Social was built originally for consumers, not businesses or teams, and we set out to build the software for any organization to be successful. Our early product helped social teams build content calendars, find and respond to relevant comments, publish posts across multiple channels with ease, and track proxy metrics of success (remember Klout scores?).

Over time, social activity ballooned, matured and fractured as new networks, content formats and communities emerged. Consumer usage became mainstream and multi-generational. Brands’ investment in social began to reflect this wider and more committed adoption. Today, more than 4.9 billion people worldwide use social media, and 53% of consumers have increased their social media usage over the past two years. Social ad spending in the US alone is expected to surpass $80 billion by 2025. None of these patterns show signs of reversing course.

Consumers now see social as a connection to the companies and causes they care about—a faster, richer experience than support@ email addresses and 1-800 numbers. No longer just a frontier marketing or niche conversational channel, social is fast becoming the nexus of customer relationships and the primary digital face of brands.

What does that mean for the next generation of social media management solutions? 
Brands will need more than just the next iteration of tools. Simply responding to more customers, publishing on more networks and sharing raw data across teams, will only go so far.

As consumers increasingly make social the digital hubs of their lives, brands have the chance to understand their audiences and markets deeply, and to spread that knowledge throughout their organization. Social media management solutions will evolve into the thread that connects and strengthens the bonds between brands and consumers—woven throughout every team, strategy and customer experience.

The next generation of business on social is not particularly about “social” at all. It’s about real digital customer relationships.

Customer intelligence is converging on social

We’ve seen how social customer care has changed the way marketing and customer support teams operate. Years ago they may not have had a reason to interact or share information regularly, but social media has made them close collaborators out of necessity. As social becomes the primary hub for high-resolution consumer insights, imagine how other departments could transform their work.

Consider the speed and richness of customer information you can glean from social compared to channels like email or phone. Social content is immediate, continuous and more fully represents the person. Email, phone and other channels are far more asynchronous—frustratingly for days with email—and are episodic, giving a limited view of the customer. An Instagram Story reply happens in real time whereas an email might go unread for days, or weeks. Who a customer follows on X (formerly Twitter) and interacts with says a lot more about who they are as a person compared to one service representative’s short conversation on a support call.

With people putting more and more of their lives online—including their lives as customers—social data is becoming the core representation of the customer. This impacts and benefits every team, even when they’re not on the front lines of social. We’re seeing departments like recruiting, legal and product asking to get involved in social, a reality I never anticipated seeing when we started Sprout over a decade ago.

At the same time, social is becoming more complex. Brands need to factor in how quickly social is fragmenting and morphing across emerging platforms and evolving consumer preferences. More social networks to choose from means consumers are exposed to a wider set of perspectives (be them other users, influencers or businesses), making it crucial for brands to demonstrate they understand what their audience wants in each space.

This growing bounty of intelligence means social media will continue to supplant traditional market and customer research, as well as legacy customer records. But businesses need tools that can aggregate, disseminate and analyze social data at scale and across the organization, before it decays—whether that’s because the opportunity passed, preferences already shifted or a competitor acted first.

This will take advanced, yet elegant, technology. Simply increasing budgets and manpower won’t help brands capitalize on the opportunities social media brings to the table. For brands to consistently deliver the exceptional experiences consumers expect, and to fully realize the emerging opportunity to know the customer, social media management solutions will need to become more accessible, intuitive and purpose-built for every team.

The future of social media management is…

With each emerging generation and as new platforms come online, social will only become further ingrained into both society and, in the business world, every workflow and team. Whether that’s directly interacting with a customer or applying audience insights to the business, social media is the front-line for customer relationships and market intelligence. It’s where your brand, reputation and opportunity exists.

For organizations to be truly customer-centric, the future of social media management solutions must be built with these four pillars in mind:

1. Ubiquitous. With social becoming the kernel of the customer record, social media management solutions will need to become accessible and consumable by every team. That doesn’t mean your sales team is suddenly going to be posting Reels. Rather, democratizing access to your social management platform means upleveling data and insights for specific departments, business processes and decision makers.

Today, only the most forward-thinking companies share social media insights pervasively within their organizations. Tomorrow, this will be table stakes. We’ll know we’ve entered the next era when all teams see social data as critical to competitively addressing customer, product and business opportunities.

2. Personalized. While brands aren’t rushing to remove traditional channels like phone and email from their communication strategies, social is raising the bar for how and when they engage with their audience. Consumers don’t just want brands to respond to them on social; 70% of them expect companies to solve their problem in a personalized manner. But “personalization” has to mean more than populating dynamic fields with standard name or location inputs.

Younger generations, in particular, bring any and all issues to brands on social, assuming they’ll be met with swift and authentic interactions. They expect the people behind the brand account to treat them the way they’d be treated walking into a local, independently owned shop: with empathy and acknowledgement of their individual preferences. With powerful social media management tools that intuitively surface the context they brands need to truly know each customer on this level, they can engage accordingly.

3. Intelligent. Expecting teams to manually collate massive amounts of social listening data and transform it into actionable recommendations takes time away from their core work. Departments need answers, not more chores. With AI innovation, expect to see social media management solutions to automate and elevate how social data is used across teams. AI and automation can, for example, present recommendations that empower brands to create highly personalized experiences in no time at all. Beyond saving time and resources, AI advancements in social media management solutions will enable teams to build relationships that influence revenue and loyalty at scale.

4. Interoperable. Customer relationships start, grow and expand on social. So it’s unsurprising that 96% of business leaders expect social data to be integrated into their organization’s CRM capabilities over the next three years. But integration is just the beginning.

It’s not enough to simply grant every department access to social data. Social media management solutions should process, package and seamlessly integrate data with the entirety of your organization’s tech stack. Social media management tools will become the go-to source that every team uses for immediate, in-depth market insights and customer intelligence.

The social media management solutions of tomorrow will be designed with every team in mind

Thirteen years ago at Sprout, we started by helping social teams simplify the tactical functions bogging down their workdays. We strove to empower social marketers, often working in teams of one, giving them the tools needed to keep up with the publishing and engagement responsibilities of their job.

But consumers expect more from brands now as social increasingly becomes the digital hub of their lives. The future of customer experience and understanding starts and ends with social. And social media management solutions must evolve to be more than an island, but a primary source purpose-built for every team to harness consumer insights and build deeper relationships.

For more perspective into how consumers’ social media behaviors and expectations are evolving, download The Sprout Social Index™ today.

The post What to expect from social media management in 2028 appeared first on Sprout Social.

They see your ads, interact with you on social media and explore your website before they buy. All these interactions—from the first ad impression to every “Please help” DM customers send—define your customer journey. To keep up with it all and better inform your social media marketing strategy, create a customer journey map as a blueprint to help you understand your customers at each stage.

Let’s explore what customer journey mapping is and how it helps your brand.

What is customer journey mapping?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of each point of interaction your customers have with your company. You can style the map like a flowchart, timeline, table or even on sticky notes.

Creating the map is a great internal exercise. Along the way, you might find pain points or touchpoints you didn’t know existed. A basic customer journey map includes the buying stages (and support touchpoints) a customer goes through.

More detailed maps include:

• actions your customers take
• good and bad emotions your customers experienced
• departments involved in customer touchpoints
• content types you serve your customers
• solutions to pain points

What is a customer touchpoint?

A touchpoint on the customer journey map is the point of interaction a customer has with your brand. It doesn’t need to be a two-way interaction. Seeing a social media ad, getting a branded newsletter and asking a friend for a product recommendation are all touchpoints.

Customers may experience emotions and actions at touchpoints. When someone asks for product recommendations, people might mention your brand. You might not serve that recommendation to them directly but someone still introduces you to a potential customer.

What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

A customer journey map puts the customer first by giving you a deeper understanding of how your customers interact with your brand. This enable you to make better decisions and improve customer experiences.

When coupled with social media market research, they help brands:

• Provide an overview of the resources your customers use. This helps determine the ROI of customer-centric engagement and service. For example, if blogs are your highest traffic sources, investing more in those channels makes sense.
• Identify content gaps. Pain points without solutions are an excellent source for content ideation and development. If customers need help with a specific product issue, for example, but find limited guidance, create in-depth video tutorials to address this pain point.
• Identify inefficiencies. Maybe some processes are repetitive, or some solutions cause more friction. If your customers have trouble checking out due to a complicated form, for example, simplify it to reduce cart abandonment rates.
• Generate marketing campaign ideas. A clear understanding of customer motivations and journey stages creates targeted campaigns. You can provide them with relevant content and incentives to move them closer to a purchase.
• Guide multiple departments. Streamline content creation, social customer care strategy and messaging optimization across every touchpoint. Departments use the customer journey map as a central reference to ensure a consistent and customer-focused approach.
• Enhance customer communication. Customer journey maps reveal critical touchpoints, like social media interactions, for timely and meaningful engagement. In fact, The Sprout Social Index™ shows 51% of customers believe the most memorable brands on social respond to customers.

Every business and industry has its unique customer journey maps, but the fundamentals remain the same.

Recently, our social team talked about using social media for the customer journey in the auto industry. Watch the video below to hear their discussion on touchpoints, customer experience and how legacy brands are going beyond traditional tactics like targeted ads to tell their story.

It’s a great example of how industry-specific customer journey follows the fundamentals but also has touchpoints specific to them.

What’s included in a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is like a detailed travel itinerary for your customer’s experience with your brand. It includes elements like:

1. The buying process

The buying process is the step-by-step path a customer follows to make a purchase decision. It tells you where customers drop off or face obstacles during making purchases.

Use prospecting tools, content management systems (CMS) and behavior analytics tools to gather data. Facebook Shops, Instagram Shopping and TikTok Shop data also provide valuable insights into how customers find products and engage with content via social commerce.

Pro tip: Categorize the journey into stages like awareness, consideration and decision to map these steps horizontally on the customer journey map.

Don’t forget to integrate feedback mechanisms, such as customer surveys or user testing. These offer qualitative insights into the buying process. Understanding the “why” behind customer behavior can be as important as knowing the “what.”

2. Emotions

Emotions show how customers feel at different touchpoints in their interaction with your brand. Emotions heavily influence purchase decisions and brand loyalty which is exactly why it’s so important to include them.

Think about it: When someone has a great experience with your brand and feels happy, they’re more likely to buy from you again. On the flip side, if they feel frustrated or unhappy, they’ll knock on your competitor’s door.

Use surveys or feedback forms to ask customers how they felt during their experience. You might have come across these smileys during your own shopping experience:

These scales are a convenient way to gauge how your customers feel at any point.

Pay attention to what they say on social media and in reviews. You can tell if they’re happy or upset by their tone.

