many retailers are learning about TRSS at www.shoppesimple.com, or visit RSSCheck.com to contact sales. And let us know what you think!