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the Free CMSWire NewsletterAs marketer's understanding of the way that social media affects the traditional buying processes has grown, new ways of working to engage consumers have emerged. Businesses have struggled to understand how to maximize engagement via social media, which is inherently personal and traditionally works on an individual level. Recent changes have encouraged businesses to promote their brands on social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. And the growth in mobile devices, specifically smart phones, has made a whole new level of engagement possible.
New ways of thinking
Back in 2008, Dave Evans proposed a new paradigm for the social media sales funnel. If we combine this with the marketing AIDA model, a full circle of buying and referring can be noted that breaks away from the traditional linear AIDA model.
Social Media Buying Cycle
Each element of the model can be explained to gain additional insight into how digital marketers can utilize tactics to generate maximum sales.
Attention
Before you can start to sell your offering, you need to gain consumer's attention. This might be done on or offline, via an advert, blog, social media post or sponsorship. Once you have gained the consumer’s attention you can deliver your key marketing messages.
Interest
Your marketing messages should stimulate some level of interest in your product or services by demonstrating the features and benefits. The need may have to be established, too. New products may be a disruptive innovation that consumers are not aware of. Additionally, the offering may satisfy a need indirectly, such as further education as a route to getting a better job.
Desire
Your marketing message needs to convey your value proposition to your customers. In other words, you have the right product at the right price. This will be key for gaining positive feedback, as most people will rate a product on whether it performed as specified and that the cost was appropriate for the performance.
Action
The customer needs to be sufficiently convinced about your offering to perform an action, ideally making a purchase, but your objective might be to get consumers to take a test drive or attend an open day. User generated feedback is often seen as essential to decision making when buying online, with much research to support this.
Consumer reviews are significantly more trusted — nearly 12 times more — than descriptions that come from manufacturers, according to a survey of US Internet users by review site EXPO. A high product rating will increase the likelihood of purchase for 55% of consumers. Additionally, the availability of product ratings was a factor for 59% of UK shoppers, as was the availability of user generated or consumer product reviews (57%).
Use
Once an action has been taken, the consumer will use/consume your product or service. This might be an instant, one-off usage or may extend for months or years.
Opinion
As the consumer uses the offering, they will develop an opinion as to whether the product or service met the need established in the interest phase and whether the value proposition was correct. So it is important that your presales marketing information and branding is reliable, accurate and does not set up false expectations.
Talk
Once consumers have started to use your offering they can be encouraged to give online feedback and share their opinion of your offering. This is often done immediately post sale if appropriate or by a timely email requesting the consumer leave a comment for others on the service or product page. This can vary from a simple Facebook “like” button or star rating to a full feedback form. More detailed forms will allow prospective customers to drill down into reviews that meet their requirements. After the process the consumer is asked to share the review with their network of contacts via social media.
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