Tools like Sprout Social use AI-driven sentiment analysis to dig into social listening data to give you insights on what people think about your brand.

These insights are handy when creating emotional marketing campaigns. When you know how customers feel, take actionable steps to solve any negative experiences and encourage positive ones.

3. User actions

User actions are the steps customers take when they interact with your brand. They include steps like visiting your website, clicking on a product, adding items to their cart or signing up for your newsletter.

Actions highlight what people do at each stage. Each of these actions tells you something about what customers are interested in and how close they are to making a purchase.

Analytics tools for your website or app are your best bet for such data. These tools show you which pages customers visit, what they click on and where they drop off.

Once you have this information, tailor your marketing efforts and content to align with the actions customers take at each stage.

4. User research

User research examines what customers search for or where they turn for information during the buying process. This part of the customer journey map helps you understand how customers gather information.

For example, in the awareness stage, buyers often rely on search engines like Google to research solutions to their problems. But it’s not just about where they go—it’s about what they’re looking for. Knowing their specific research topics allows you to address their pain points.

What’s the trick? Keep an eye on what customers search for online. Tracking keywords and phrases they use on search engines, as well as social media market research are good places to start.

Also, monitor discussions and conversations to get a deeper understanding of the questions, concerns and topics that are top-of-mind for your potential customers.

The key is to use this information to provide potential customers with what they need at each stage. Targeted content delivery positions your brand as a valuable source of information.

5. Solutions

This section outlines the actions and strategies your brand implements to address customer pain points and improve their overall experience.

It documents the specific solutions or improvements applied at each stage of the customer journey. These include steps like changes to website design that resolve issues and improve the customer experience.

It visualizes how your brand responds to customer needs and challenges at different touchpoints. Besides that, it’s a good reference to ensure your team implements the solutions and refines them to increase customer satisfaction.

What are the 7 steps to map the customer journey?

A strategic approach to building a map ensures you capture every touchpoint, anticipate customer desires and address potential pain points. Here are seven steps to build a journey map unique to your customers and business needs.

1. Set your goals

What do you want to get out of this process? And why does it matter to your business? Knowing your goals sets the stage for how you assemble your map.

Some examples of goals include:

• Identify the top three customer pain points. Use these pain points to create content.
• Understand customer interests and motivations to develop better products and services.
• Total the cost of customer interactions to set a better social media budget.

2. Decide on a customer journey map type

There are several different customer journey maps and each one has its advantages. When you decide which map to work with, you know which details to focus on.

These are four of the most common types of customer journey maps: current state, future state, day in the life and service blueprint. We’ll go further into detail on each one later on.

Understanding your goals and where your brand stands in its evolution will guide you in selecting the appropriate map type.

3. Create and define your customer personas

Which customers will you focus on? It’s difficult to map a customer journey if you don’t have a customer in mind. Customer personas are fictional characters that represent each of your target customer groups. They’re detailed with everything from demographics to interests to buying behavior.

If you’ve already created social media personas to understand your audience, you’re more than halfway there. But if you haven’t, then our buyer persona template or Xtensio’s will be useful. To really get to know someone’s purchase decisions and shopping processes, interview existing customers.

Pro tip: If you have distinctively different personas—such as, if you serve both a B2C and B2B market—set up different customer journey maps.

4. Break it down: touchpoints and stages

The customer journey map is divided into stages that usually fit within the funnel illustrated above. List out the stages to begin. Next, list out the main customer touchpoints that exist for your company. When you’re done with both lists, place the touchpoints into the different stages.

To get even more detailed, assign department owners to each touchpoint. You can identify where certain social media channels fit into the mix. And, you can assign predicted customer sentiment or emotions to different stages of the journey. It’s up to you how detailed you want the map to be.

5. Gather data and customer feedback

You need rock-solid data on how customers interact with your brand to create an accurate customer journey map. Focus on these three aspects:

Analyze existing data

Jump into the data you already have—more specifically website performance, chats with customer support and sales records. This information can tell you loads about how customers act, what they like and what frustrates them.

This quantitative data offers a foundational perspective on how customers interact with your brand, helping you identify both strengths and areas of improvement.

Conduct customer interviews

Get personal with one-on-one chats with customers. Ask them about their experiences, what bugs them and what they expect when they deal with your brand. These talks reveal qualitative insights that numbers can’t, like understanding the emotional and psychological aspects of the customer journey.

Create surveys and questionnaires

Turn to surveys and questionnaires for a more structured and broader approach to gathering feedback. Send them out to a bunch of customers and get structured feedback. Ask questions about their journey with your brand, how happy they are and where they think things could get better.

A combination of these three aspects gives you a 360-degree view of what your customers really experience with your brand.

6. Test and identify pain points

To confirm your customer touchpoints, you probably checked in on various departments and spoke to customers. This is great work but you need to take another step further: test it yourself. Go through the customer journey from the viewpoint of the customer.

While you’re testing the journey, keep an eye out for challenges, confusion or any frustrating moments. For example, if the website takes forever to load, if instructions aren’t clear or if reaching customer support is a headache, make detailed notes of these issues.

It’s also a smart move to collect feedback from both colleagues and customers who’ve gone through the journey. This way, you double-check and confirm your findings for a more complete picture.

A hands-on approach ensures your customer journey map reflects the real-world experience and equips you to take targeted actions to improve the overall customer journey.

7. Make changes and find solutions

So your map is complete. What’s next? You need to find or create solutions to the pain points you identified in the previous step.

Now’s the time to check in on the goals you established in step one and make the moves to smooth out the journey. Give yourself time and space to implement some of the solutions, whether a quarter or six months, and check back on the map to update it.

As you put these changes into action, make sure to watch your customer journey map closely. Don’t forget to keep it up to date to show the improvements and how they affect the customer experience. This keeps your customer journey map fresh and super useful for steering your brand toward delivering an exceptional customer experience.

4 types of customer journey maps and examples

Let’s take a look at the four most common customer journey maps and examples of each.

1. Current state

Current state customer journey maps are like an audit. You document how your customers experience their buying and service paths in your company’s current state. These are especially helpful to establish a baseline for your customer service experience.

Take a look at this simplified current state customer journey map from Nielsen-Norman.

The map follows the journey of “Jumping Jamie” as they navigate the process of switching to a different mobile plan. The map defines the current journey into four stages. Apart from the journey, it also highlights opportunities and metrics to track.

Current state maps are fantastic for sharing user frustrations with all departments. This helps you get everyone on board with investing in solutions and brainstorming ways to address user pain points.

2. Future state

Future state customer journey maps follow the same format as current state maps except they represent the ideal journey. You can use them alongside your current state maps to identify painpoints and areas to improve.

Here’s an example of a future state journey map:

Why does this visual work? It covers different states, feelings and even touchpoints in a cohesive format.

The map visualizes the best-case scenario to create a north star vision for your brand. It aligns your efforts toward achieving the ideal customer journey.

3. Day-in-the-life

Day-in-the-life customer journey maps outline one of your persona’s schedules as they go about their day. The interactions may or may not involve your company. Creating one of these maps helps you identify the best times and areas to interact with your customer.

Here’s a “day-in-the-life” visual from Pipedrive.

The map doesn’t just highlight when the persona does something, but it also highlights different touchpoints and the different people they interact with throughout the day. And, notice those thumbs ups and downs? Those highlight how the child feels during different activities too.

4. Service blueprint

A service blueprint customer journey map focuses solely on when you provide customer service. It ignores components like ads that might exist in other maps.

Miro, a collaborative online whiteboard for teams, created the above map with a bank in mind. You’ll notice how this map is only about a customer’s visit to the bank. This type of map helps brands look at individual service areas and interactions. It’s a macro version of the current and future state maps.

Get started with customer journey map templates

Creating a customer journey map doesn’t have to be overwhelming. There are plenty of free and paid templates out there to help you create one. If you think you’ll need more guidance or many maps, some companies offer special software to design a custom map. Build your first journey map or improve your existing one with these options.

1. Current state template, provided by Bright Vessel.

2. Customer journey map template by Moqups, a design and collaboration tool.

3. Service blueprint template by Miro

4. Customer journey map template by Mural, a planning tool.

5. UXPressia’s customer journey map online tool, made specifically to create presentation-ready customer journey maps.

Create a strong foundation with a well-integrated customer journey map

A customer journey map gives you the recipe for crafting personalized, impactful interactions that build customer satisfaction and loyalty.

When you know what they are and why they’re important, it’s time to make yours. Use data to create a solid customer journey map that exceeds customer expectations at every touchpoint.

Check out how you can turn your B2B social media data into a revenue-driving powerhouse and create a memorable brand.

The post What is a customer journey map and how to make your own [examples included] appeared first on Sprout Social.

That’s the question you should ask if you’re trying to improve your social performance and generate revenue. Consumers expect brands to treat them like friends (or at least friendly acquaintances) by being attentive and personal, not ignoring their messages while spamming their feed with posts.

According to The Sprout Social Index™, consumers think the most memorable brands are the ones who respond to their customers (51%) and prioritize communicating with their audience rather than posting a lot of content (37%). Yet, only 8% of social marketers believe themselves to be leaders in customer care on social.

Now is the time to reflect on how much time your brand spends on customer relationship marketing, and how teams can work together to improve this function at your organization. In this article, we explain the role of personalized social media marketing and strategies companies can use to build customer relationships that lead to increased revenue.

What is customer relationship marketing?

Customer relationship marketing is the focus on building long-term relationships with customers across their journey with your brand—from the early stages of acquisition to retention and reactivation.

These enhanced relationships lead to increased customer lifetime value (CLV), engagement, loyalty and return on investment (ROI). Think of it like this: The more you put into building relationships with customers, the more your company (and your customers) will get out of it in the long run.

Some common customer relationship marketing activations include loyalty programs, community events, omnichannel customer care, customer feedback surveys and social media audience engagement.

The role of social media in customer relationship marketing

Social media is a non-negotiable part of a relationship marketing strategy, as social is consumers’ go-to channel for interacting with brands. Social and customer care teams are instrumental in providing customer satisfaction and are on the front lines of interactions that define both one-to-one customer relationships and brand image on a large scale.

Because social media is more public than other customer relationship marketing channels, your followers pay close attention to how you’re treating your customers. A single interaction with a customer can create a lasting impression and an emotional response that ripples across your follower base and impacts your bottomline.

According to Index data, of the 1,817 consumers we surveyed, 76% agreed they notice and appreciate when companies prioritize customer support, and another 76% value how quickly a brand can respond to their needs.

