The days of ‘spray and pray’ marketing activities involving mass emails to large volumes of untargeted prospects have long gone – although no doubt it’s still considered a ‘strategy’ for some.

Like every other area of business, marketing has become much more sophisticated and accountable, thanks to the advancement and adoption of new technologies. Marketing today is much less of a black art, and much more about an applied discipline. And thanks to the latest technology developments, it’s now also possible to measure the amount of revenue contribution that marketing is delivering back to the organisation, including measuring the all-important power of social media. 

The majority of small businesses and start-ups typically adopt an email marketing strategy with basic drip nurturing and simple scoring. That’s a great first step, but why stop there? Even a small marketing department of one can adopt more sophisticated marketing campaigns that drive lead generation efforts. The best ones integrate marketing automation with social marketing.

Automating elements of your marketing minimizes the work, so you can focus on the creativity and quality of your messaging and offers, and act like a marketing department 10 times your size. The result? More interest, more leads, and more revenue. Likewise, social marketing captures and leverages sharing behaviour, greatly increasing the reach and impact of your messages.

Key considerations

Here are three key considerations for harnessing social marketing to help drive new business. The first is that people trust what their friends and peers have to say about a company, much more than they trust what the company has to say about itself. Understanding how to tap into the power of peer-to-peer influence to amplify the reach and impact of every marketing campaign drives both lead generation and revenue growth. Thanks to the fluid and real-time nature of social, you can build community engagement initiatives, developing content with the purpose of educating and informing, to establish early relationships with prospects online, and earn their trust.

The second point is that social is more than just a channel or tactic; it is a strategy that should be present in every aspect of marketing. In the past, marketers have thought of social marketing primarily as listening, responding, and publishing social updates. Although these are all important, the real promise of the social explosion for marketers isn’t about updating a corporate feed; it’s about turning fans and customers into an army of powerful brand advocates.

Thirdly, the world of social marketing ROI is still evolving. In most cases, we have to rethink traditional metrics to include the ways that people interact with social media. By leveraging peer-to-peer social engagement, marketers can look at metrics such as brand lift, social engagement, and influencer reach. In marketing terms, “influencers” are individuals who have the power to affect the purchase decisions of others, because of their real or perceived authority, knowledge, position, or relationship. The growing practice of influencer marketing can measurably impact purchase decisions.

Social profiles
Simply put, today’s marketers need to be social business professionals. It’s not a case of creating social campaigns –  every campaign should be social, and reach all the places where youre already touching prospects – from your website, to your landing pages, to your Facebook pages, and your emails. By incorporating social profiles of individuals, their sharing behaviours, and the impact to your bottom line, you can make all your lead scoring, nurturing and overall marketing activities even stronger and more effective.

Tapping into this powerful channel will give a lift to all your campaigns and content, increase conversions, and set up your sales team to close the deal. Marketers are in a unique and exciting position to be the ambassadors for a new era. The real demand is for professionals that understand social business – not just social media.

Liz Smyth is EMEA Marketing Director at Marketo