Report: Social Media Linked To Fewer Than 1% Of Sales

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Data from a Forrester research study found that fewer than 1 percent of transactions could be traced back to social links. The report, “The Purchase Path of Online Buyers In 2012,″ analyzed conversion paths on 77,000 orders to determine what sources returned the most revenue.

The research, found that the top-performing sources were direct visits, organic search, paid search and email campaigns. When it came to new guests, direct visits, organic search and paid search made up 20 percent, 16 percent and 11 percent of transactions, respectively. For existing guests, however, direct, email and organic search equaled 20 percent, 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

The study also found that although most guests viewed social media favorably, many used its more as a discovery tool to learn about products and brands as opposed to making purchases.

The full report can be found here.

This supports our work and experience in restaurant dining rooms and hotels across America for four reasons:

Social Media Is Not A Sales Platform

It’s a social platform. Meaning people use it to talk about their kittens, their kid’s achievements, new photos of friends & family, etc…  Trying to push your products & services on social media is like trying to swim against the current. To be effective on social media you must facilitate guest’s behaviors and values with your content and their experiences with you.

Out of Reach

Restaurant & hotel marketer’s social media efforts are too far removed from an actual transaction to measure any discernible ROI. “Likes” and “Follows” are not purchase behaviors that tell us anything – especially if they were bought with a contest, coupon, discount or begging.

We have preached forever, that if your marketing efforts are more than two degrees of separation from an actual sale, you’re too far away from the guest’s actual  purchasing process. Also, metrics that don’t include traffic and sales are not real metrics and are a complete waste of time.

No Real Connections

People don’t want relationships with their food or their hotel room. They do want relationships with people. Brands are kept at a distance, only to be engaged with when they need information or a solution and done so at their leisure.  Also, guest’s short-term thinking means they look at you from the perspective of their last experience or the best or worst experience with you or a competitor. Which makes focusing on adding meaningfully differentiated value to each guest experience an imperative.

Engagement Is A Myth

Sharing a video, posting your menu, pushing your next event (or anything else with a verb in it) are all now considered “engagement” to the point that none of these activities mean anything anymore.  For restaurants & hotels, engagement happens in our dining rooms at the table, counter, in the room and at every single touchpoint in the guest experience.

Talk about your guests, their life events and their experiences with you and how much more valuable you are as a part of their fun, their happiness, their lives. It’s relationship marketing 101.

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