To provide an exceptional customer experience, companies must be prepared to deliver a social media customer support strategy that is both timely and high quality—a challenging feat for teams who are already stretched thin. According to a Q3 2023 Sprout Pulse Survey, 63% of customer care professionals report a high volume of customer requests that translate to longer wait times and less intentional responses. Another 48% cite wasting time on manual tasks, while 41% have gaps in available customer information that make it difficult to handle requests.

As a marketing leader, you should lay the groundwork for deeper collaboration between social and service teams, and advocate for time-saving technology and integrations. Empower your team to provide the valuable, efficient and timely responses customers look for on social.

The 1-to-1 marketing and revenue connection

To help get buy-in for the value of customer relationship marketing, tie your efforts directly to potential revenue gains. There’s already a growing recognition that social efforts and interactions earlier in the customer journey—like audience engagement—aren’t just interesting, they translate to revenue.

In fact, according to Index data, in 2024, quantifying the value of social engagement in terms of revenue will be marketers’ primary way of demonstrating social’s impact on business goals.

Why are so many marketers sure engaging with audiences on social media translates to revenue? Because social teams see how engagement with social users within your target audience leads to new followers, which translates to loyalty, repeat purchases and increased CLV. The Index shows us that 68% of consumers follow a brand on social to stay informed about new products or services, and another 48% want access to exclusive deals or promos.

Social media is like the new shopping mall, and if you want to give your virtual storefront a chance to succeed, you need to build long-term relationships.

Customer relationship marketing strategies on social media

The first step toward effective customer relationship marketing is showing up. If your brand leaves customers on read, you risk making them feel unimportant or, even worse, send them into the hands of your competitors.

Here are three tangible ways you and your team can build customer relationships that equal more engagement, conversions and revenue.

Engage with audiences on social media

Social media is the go-to channel customers use to solve problems related to their order, ask questions about the latest product drops and announcements and share candid feedback about your brand and offerings. It’s critical for your team to participate in these conversations (even when you aren’t tagged or mentioned) to build long-lasting relationships with your customers.

As Azad Yakatally, Head of Social Media at Klaviyo, put it, “As the most accessible touchpoint for consumers, social media has become the call center, suggestion box and customer service desk for brands.”

When responding to customer comments, DMs and reviews, make sure your team:

• Maintains a consistent brand voice across all platforms.
• Uses automated responses wisely, making sure they don’t sound too robotic.
• Factors online review management into your strategy.
• Encourages customers to share positive experiences publicly.
• Has a system for routing escalations to the appropriate teams.
• Shares customer feedback with departments like product development or competitive intelligence.

Personalize social media marketing

Personalization is the new standard. According to the Index, 70% of consumers expect a company to provide personalized responses to customer service needs. While 30% of customer care professionals already agree it’s essential to do things like use a customer’s name in a response, true personalization goes deeper.

When personalizing initial responses on social media, your team should do things like:

• Humanize customer service interactions by empathizing with the feelings of your customers and the unique situations they’re in. Example: We understand how frustrating it must feel not to receive your order on time when you had such a big event coming up. Send us a DM so we can help make the situation right.
• Make specific recommendations based on your customers’ online behavior, even if they’re not directly related to your business. Example: We love that you’re taking our suitcase with you on your trip to Chicago! Have you checked out this guide to Chicago museums?
• Tap into customer data related to order histories and past experiences with your brand. Example: Thanks for tagging us in this video! We love that you were the first one to try our new product. Can we send you other new products to try in the future?

Once a customer slides into your brand’s DMs, personalized customer care requires an integrated tech stack that enables a clear flow of information between marketing, service and other relevant teams. You need to supply customer-facing employees with the intel they need to solve complex customer issues, answer questions and have a complete view of a customers’ journey with your brand.

Increase workflow efficiency

The Q3 Pulse Survey results reveal 45% of customer care professionals list integrated technology like customer relationship management tools (CRMs) as the most common way they address their biggest customer care challenges.

Index data demonstrates 96% of marketing leaders recognize this and have already pledged to integrate social data into their CRM solutions within the next three years. In the meantime, it’s essential for executives to share the value of customer relationship marketing and position social as the missing piece in the customer experience equation.

By doing so, CMOs and other leaders will break down silos and enable stronger collaboration org-wide—paving the way for more workflow efficiency in the future. This process requires those at the helm of marketing departments to ensure the social media management tools their team uses are equipped to integrate with CRMs and scale customer care functions.

For example, an intuitive platform like Sprout Social is built for quickly onboarding customer care teams, consolidating collaboration between social and care and seamlessly integrating with CRM solutions like Salesforce.

Customer relationship marketing examples

Here’s a look at real brands that excel at customer relationship marketing and have built experiences rooted in relationship building and responsiveness.

Chewy’s compassion builds loyalty

Chewy, the pet food, products and supplies retailer, has become synonymous with their support of grieving pet owners. They surprise many of their customers with personalized cards and gifts in honor of their dearly departed animals.

In this TikTok, user @spidergwenin reacts to a package she received from Chewy that contained a kind message and a painted portrait of her recently passed beta fish, Echo. The TikTok has received over 60,000 likes and 700 comments, many of which share equally heartwarming stories about how Chewy supported them during a loss.

Though many posts about Chewy’s compassion go viral, their one-to-one marketing efforts aren’t just reserved for famous creators. Any bereaved pet owners who contact Chewy are likely to receive a token of support. Like this Post on X (formerly known as Twitter), where a mourning pet owner shares the card and flowers she received from Chewy. Though this post didn’t generate a lot of buzz, Chewy’s team still took time to reply to the Post with words of encouragement. Chewy’s efforts help them maintain lifelong customer loyalty and priceless brand advocacy.

It’s clear Chewy’s customer relationship marketing strategy requires a lot of cross-channel coordination and, most importantly, true empathy for their customers. Engaging with audiences on social media is an excellent way to build your brand, but it’s important to make sure the entire support team is aligned on your customer marketing initiatives.

MeUndies uses customer feedback to evolve their product line

MeUndies, the disruptive underwear and loungewear brand, weaves customer care into the fabric of their brand ethos. Their handful of agents receive roughly 6,000 DMs each month on Instagram alone, yet make it a point to respond to each customer with attentiveness and speed.

On X, MeUndies receives a high volume of product feedback—mostly customers sharing their ideas for new products with the team. Like this Post from a user who asked for Hanukkah themed undies. MeUndies follows through on routing customer ideas to their development department. The social team even shares the good news with their customers when their ideas are being brought to life.

MeUndies’ approach to customer care has helped them carve out a niche in their industry, making them stand out as the providers of underwear and personalized customer care for everybody. MeUndies’ seamless and consistent customer care is supported by Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox and its internal collaboration tools.

McDonald’s responsiveness invigorates fandom

McDonald’s needs no introduction. The global fast food giant is a favorite in the industry, and that is due to its consistent service worldwide—both in brick-and-mortar locations and online. The McDonald’s team, like most ubiquitous brands, receives countless messages, comments and engagements each day.

Yet, the team replies to each individual comment and message, even when they aren’t directly tagged. Here’s an example of a recent exchange between a customer asking them to bring back an old favorite and McDonald’s responding with a form the customer can fill out to share the feedback with higher ups.

McDonald’s also succeeds at keeping a pulse on the fandom surrounding their brand, and playfully joining in to build brand affinity. For example, when the recent #GrimaceShakeTrend took TikTok by storm, McDonald’s was quick to play into it and doubled down on their Grimace campaign, causing their fans to flood their posts with positive engagements.

McDonald’s demonstrates what’s possible when you truly listen to your customers, and what can happen when you give them what they want. Whether it’s improved customer service, to bring back discontinued products or to get behind an internet trend involving your brand (even if it involves a large, purple blob covering “crime scenes” in milkshakes).

Make customer relationship marketing investments a priority in 2024

Just like in friendships, building long-term relationships with your customers (and potential customers) takes time. It’s not as simple as answering one DM or service call. It requires responding to each customer with a personal touch, and going out of your way to interact throughout the customer journey. This necessitates stronger internal collaboration and streamlined tools.

As you finalize your plan for 2024, think through the role of social in your customer relationship marketing plan—in the marketing department and beyond. Use the CMO’s social media marketing agenda for help identifying the biggest ways you can capitalize on these social efforts in the coming year.

The post How customer relationship marketing on social media drives revenue appeared first on Sprout Social.

In this article, we’ll discuss SMS marketing, including the types, benefits, best practices to follow and examples of marketing strategies that will take you ahead of your competitors.

• What is SMS marketing?
• Types of SMS text marketing campaigns
• Benefits of SMS marketing
• 6 SMS marketing best practices to follow
• SMS marketing strategies with examples
• SMS marketing software to try
• Take advantage of SMS marketing

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing (or text marketing) is a form of mobile marketing that allows businesses to send text messages to customers and prospects. This involves using a short message service (SMS) to send messages like promotional offers, discounts, appointment reminders and shipping notifications.

SMS marketing has many advantages over other marketing strategies, such as email marketing. One advantage to SMS marketing is a 98% average open rate, which is 5x that of email (20%), meaning there’s a higher chance your audience will see your text message than your email. SMS marketing also boasts a 9.18% click-through rate compared to email’s 2.5%.

SMS marketing is a great way to reach your target audience with a concise and clear message. You can use it to inform your customers about a weekend sale or promotion and advertise your business with a higher chance of receipt and action.

Types of SMS text marketing campaigns

There are many types of SMS marketing campaigns, from simple to complex. Here are three of the most effective forms:

1. Promotional SMS marketing campaigns

Promotional SMS marketing campaigns are designed to generate interest in a product or service. They can include discounts, coupons and other special offers. Everyone loves an incentive, and freebies have always been a great way to grab attention and drive more people to your store. This works even better with a compelling call to action (CTA).

Take a look at this SMS marketing example from Jenni Kayne, a fashion brand featuring a personalized coupon code and a direct link to their shop page.

2. Transactional SMS marketing campaigns

Transactional SMS marketing messages are sent in response to an event or action. These campaigns offer time-sensitive information to the customer, such as appointment reminders, shipping notifications, password resets, or product releases. Because these messages are timely and relevant, they have a high open rate and can effectively drive conversions.

An example of a transactional SMS campaign is an order confirmation from an e-commerce purchase. Here’s an example from Baking Steel that includes order confirmation, tracking information and an unsubscribe option.

3. Conversational SMS marketing campaigns

The major difference between conversational SMS marketing and other conventional SMS marketing methods is that it involves text responses as prompts. This two-way SMS marketing campaign mimics human conversations, with automated back-and-forth responses between your brand and the customer.

Conversational SMS blends natural language processing for lifelike digital chats, combining human agents and automated texts for effective customer engagement and retention.

Benefits of SMS marketing

With 7.3 billion people estimated to have smartphones by 2026, wouldn’t you rather use this to reach your target audience? Here are five benefits of SMS marketing:

1. Reach customers faster

If you have time-sensitive information to share, SMS is the right medium, as 95% of text messages are opened within three minutes of receipt. For example, if you’re running a limited-time offer, you can use SMS to inform your customers.

2. Increase response rates

Unlike other marketing channels, SMS allows you to reach customers directly on their mobile devices, and customers are 134% more likely to respond to an SMS than an email. Because text messages have a much higher response rate, they can keep your customers engaged with your SMS marketing and open opportunities for further offers.

3. Complement other marketing channels

While an SMS marketing strategy is strong on its own, it can also be used to enhance other marketing channels. For example, you could use SMS to promote a contest or sale on social media or increase your email newsletter subscribers. You could also use SMS to remind customers of an upcoming event or webinar to increase signups.

4. Build customer loyalty

SMS marketing can help you build customer loyalty by sending personalized messages and offers to individuals. This is a great way to make your customers feel valued and increase their chances of returning to your business.

5. Increase revenue

SMS marketing platforms can boost revenue by driving traffic to your store or website. You can use SMS messages to promote special sales and events and remind customers to complete their cart purchases. This mobile commerce approach takes advantage of the accessible nature of texts and seamlessly integrates into your brand’s marketing efforts.

6 SMS marketing best practices to follow

Now that we’ve gone over how to do SMS marketing for your business, let’s look at some best practices to get the most out of your campaigns.

1. Only send texts to those who opted in

Only send texts to those who have permitted you to do so. The best way to do this is to include an opt-in form on your website or other online channels.

Even if you have an opt-in, it’s a good idea to send an initial text thanking a new subscriber and asking them to confirm opt-in with a simple reply of “Yes” or “No.” A great example of this is the opt-in message from Flexispot, which states their business name, to alert who is texting before confirming subscriptions to marketing and promotional messages.

2. Make it easy for customers to opt-out

Make it easy for customers to stop receiving your texts by including an unsubscribe option. This could be as simple as replying “STOP” or “Unsubscribe” to the text. Opting out of your SMS marketing campaign.

3. Identify your brand early

Keep your messages concise. When you have your target audience’s phone number, introduce your brand immediately. This makes recipients more receptive to your message from an unknown number. Start with your brand name, followed by an irresistible offer within the second sentence. Instant brand recognition and brevity are key.

4. Keep messages short and to the point

For SMS marketing success, keep it within the 160-character limit. Eliminate unnecessary content to boost message open rates and clicks. An effective framework for SMS campaigns is usually in this format:

1. company name
2. customer name
3. enticing offer or brand promotion
4. conditions for opting in
5. a strong call-to-action, and
6. an opt-out option

Providing opt-out options makes consumers feel more relaxed since this is presented as a choice, not a requirement. If needed, include a shortened link for additional information.

5. Create a consistent SMS marketing strategy

As with any type of marketing effort, consistency matters. Find the right balance of messages you can send within a reasonable timeline. Don’t overwhelm subscribers with too many messages, but don’t go silent either. Striking this balance keeps your brand relevant without becoming a nuisance.

6. Adhere to privacy laws and regulations

Finally, ensure you comply with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) privacy laws and regulations for SMS marketing. Obtain express written consent, always include your business name, provide clear terms and conditions, offer an opt-out option during business hours, and respect consumer privacy and rights. Adhering to these regulations saves you from legal issues and protects consumer privacy.

SMS marketing strategies (with examples)

Ready to ramp up your SMS marketing? Here are some creative SMS marketing strategies, along with examples, to get you started:

1. Send welcome messages to new subscribers

Once a customer subscribes to your SMS marketing campaign, send them a welcome message. This will ensure they know they’re subscribed and allow you to engage with them immediately. Plus, it sets the tone for future interactions.

Welcome messages don’t have to be long or complex. A simple “Thank you for subscribing!” will do. You could even include a coupon code or special offer to sweeten the deal.

2. Announce new product releases

Another smart use of SMS advertising is to announce new product releases. Share the excitement with your subscribers to create buzz and re-engage customers who haven’t shopped with you in a while.

You can also drive traffic to your store or website by including a link in your SMS campaign to entice people to check out your latest offering. For example, texting “Check out our new arrivals” with a direct link to your website can boost traffic and give people a reason to visit your site.

3. Follow up on abandoned shopping carts

The average cart abandonment rate for e-commerce businesses is 70.19%. That’s a lot of potential revenue that’s left on the table. SMS marketing can help you recover some of that lost revenue by sending abandoned cart messages to customers who have left items in their online shopping carts.

4. Inform customers when products are back in stock

As a consumer ourselves, it’s frustrating when desired items are out of stock. SMS marketing offers a solution to notify customers when products are back in stock, ensuring they don’t miss out on a restock opportunity. You can also alert customers about similar or related products that may go on sale.

5. Collect customer feedback

Customer feedback is essential for business improvement. SMS surveys collect customer feedback quickly and easily. You can create a short survey using tools like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey and send the link via SMS. Or, ask customers to reply with a rating (from one to five) and follow up with those who give a low rating to uncover areas for improvement.

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6. Provide text-based customer service

You can use text messages to provide customer service. This is especially useful for businesses with a mobile workforce, like plumbers or delivery drivers.
If a customer needs to get in touch with someone, they can simply send a text rather than making a phone call. This can save the customer time, and it can also be less disruptive for the business.

Here’s an SMS marketing example from U-Haul, which offers customers the opportunity to check in and out via text:

7. Ask for production or service reviews

Many companies use SMS marketing services to gather reviews about their service or staff. You’ve probably seen this from companies like Uber, asking customers to rate drivers after their ride to get feedback on their experience and identify improvement areas.

According to the Sprout Social Index™, 83% of consumers recommend a brand they follow on social media to friends and family. Consider displaying these reviews on your website, social media pages, and SMS marketing messages.

8. Promote online and in-person events

Promoting your upcoming events through SMS marketing can get people excited and engaged. Your SMS event reminders can include:

• Date, time and location of your event
• A CTA to encourage people to buy tickets or sign up
• A link to your website or event page
• Details about what attendees can expect
• Hashtags to promote on social media
• Emojis to increase engagement

If you have a limited number of spots available, be sure to include an RSVP link in your text so subscribers can reserve their spots right away.

9. Start a VIP program

A VIP program encourages loyalty among your customers and subscribers. People love to feel like they’re part of an exclusive group, so make them feel special by offering VIP-only discounts, early access to sales and new products and other benefits.

To promote your VIP program, include a signup link in your SMS messages when customers purchase a product. You can also promote your VIP program on social media, your website or in-store. Use the right SMS marketing service to send relevant messages to different groups within your target audience and increase your conversion rate.

SMS marketing software to try

Rather than spend more time and effort on traditional SMS marketing methods, leverage SMS marketing software to streamline your strategy for greater success. Here are some standout options:

1. Attentive

With an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, Attentive ranks high as an effective SMS marketing software for sending personalized messages to your brand. You can integrate this with your email subscriber list and provide targeted messages for diverse groups.

2. SlickText

Integrate SlickText seamlessly with your brand’s existing software using its global API platform to get the best SMS marketing experience. Overall, this SMS marketing software features core features like text message scheduling, two-way text messaging, analytics and tracking reports for monitoring user engagement.

3. Klaviyo

Say hello to an omnichannel platform with automation and advanced segmentation capabilities. Klaviyo contains specific features that allow you to target specific consumers based on preferences and behavior. You can leverage this to increase conversions, especially with other marketing channels.

4. Birdeye

You don’t have to be technically inclined to use Birdeye. An amazing feature that makes Birdeye stand out is its easy integration with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. This means you can easily incorporate a visual aspect into your SMS marketing campaign and spread your success across multiple platforms.

Take advantage of SMS marketing

SMS marketing can help you reach your target audience and increase engagement. By marketing to your customers where they are most active, you have a better chance of keeping their attention.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of SMS strategies at the start. Some customers may prefer discounts or deals, while others may be looking for customer service support through order confirmation or shipping updates. By incorporating SMS marketing into your overall marketing efforts, you can further refine and define your social media marketing strategy.

The post SMS marketing 101: What is SMS Marketing (+ examples) appeared first on Sprout Social.

Within minutes, Samsung responded and helped me slide into their DMs to investigate my case further. The agent (Nick) was kind, knowledgeable and connected me with the right team to solve my technical issues. And when Samsung didn’t hear back from me, several days after my TV was working again, they even reached out to make sure my case was truly resolved. The entire experience was fast, seamless and demonstrated just how much Samsung cares about its customers.

As consumers, we celebrate the brand experiences that are prompt, personalized and make us feel valued by the brand. And according to the latest Sprout Social Index™, 76% of consumers notice and appreciate when companies prioritize customer support. It’s not enough for brands to just engage with customers before and during the buying process. Consumers want to be surprised and delighted at every step of their journey, and brands that deliver on those expectations can turn someone into a life-long customer.

While today’s business leaders don’t need to be convinced of social customer care’s value, they do need to answer who in their organization should own those efforts. But the reality is that social customer care requires the input and collaboration of multiple teams. For shared ownership to be productive rather than chaotic, everyone who touches social customer care needs to be on the same playing field.

Social customer care is everyone’s responsibility

Considering how social supports nearly every facet of the customer journey, brands recognize the need for social customer care to be treated like a team sport rather than the responsibility of one owner. According to the latest Sprout Social Index™, only 24% of businesses say social customer care will be exclusively owned by marketing or customer service teams in the future.

Historically, it used to be that whoever owned the keys to a brand’s social channels was responsible for effectively addressing customer inquiries, concerns and feedback. Social media managers would attempt to juggle their own marketing priorities while also serving as the liaison between consumers and service teams. Consider this familiar scenario: A customer asks a question on social, the social media manager emails or Slacks the service team, then responds back whenever they have an answer. Sometimes customers are redirected away from social entirely and asked to repeat the details of their situation via a form or other channel. As a result, the responsibility is placed on customers, with resolution times spanning days instead of a couple hours.

Now imagine that same scenario where the marketing and service teams are working in harmony. Service agents don’t have to wait for social marketers to triage messages in order to resolve customer complaints. Likewise, social marketers can focus on activities that best harness their expertise instead of chasing down answers that could be easily addressed by the service team. It’s this collaboration between teams that enabled Casey’s, for example, to increase their response times by 90%, ensuring their customers always have a positive experience when communicating with the convenience store chain.

Expecting one team, or one person, to manage every online consumer interaction sets your brand up for failure and ignores how customers actually want to engage. But coordinating stakeholders across multiple departments to align on one cohesive customer care strategy presents its own set of challenges. The more players you have contributing to social customer care, the more essential it becomes to have a sophisticated playbook that keeps everyone in sync.

To scale, you need the right tools and workflows in place

Collaboration between teams is just one half of the social customer care equation. You also need the tools and processes to effectively engage with your customers on social, something only 30% of brands have invested in. It’s not enough to hand the keys to social over to your customer service agents—or pull your social team into your helpdesk platform. Everyone needs to be able to access and act on the right information without relying on others for direction. Here’s why:

• Increased efficiency: With a central solution, brands can achieve economies of scale because your team builds expertise on one tool rather than multiple point solutions—reducing time spent training and onboarding team members later. An intuitive customer care platform can streamline the workflows between marketing and service teams by democratizing access to social data and insights. Increasing transparency across teams makes it easier to see who is handling what, reducing miscommunications and ensuring every interaction is properly addressed. Atlassian, for example, utilizes Sprout’s Tagging capabilities to quickly assign tasks to the right teams and always keep conversations with customers moving.
• Stronger risk management: A shared social customer care platform also helps brands mitigate reputation risk because all teams get the full view of what’s taking place on social. Complaints made on social are publicly accessible by other customers and competitors, and we’ve all seen what happens when a post about a bad customer experience goes viral. With a unified tool that gives all teams a window into what people are saying about your brand, social media marketers and customer service agents can shut down reputation nightmares before they spiral out of control.
• Top-line growth: Finally, consolidating your social customer care tools gives brands an opportunity to transform their customer care strategy from a cost center into a growth engine. When brands can maintain a 360-degree view of their customer, they can use those insights to surprise and delight audiences at scale and salvage potentially negative experiences. With the right context and the right teams in place, even inquiries about a defective product or order gone wrong can transform into an immediate or future purchase.

There’s no “I” in social customer care

If social customer care is a team sport, it’s not enough to have one superstar taking all the shots. You also need a deep bench of people and resources to stay a step ahead of the competition. Brands need to implement tools that enable teams to access the data they need to respond effectively, while also putting insights into the hands of those working to improve the overall customer experience.

At the end of the day, your customer isn’t concerned with who responds to them—only that you do so in a timely and meaningful manner. While those standout customer moments do require the full cooperation of multiple teams, it doesn’t have to come at the expense of simple workflows or solutions. By eliminating silos and democratizing access to social across their organization, brands can consistently deliver personalized service that keeps customers loyal for life.

For more data on how brands can evolve their social customer care approach to stay ahead of the competition, download the Sprout Social Index™, Edition XIX: Breakthrough.

The post Social customer care is a team sport—are you all in? appeared first on Sprout Social.

Managing social media and other marketing channels in this economy can be challenging. You’ll need a plan to address top budget concerns to provide clarity and control over every dollar spent. It will help prioritize vital areas, avoid overspending and adapt to unforeseen challenges.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• How to budget for your marketing needs
• Optimizing your marketing budget: Best practices
• Marketing budget breakdown
• Sample marketing budget

How to budget for your marketing needs

To set a marketing budget, you will need to look at past records, do thorough market research and analyze your team’s needs. Let’s look at these steps in detail.

Take a look at past results

The phrase “Yesterday’s lessons, tomorrow’s innovations” holds true when setting marketing budgets during a recession. It’s all about knowing what’s working, and focusing in on activities and core channels that are delivering.

See where your dollars had the most impact in the previous year—the campaigns that brought the biggest return on ad spend (ROAS), conversion rates or lead sources. For example, if you got X number of leads from influencer marketing in the previous year, you can propose an X+10% increase in budget for the same activity this year.

Create internal benchmarks by platform and across all media channels to identify areas of investment that are not worth continuing. If you didn’t have metrics in place last year, now is the perfect time to implement them based on your company’s overall goals.

Do your research

You need to be aware of the market conditions to allocate the right marketing budget. Research how the market has changed since last year: Do you have the same competitors? What is your current brand perception? How has AI impacted the market?

Look for industry benchmarks to gain insights into what your competitors are spending on marketing. This will give you an idea of what your marketing budget should be.

Take a look at this representation of the percentage of revenue different industries allocate to marketing per a Gartner report:

Also connect with industry peers to learn how they’re managing their budget and keep close communication with your team about the results they’re seeing from marketing spend.

Such insights will help you identify new areas in marketing where you can focus your budget or refine existing ones.

Understand your team needs

When creating your marketing budget, carefully evaluate team needs, skills and the required resources necessary to achieve your marketing goals. This is important considering skill gap is a major issue in many marketing teams. A Gartner survey reveals a majority of CMOs find their teams lack the capabilities required to deliver their marketing strategy.

Compare your team’s existing skills with the skills required to execute your marketing strategies effectively. You can either address these skill gaps by providing additional training and resources for your team or hire additional team members, freelancers, consultants or agencies to fulfill specific roles—both of which will affect your budget.

Another important factor to consider when setting budgets is your team’s bandwidth. For example, your SEO team may aim to increase domain authority through backlinks. However, they may not have the time to reach out to the many sites required to achieve this goal. So, you must set aside a budget to outsource this task to a backlinks expert.

Get the bigger picture

You now need to see the bigger picture and set priorities.

Company goals are the anchoring points of your marketing budget. Consider both long-term and immediate goals—the former to get leads quickly and the latter as a growth strategy for the future.

The market research you’ve performed will also help you develop new goals and navigate old ones. There might be significant shifts in the market that push your strategy in a certain direction or internal changes that will influence your brand marketing strategy.

Next, you’ll need to create an estimate of the costs associated with different marketing activities. Take into consideration the cost of tools, resources, employees and contractors.

Check out industry reports or consult peers to get an idea of the range you would have to spend. The final step is to submit the draft of the marketing budget to stakeholders and seek approval.

Optimizing your marketing budget: 5 best practices

To navigate the current economic situation, some brands are investing in more resources. According to The State of Social Media 2023 report, 79% of marketers expect an increase in their overall marketing budgets in the next three years.

Let’s look at some techniques you can use to audit your current marketing budget and prioritize things that move the needle the most.

1. Remove siloes within marketing and sales teams

Oftentimes, sections of the marketing teams are functioning in separate bubbles. The advertising team may not know what the content team is doing and the PR team is unaware of what the customer marketing team is up to.

Getting teams to collaborate and find synergies between different channels can save money.

For example, when the teams focus on paid campaigns and SEO collaboration, they may discover that the website is already ranking organically for an expensive target keyword and there’s no need to bid for it. A holistic paid and organic keyword strategy like this can reduce your ad spend significantly.

Also making sure marketing and sales are aligned allows you to take better advantage of your budget. Sales needs to follow up on leads and marketing should be able to provide quality leads. Both sides should define and agree on what constitutes high-quality leads and create a handoff process so time is spent on nurturing quality leads.

2. Consider revenue

Regardless of the metrics you’re reporting on—pipeline, website sessions or conversions—in the current economic situation, it’s always best to base your budgeting decisions on the actual revenue that your activities are driving.

For example, an advertiser may think that a 1:3 ROAS ratio is fantastic. But if the company’s cost of goods sold is not considered, the company could still lose money despite the good ROAS.

Similarly, look into your current strategy and determine how to adjust your marketing budget based on what’s moving the needle for actual revenue.

3. Listen to customers

If you’re implementing multiple marketing campaigns but it’s not what your customer wants, chances are you’ll experience losses.

The best way to know where to put your money is by understanding and listening to your customers. Keep up with their changing needs and desires. Get to know how they are responding to marketing efforts. This will help you allocate the needed resources and help you invest in the right channels.

According to The State of Social Media 2023 report, 58% of business leaders believe that more effectively leveraging social media data and constantly adjusting social media strategy to the evolving needs of customers will give companies a competitive advantage.

It is clear that personalization and intuitive communication are important in marketing and are valued by customers. So, make sure you listen to your customers and understand their behavior.

Consider audience research as the starting point of channeling budget and resources so you gain the best returns.

4. Consider experimentation and contingency

In an ever-evolving market, marketing teams should be able to try, test and learn. Allocating money for this purpose may be difficult since it’s less certain but it can bring you the strongest outcomes.

Using a zero-based budgeting framework lets you focus on accounting for projected costs and performance outcomes for new initiatives where there isn’t past data to reference. It also helps assess reallocating budget for new initiatives or campaigns that come up after the budget has been confirmed.

Anything new brings risk, so you’ll need to justify each expense for its potential ROI and compare that to the ROI of existing campaigns. Thus, it allows business leaders to revisit, remeasure and reevaluate their marketing strategy. Then, leaders can decide if it’s worth pursuing or to stick with what they know works.

According to The Sprout Social Index™ 2023, 38% of consumers agree that the most memorable brands on social prioritize original content over following trending topics. And 26% agree that memorable brands take risks with their social content. This demonstrates the dynamic nature of the marketing landscape, where innovation and bold approaches are valued by customers.

Apart from this, it’s always best to have a contingency fund in place to make use of a golden opportunity that may unexpectedly come to your team.

5. Use the right technology

Including the right tech tools in every digital marketing budget is a no-brainer. More and more marketers are investing in tools and technologies to get the most out of their time and efforts.

Per The Sprout Social Index™, more than 80% of marketers say AI has already positively impacted their work, giving them more time for creativity (78%) and increased efficiency (73%).

Since one of the biggest marketing expenses is tech, you need to carefully consider new tools and maximize the value of your tech stack.

How do you make sure to spend wisely on tools?

One way is to invest in robust tools that offer multiple functionalities in one place and/or integrate with your existing tech infrastructure. This is potentially more cost-effective than paying for multiple individual tools as you maximize your budget while streamlining your workflows.

For example, Sprout Social helps you manage inboxes across social platforms, monitor and manage ratings, handle paid promotions and it integrates with other tools in your stack. Here are some of the marketing functions you can handle with Sprout:

• Marketing automation: Schedule content, funnel comments and messages into one social hub, generate shareable reports and track brand mentions.
• Reputation management: Sprout’s Social Listening capabilities detect a crisis early and enable you to identify unfamiliar trending words from customer conversations.
• Customer service: Build chatbots to handle customer support requests or direct messages to the right team. Our AI Assist functionality helps you write robust customer responses quickly.
• Business intelligence: Sprout helps you understand customer behavior and surface business-critical information from social channels with sentiment analysis.
• Powerful integrations: Integrations with other tools, like Salesforce, will enable you to access, share and manage data for 360-degree view of the customer.

You should complete regular assessments of your marketing tech stack before setting your annual marketing budget. Things might have changed and your go-to tool today may no longer fit your needs six months from now.

Marketing budget breakdown

When crafting a comprehensive marketing budget, enterprises need to consider various categories that cover both marketing talent and technology. Here’s a breakdown of the top categories to have in your marketing budget:

Social media marketing budget

A social media marketing budget typically includes allocations for various expenses related to running effective social media campaigns and strategies. You will need to assign a budget for content creation as well as ad campaigns in case you’re looking into paid marketing.

Marketing talent: Social media managers, community managers, paid media strategists, creative designers and video editors.

Marketing technology: Social media management tool, employee advocacy tool, project management tool and graphic design tool.

Here’s an article where you can learn more about social media budgeting.

Influencer marketing budget

This budget covers the funds allocated for collaborating with influencers to promote your brand, products or services. It will depend on what the influencers charge per campaign or if you plan to pay them based on referrals.

Other factors include how you plan to manage the influencers—from contract negotiations to collaboration to tracking performance. An influencer management platform like Tagger (which was recently acquired by Sprout Social) will help you do this more efficiently.

Marketing talent: Influencer relationship managers, content creators and creative editors.

Marketing technology: Influencer management platform and social media analytics tools.

Content marketing and SEO budget

This budget covers the funds to create high-quality content, optimize it for search engines and promote it to attract and engage your target audience across various platforms. It can also include public relations and executive communications to further support brand awareness and distribute content to wider audiences.

Marketing talent: Content strategists, SEO strategists, external communication professionals, content writers, editors and video producers.

Marketing technology: Content management system, SEO tools, AI writing assistant and website analytics tools.

Paid media budget

Your paid media budget should cover the expenses for the funds allocated specifically for setting bid strategies, ad placements and A/B testing.

Marketing Talent: Paid media marketing specialists, copywriters and graphic designers.

Marketing technology: Ad management platforms, conversion tracking tools, website analytics tool and social media analytics tool.

Customer marketing budget

This fund is for retaining and engaging existing customers, nurturing their loyalty and maximizing their lifetime value. It includes various expenses necessary to execute customer-focused marketing strategies effectively.

Marketing talent: Customer marketing manager, email marketing specialist and lifecycle marketing manager.

Marketing technology: Customer relationship management (CRM) software, email marketing platform, personalization tools and survey and feedback platforms.

By allocating resources to these essential categories and balancing marketing talent with technology investments, enterprises can create a robust and effective marketing budget that drives results across various channels.

Sample marketing budget

Here’s a sample marketing budget with percentages allocated to the different categories listed above:

1. Social media marketing: 20%
2. Influencer marketing: 15%
3. Content marketing and SEO: 30%
4. Paid media: 15%
5. Customer marketing: 10%
6. Resources:
   • Staff: 5%
   • Marketing analytics and automation tools: 3%
   • Website development and maintenance: 2%

Here’s another sample marketing budget:

1. Inbound content marketing: 30%
2. Social Media Marketing: 20%
3. Events and Sponsorships: 10%
4. Influencer Marketing: 5%
5. Email Marketing: 10%
6. Paid advertising: 15%
7. Miscellaneous (Contingency): 10%

To know more about the cost of social media management and the average amount a business should spend, here’s a detailed breakdown.

Investing in the right channels

Optimizing your marketing budget is a strategic initiative, which should be developed based on past experiences and analyzing what will work in the future. Investing in the right channels, like social media and technology will help you make the most of your marketing budget.

As you dig into the details of cost allocation, think about the ROI of social media and read our article to understand how you can optimize your marketing spend to improve your market position and propel your business forward.

The post How to optimize your marketing budget: Do more with less appeared first on Sprout Social.

Customer marketing is one of the most powerful ways you can forge and feed connections with your current audience base. Investing in your current audience leads to building trust with them, as well as prospective customers.

In this article, learn how to build your own customer marketing strategy, how it creates customer trust and see some stellar customer marketing examples from brands who are getting it right.

What is customer marketing?

Customer marketing refers to marketing methods, campaigns and activities designed to build connection and loyalty with existing customers by elevating their experience with your brand or products. This can be done through re-sharing customer content, responding to reviews and going above and beyond with your social responses.

Investing in a customer marketing strategy doesn’t mean you’re taking away from building brand awareness. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Investing in your current customer pool builds loyalty and connection. And that can turn them into advocates who can help you gain trust with new customers.

Customer marketing examples from 7 brands getting it right

Your social channels are a direct line to your customers. And that makes social the perfect outlet to grow your customer marketing strategy through three of the big social media “C’s”: content, conversation and creators.

Here are a few customer marketing examples from brands who are celebrated for creating connected audiences and loyal customers.

Utilizing user-generated content: Aerie, Glossier

The only thing better than happy customers is happy customers who post about how much they love a brand. Reposting user-generated content (UGC) rewards customers who post it while also boosting authenticity on your channels by putting your audience at the forefront of your brand.

Clothing brand Aerie has made authenticity a core part of its brand—and naturally, this includes featuring posts from their real customers. They regularly post UGC, and use their branded hashtag #AerieReal to find creators to reach out to. This effectively makes their audience feel seen and connected to the brand. And, according to Marketing Brew, this strategy has truly “turned people onto the brand.”

Makeup brand Glossier also turned to UGC to build their “Dew it Yourself” series based on content their community was already organically posting about. “What makes this series so special is that it was spurred organically from our community—it was something they were already posting about,” Glossier’s Senior Manager of Social Media and Digital at Glossier Jamie Dinar explained in a Sprout webinar. “We tried to reframe the conversation around beauty, offering our platform to the people using our products to tell their stories, rather than having it come from the brand. Ultimately, we didn’t want to tell them how to use their products—it was their story to tell.”

Learn from these methods

Learn from Aerie and Glossier’s strategies by bringing user-generated content and community ideas into your social channels for more authentic content. Just ensure you ask for approval before you post.

Creating customer-inspired content: McDonald’s

McDonald’s shines in their ability to post extremely relatable, customer-inspired content.

The content they share—from text posts to videos—and responses they leave in the comments demonstrate a deep understanding of their audience, down to how customers order in a drive-thru. Which was the basis for viral Posts that tap into everyone’s relatable drive-thru ordering experience…

And Posts that feature products and how people use them—like this Post when McDonald’s asks their audience, “remind me to take my mcflurry out of the freezer in 13 mins” so it doesn’t get too frozen.

McDonald’s also brings the customer experience to life through the user-generated TikTok content they repost on their own channel. As well as relatable videos, and even TikTok text videos like this:

They pair these videos with funny, personal responses in the comments section.

Learn from this method

You can’t successfully carry out customer marketing without a deep understanding of your customers. Get to know who they are, what they’re interested in and what they respond to by looking at your post data, comments section and by tapping into the conversation.

Authentic customer demos and routines: Zara

There’s a reason why 81% of social marketers describe influencer marketing as an essential part of their strategy. Creator marketing and using real people to bring a brand to life is only going to become more important. And Zara’s robust creator strategy is a great example of how diverse creators can provide actionable and personal “how-tos” using a company’s products.

Zara diverse creators to show off their makeup routine, using Zara makeup products. This format empowers creators to express themselves creatively and authentically.

Each makeup routine is different and highlights products while inspiring viewers to bring Zara makeup products into their routine too, bringing awareness to Zara’s makeup line.

Learn from this method

Grow your creator strategy for an authenticity boost. But, like Zara has, give creators you partner with room to be creative.

Using a dedicated influencer marketing platform, like Tagger by Sprout Social, to manage and foster your creator partnerships can streamline your strategy.

Getting more life out of customer reviews: National Parks Service

Positive reviews build trust with customers by showcasing a real person’s experience with your brand or product. But you can take your reviews a step further and use them in your content to build trust and reward customers who left positive reviews.

The National Parks Service does this in a unique way on their social channels by featuring some of their funniest positive reviews. Their brand voice is light and humorous, while also providing educational captions. The posts highlight different Parks, while also entertaining their audience.

Learn from this method

Repurpose and use positive reviews in your visual content, captions or Stories to build trust and social proof.

Showcasing customer success with case studies: Drift

Sometimes, the best way to showcase your business is by highlighting the customers who have found success with your product or service. Case studies are a tried-and-true way of creating a story out of customer success stories—whether those stories are in the form of blog posts or videos.

Drift has a robust collection of customer stories on their website. The AI-based conversational platform features success stories of customers who use and love their product.

This form of customer marketing not only rewards existing customers by putting them in the spotlight—it also provides social proof to prospective customers who may be interested in more complex products, services or softwares.

Learn from this method

Reach out to happy customers who would be willing to be featured in a case study about how they use your product, service or technology.

Taking customer connection to the next level: Chewy

Chewy’s customer care and engagement is a stand-out example of stellar customer marketing.

You may have heard about Chewy’s surprise-and-delight strategy to send bereavement packages to customers who have recently lost a pet. Or their recent habit of sending surprise pet portraits to customers. They bring this level of personalization and care into their social channels and content, too. The majority of their posts come from UGC, making the pets they serve the stars of their social channels.

Their team is also extremely engaged on social. They often go beyond providing an answer or “thank you” to customer comments. They make an active effort to start conversations with their audience, asking them questions and posting fun prompts—while of course responding to as many comments as they can.

Learn from this method

Chewy’s social channels are a sign to go above and beyond when you engage with customers. Post prompts that encourage your audience to engage, but only if you can be responsive. And bring customer marketing outside of the digital world too by creating tangible surprise and delight moments to keep current customers happy.

Benefits of customer marketing

Here are a few major benefits of creating a customer marketing strategy, and why it’s integral to growing your brand.

Increase brand loyalty

Brand loyalty is precious. And it’s only become more important to foster it—according to PwC, 26% of consumers stopped using or buying from a business in just the past year.

Investing in a customer marketing strategy on social enables you to foster and grow a connection with your existing customers—not just reach new ones. Connection is key to loyalty and trust. In fact, PwC found that younger generations are more likely to express loyalty to a brand by recommending it to friends and family.

And businesses are catching on. According to The 2023 State of Social Media report, 66% of business leaders say increasing brand reputation and loyalty is a top priority. A customer marketing strategy through social content and connection is your ticket to success.

Turning your customers into advocates and garnering social mentions

Word-of-mouth recommendations and social mentions are some of the most authentic promotions your brand can get—but you have to earn it. In fact, we’ve often had Sprout customers ask how they can get more social mentions from their social audience.

Your customers have the power to make or break your business—and not just through their wallets—a customer marketing strategy can turn your customers into brand advocates. The methods we highlighted with brand examples above—engaging customers, going above and beyond for them, encouraging and posting user-generated content, tapping creators—all encourage your happy customers to talk about you, and reward them for doing so.

Increased social proof

When it comes to where to shop, people trust the experience of real people. They need social proof, like reviews or posts about the brand, to trust a business or product—you’ve likely sought out this type of proof yourself.

A stellar customer marketing strategy encourages the type of brand connection that inspires customers to post, talk about and write positive reviews about your brand. And reposting customer posts or reviews puts the social proof directly on your channels.

And reposting social proof isn’t a faux pas—on the contrary. According to The 2023 Sprout Social Index™, UGC and customer testimonials are one of the top content types consumers want to see more of on social.

Creators serve a similar purpose—to pair a trusted voice and perspective with your brand. This is one of the reasons why unboxing content is what 42% of marketers say they hire content creators to produce. There’s an inherent authenticity to the “first impression” expressed in these posts.

How to create a holistic customer marketing strategy

Here are a few easy ways you can bring customer marketing into your daily social media strategy and presence.

Regularly tap into the conversation

Part of connecting with your customers is by being social and joining the conversation. And this means finding and responding to conversations you’re mentioned in—even when you’re not tagged.

Brooklinen does a stellar job of this. They uncover customers discussing them, their products or simply related topics, even when their brand isn’t directly tagged. This empowers them to engage and connect with existing customers who advocate for the brand…

…to encourage and upsell fans who have yet to purchase…

…or just to join the conversation and give their audience a laugh.

This is where using a social listening platform, like Sprout Social’s, is crucial. Social listening enables you to widen your net across the social space, empowering you to find relevant conversations about your keywords, product mentions and brand misspellings—even when you’re not tagged.

Double down on customer and audience engagement

Good customer engagement involves simply checking social for questions and providing answers. But stellar customer engagement means going above and beyond.

Using Chewy as an example again, they show customers they care by asking them questions and conversing in the comments.

Double down on your customer care and audience engagement to foster stronger relationships, and to show your audience you care. This starts with evaluating your customer care effectiveness. Use customer service metrics like reply time, reply or response rate and sentiment analysis to understand where your customer care excels, and where it needs work.

Staying on top of your inbox to ensure you respond to comments and questions quickly is also crucial. So much so that 36% of consumers say they’ll share a negative experience with friends and family if a brand takes too long to respond, according to The 2022 Sprout Social Index™.

Finally, make it easier for your team to never miss a message. A social media management tool that funnels all of your social comments, mentions and DMs into one hub—like Sprout’s Smart Inbox—streamlines your process, by organizing your social messages, storing canned responses and looping in customer care team members in one place.

Stay on top of your reviews—the good, and the bad

Your reviews are not a “set-it-and-forget-it” tool. Reviews need to be, well, reviewed by your team regularly. Leaving these unchecked might mean you miss customer feedback at best. Or, at worst, could mean you miss a flurry of negative reviews that spin up a brand crisis.

Beyond checking your reviews, ensure you respond to them—the good and the bad. Responding to positive reviews rewards the customer who took the time to sing your brand’s praises. And responding to negative reviews can provide you with helpful feedback and, when done empathetically, may even win you back a customer.

Make checking your reviews part of your monitoring and social analysis process. And create canned responses you can adjust and customize for different reviews to speed up your response process.

Regularly check on posts you’re tagged in to source UGC

People are likely already tagging your brand—in a mention or through a hashtag. Regularly check posts you’re tagged in and your mentions. This is one of the best ways to find UGC to repost and posts to engage with.

Make sourcing this content even easier by creating a branded hashtag. Think: Aerie’s #AerieReal. Figo’s #yesfigopets. Savers’ #thriftproud. Branded hashtags are a unique and fun way to make sourcing customer marketing content easier. They may even help you identify creators to partner with.

Just remember to make your branded hashtag known by including it in the bios of your social channels. And remember to check these hashtags accordingly, as well as your tagged posts. Not every piece of user-generated content will use your branded hashtag. But you want to ensure you’re not leaving people out who do use it.

Streamline your approval process—with internal and external stakeholders

UGC and creator content is stellar, but it will likely require extra approvals from creators you work with, or from another team.

Streamlining your approval process is a key piece of a good customer marketing strategy. Sprout’s external Approval Workflows simplify your approval process so stakeholders can review content before it gets published—even if they don’t use Sprout.

With external Approval Workflows, directly share a link to a post that needs approvals from outside of your team or org. People can leave comments, and you can review feedback and approvals all from one hub within Sprout, keeping feedback consolidated—no messy spreadsheets or confusing threads required.

If you’re curious about how Sprout can empower your customer marketing strategy, and your entire social strategy, reach out to us for a demo.

Request a demo

Create a community space to source content and conversation

Social media builds a connection between your brand and audience. But creating your own space to foster a true community enables you to spark audience involvement, provide exclusive events and promos, start conversations with mega-fans and source content ideas.

You can easily create a community space where you have an existing audience—like creating a Facebook Group. Groups are a great way to create unique spaces for audience members with different niche interests and to create a place for audience members to connect with you and each other. For example, if educators are part of, but not all of your audience, creating an educator community enables you to speak directly to this niche.

You can also create an entirely new, custom community space, like Sprout’s community hub—The Arboretum. The Arb creates a space for social media and marketing pros to connect with each other, grow their own careers by joining exclusive events and sharing job postings and to talk to and ask questions to us.

Build trust and forge connections with your audience by building your customer marketing strategy

Building trust with your customers doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, dedication and persistence. But all of this effort pays off and wins you loyal customers and a connected audience.

Doubling down on customer marketing is your first step toward creating a better connection with your existing audience. For more inspiration, check out a piece of our own customer marketing—dive into how Plaid grew their audience by 60% in one year and what you can learn from their strategy.

The post How 7 brands use customer marketing content strategies to deepen audience connection appeared first on Sprout Social.

Audiences are no longer just passively consuming branded content, they’re looking for it. 68% of consumers say they follow a brand on social to stay informed about new products or services. And over half of consumers say the most memorable thing a brand can do is respond to customers, underscoring the increased expectation for highly personalized engagements. 

As buyer experiences continue to go digital, consumer attitudes have shifted and social media is now the new mall. There’s an opportunity for your brand to capitalize on this shift, but to do so effectively, you must hone in on how your social team can make the most business impact and ultimately, drive revenue.

Dive into our newly released Index report to guide your brand on how to refine its social media playbook and give you the data to demonstrate social’s org-wide impact.

We’ll discuss:

• Four key investments guiding the socially sophisticated marketer 
• What consumers are looking for from your brand today
• How to effectively communicate social’s impact on revenue to business leaders

Want to get the most out of this event and connect with other like-minded professionals? Join our community, The Arboretum, to keep the conversation going, access additional resources and get exclusive swag.

Your speakers:

The post New Index Data: Refine Your Playbook for Social Sophistication appeared first on Sprout Social.

It’s a common trap business leaders fall into. When budgets are in flux, it’s natural to focus on the things that have an immediate financial impact and pull back on activities that are more difficult to connect to immediate revenue or have a longer term impact.. Performance marketing is easily measured, making it more accountable to business results and easier to see how a company’s spent marketing dollars connect directly to the top line.

But economic uncertainty is felt both ways, and just as businesses pull back their spending so too are consumers. Today’s consumers are savvier than ever—they can tell when brands only see them as dollar signs and aren’t afraid to switch up who they shop with. Faced with higher customer expectations, dwindling customer loyalty and stiffer competition, executives need to place as much emphasis on investing in brand marketing as they do with its performance-based counterpart.

Connecting with your audience is only going to get harder

To make the case for why brand building deserves equal footing as performance marketing, look no further than shifting consumer behaviors and changes in marketing technology.

As consumer privacy takes centerstage, expect ad targeting to become less effective and more inaccurate. Meta, for example, recently removed marketers’ ability to target underaged users based on their in-app activity. Similarly, Google is moving forward with plans to deprecate third-party cookies, significantly restricting the kind of user-behavior data marketers have access to to inform their ad campaigns. That’s not to suggest that limited user data will spell the death of performance marketing. But it’s safe to say these tactics won’t generate the same type of measurable returns as they once did.

How consumers shop and perceive brands are also driving home why customer loyalty and brand image are vital to long-term business growth. Ever since the pandemic, consumers have more choices and are less brand-loyal than ever before, ready to walk away from brands that consider them only as a walking wallet. Put in financial terms, the brands that demonstrate they truly get their audience and create value in consumers’ lives are nearly five times more likely to outperform the brands that don’t on customer lifetime value.

Brands that fixate on short-term conversion goals can quickly lose sight of the longer-term branding initiatives that turn single buyers into lifelong customers. Executives treating investments as a brand versus performance marketing conversation are missing the point that businesses need both to grow now and in the future.

Your brand is the deposit in the bank

If performance marketing concerns itself with the short-term results, then brand marketing is all about the infinite game. Brand marketing is about more than crafting an image or amplifying a company’s message; it’s also about building trust to create meaningful, lasting relationships with your audience.

Another way to think of brand marketing is it’s the deposit in the bank that makes everything else easier.

When brands invest the time and resources to increase awareness and recall, it takes less work to convert and retain your target audience. Sometimes that means starting with getting your name out in public, much like what Salesforce did when they launched their “We Bring Companies and Customers Together” campaign back in 2019. While Salesforce’s billboards and digital ads aren’t directly tied to leads generated or deals closed, it earned them even more brand recognition and arguably more brand affinity, so when businesses were ready to become customers, Salesforce was top of mind.

The good news is plenty of executives recognize the real impact brand building can have on their company’s bottomline, with 66% of business leaders saying increasing brand reputation and loyalty is a top priority according to The 2023 State of Social Media report. The ability to tell a brand’s story or craft a cohesive identity all go toward fostering a positive experience that helps consumers feel more emotionally connected to a brand, a strategy that 56% of executives say brings their brand a competitive advantage.

Social media specifically gives marketers an opportunity to cultivate those emotional, authentic connections that lend themselves to meaningful customer experiences. In fact, 94% of business leaders believe social insights have a positive impact on increasing brand reputation and loyalty.

When Southwest Airlines learned one of their passengers (a first-time Southwest customer) always wanted to be a flight attendant, they surprised him halfway through the flight with his own wings. With over one million views on TikTok and hundreds of commenters expressing their love for the airline, Southwest created a memorable experience that’s likely gained them a new customer for life—without pushing a ticket promotion.

Level-set to ensure brand marketing doesn’t get left behind

Perhaps the biggest hurdle plaguing marketers today is justifying the financial and time cost associated with brand building. That challenge becomes twice as hard during times of economic instability when chief financial officers (CFOs) are scrutinizing the return on investment of every dollar spent.

One way marketing executives can mitigate this roadblock is by nurturing their relationship with their CFO. Take the time to understand what’s important to them, what key financial performance metrics they’re watching and what they hope to see from you as a marketing executive. Learning to speak the CFO’s language can also help contextualize why you’re investing in brand building efforts and how those initiatives contribute to revenue but also the bottom line. Instead of sharing your impressions goals with your CFO, show them how social is a cost-effective alternative to billboards or radio ads at generating awareness. A television commercial, for example, can easily run marketers tens of thousands of dollars whereas lo-fi social content as simple as a screenshot or photo dump can go viral overnight.

Establishing this relationship early on not only gives you access to the funding the marketing team needs but also allows you to try new ideas because you’ve built up trust between you and your CFO. When you ask executives to invest more in brand over demand, you’re asking them to take away from the activities that drive immediate financial results for something that requires a big picture perspective. Demonstrating a balance between the tried-and-true strategies and bold branding moves, and a willingness to be flexible when goals fall short, will give you access to the resources you need to keep brand marketing a top priority.

Sustained growth requires short and long-term plays

When executives treat marketing investments like an “either or” tradeoff, they risk setting their team up for failure—even if, in the here and now, there’s signs of profitability. Focusing solely on performance marketing may generate revenue today, but can weaken demand generation and loyalty efforts over time. On the flip side, going all in on brand building can be expensive and slow to return the results executives expect.

For sustainable business growth among economic uncertainty, intense competition and discerning consumers, executives need to invest in a balance of both performance and brand marketing. And for marketers, there’s a need to rethink how soft metrics like awareness and loyalty are quantified to ensure brand marketing isn’t left out of the conversation. Customer loyalty is at a premium more than ever before and executives serious about maintaining their competitive edge need to place as much value on brand marketing, or risk being left behind.

For more insights on how executives see social fueling their business goals, as well as the technologies needed to inform their decision making, download The 2023 State of Social Media Report today.

The post Balancing brand and performance marketing: Don’t fall for the “soft” investment fallacy appeared first on Sprout Social.

Sprout Social is Salesforce’s preferred social media management solution. Since announcing our global partnership, we’ve been developing new tools to help Salesforce customers manage their full social media presence while maintaining a 360-degree view of their customer.

With Sprout, you get an intuitive, straightforward platform designed to help you deliver exceptional experiences at every touchpoint. Pair that with a commitment to excellent customer service and pre-built integrations with the tools you love, and you’ll see it’s the clear choice.

In this article, we explore the key reasons businesses are opting for Sprout as their go-to Social Studio replacement. Plus, we’re sharing stories from brands that are driving smarter, faster business impact after making the switch to Sprout.

What is Salesforce Social Studio?

Salesforce Social Studio is a social media management and listening tool that provides basic functionalities for businesses to manage their social media presence. Users can schedule and track posts across various platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.

Source: Salesforce Ben

Social Studio was built through a series of acquisitions and has been offered as a Salesforce Marketing Cloud solution since its launch in 2014. Noteworthy features include:

• Publish, where users can draft, publish and promote content to social profiles across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Pinterest. Like Sprout, Social Studio offers social media approval tools that support workflows for approving or rejecting posts before publishing.
• Engage, where users can monitor conversations and respond to customer questions, comments and mentions in real time. The Engage interface is organized into columns that provide consolidated social media activity streams based on customizable filtering criteria. If you’re a Sprout customer, you might compare these to Custom Views in the Smart Inbox.
• Analyze, which enables users to track their progress toward social media goals through reporting and analytics features. Social Studio’s listening tool (called Workbenches) is offered as a part of Analyze.

Social Studio replacement success stories

We get it. No one jumps out of bed and thinks, “I can’t wait to implement a brand new tool today!” Identifying and evaluating software options can be a lot of work, but it’s essential to your team’s ongoing success.

When you partner with Sprout, you get access to a team that has successfully migrated over 500 Salesforce Social Studio customers. We know how to dig into the unique complexities of your business, helping you create and implement workflows that support an enhanced 360-degree view of your customer. But don’t just take our word for it. Here are two brands that have accelerated social’s impact on their business by switching to Sprout Social.

Casey’s

Casey’s—a midwestern and southern US staple for gas, food and more—has a diehard fan base both online and off. To meet the needs of their thriving online community, their social team made the switch from using Social Studio to Sprout Social. The results are just as delicious as the snacks they sell in stores.

By using Sprout’s integration with Salesforce Service Cloud, Casey’s team has improved their response time to guests, reducing it by 90%. The integration has provided a centralized way to support customers across social networks, optimizing their experience through intelligent, automated case creation and routing.

For the first time in about five years, our Guest Relations Team reported that they didn’t have a backlog of messages to respond to. Sprout’s Service Cloud integration is a big reason for that.

Jasmine Riedemann
Social Media Manager, Casey's

This increased visibility has fostered a new level of collaboration between Casey’s social and Guest Relations teams. Previously, it took around three days for either team to respond to guests online because it was too difficult to know exactly which messages were being handled and by whom.

With Sprout, Casey’s social and Guest Relations teams were able to increase their communication ten-fold. Now, both teams rely on the real-time capabilities of Sprout Social to ensure they never miss a beat in delivering on outstanding customer care.

Hudl

Jessie Koenig, Revenue Systems Administrator at Hudl, is no stranger to complicated tech stack integrations. Luckily, connecting Sprout to Hudl’s Salesforce instance was an easy win.

“[Sprout] was very powerful right out of the box. Many vendors say their products integrate with Salesforce, but it requires an extremely heavy lift from multiple engineers to create a custom integration. Sprout’s integration with Salesforce was quite literally plug-and-play, which is exactly what we were looking for.”

Hudl helps over 200,000 teams across more than 40 sports analyze and refine their game play through video analysis technology. When a question or issue prevents an athlete from being able to make a game-changing move, they reach out to @HudlSupport on Twitter.

“Our customer support team may need to field between 1,000 and 2,000 support requests per day—primarily by phone, email or Twitter,”  says Koenig.

My tip for anyone transitioning from Social Studio to Sprout Social is to get ready for some great data coming into Salesforce. Your cases are going to flow through your system much better, too.

Jessie Koenig
Revenue Systems Administrator, Hudl

After transitioning from Salesforce Social Studio to Sprout, the Hudl team was able to use out-of-the-box features and custom tools to streamline workflows and improve customer outcomes. Best of all, their Salesforce CRM system now contains a true 360-degree view of the customer enriched with social data from Sprout.

Why is Sprout the best alternative for Salesforce Social Studio?

Sprout Social is the clear choice for those in search of a Social Studio replacement. We help brands build a single view of the customer through pre-built integrations with the Salesforce solutions that are integral to your business. That includes Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, Tableau and Slack.

Sprout’s intuitive social media management tools are built on a single code base with enterprise-level security. Our customers rave about its ease of use and time to value. If that’s not enough, here are four more reasons companies choose Sprout as their Social Studio replacement.

Sprout moves at the speed of social

The world of social media is fast-paced, unpredictable and enormous. To stay ahead of the curve, businesses need a social media management tool that prioritizes continuous innovation.

Sprout invests heavily into research and development every year, ensuring customers get constant innovation from our platform.

Today, we’re building even more power into our platform by combining Sprout’s proprietary machine learning and deep automation capabilities with OpenAI’s GPT model. In addition, our recent acquisition of Repustate adds 15 years of proven success in sentiment and textual analysis. Pair that with smart recommendations from AI Assist and other automation tools, and you get even faster time to value.

Sprout offers a complete social media management toolkit

Maximizing your team’s potential means investing in a platform that can match their speed, agility and skill. With Sprout, they get to work with tools thoughtfully designed to drive business results through social.

Sprout is a social team favorite for a reason. Our intuitive social media management tools have been recognized by G2’s Best Software Awards—which ranks software companies and products based on authentic, timely reviews—for seven consecutive years. In addition to our core tools, we also offer:

• Scalable social listening: Sprout’s AI-powered social listening is intuitively designed and backed by robust functionality. On top of that, it doesn’t require manual setup or continuous support—you can hit the ground running with analysis-ready models that fit into your existing workflows.
• An integrated employee advocacy solution: Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social empowers employees as brand advocates. With a connected platform designed for immediate adoption, you can amplify brand awareness and mitigate risks without spending more on advertising.
• A free 30-day trial: You deserve a chance to try before you buy. Our free month-long trial gives your entire team an opportunity to see what work can be like with Sprout.

Sprout is committed to customer success

Every team has its own unique requirements and use cases for social media management software. When things aren’t working, they need support from reps who are just as social-obsessed as they are.

Sprout is all in on social, and all in on our customers’ success. Phone, email, video, self-serve—whatever your preferred medium is, we’re there. Plus, we get there faster. Our phone and chat support wait time is less than three minutes on average.

We also offer tailored onboarding, strategic education and guidance from Premier Success experts and Professional Services consultants. If self-paced learning is more your style, you can earn certifications, browse our learning portal, and join our community, the Arboretum, to sharpen your social expertise on your own time.

Sprout maintains enterprise-grade security practices

Social media governance is not a “one-and-done” activity. It requires constant risk assessment on behalf of not only your team, but your software vendors as well.

That’s why it’s so important to work with partners committed to conducting the ongoing security measures needed to prevent costly mishaps. At Sprout Social, enterprise-grade security practices are baked into our processes and product, with tools like:

• Multi-factor authentication: Use apps like Google Authenticator and others to implement the Time-based One-time Password Algorithm (TOTP) or HMAC-based One-time Password Algorithm (HOTP) for generating passcodes.
• Single sign-on (SSO): Leverage SSO authentication service to give employees one set of login credentials to access multiple applications.
• Access permissions: Restrict access to profiles, features, actions and other data by applying granular controls to users on their account.
• Global publishing pause: Temporarily disable any scheduled or queued messages in times of crisis from our web or mobile applications.

Find your Social Studio replacement

To succeed on the most dynamic channel in marketing, you need a social media management partner that is laser-focused on providing your team with the tools they need.

Sprout is the ideal Social Studio alternative. We’re on a journey to empower companies to create a 360-degree view of their customers through our global Salesforce partnership. Let Sprout be at the forefront of your social strategy, so you can be at the forefront of your industry.

Transform your business with Sprout and Salesforce

The post Why brands transition from Social Studio to Sprout Social appeared first on Sprout Social.