I spoke with Peter Kennedy, Founder and General Manager, Influencer Marketing for Tagger by Sprout Social, to discuss how leaders can measure and maximize their influencer marketing return on investment (ROI) at each customer journey stage.

Why influencer marketing ROI matters

Nearly half (47%) of social marketers say measuring the effectiveness of campaigns is one of their top influencer marketing challenges, according to our Q3 2023 Pulse Survey. ROI is a critical proxy for gauging effectiveness, not to mention a jumping-off point for future budget asks.

Let’s cover three reasons why influencer marketing ROI matters:

1. Influencer marketing encompasses the entire customer journey

Kennedy says people often think about ROI as it relates to sales, but influencer marketing has changed the game. He explains ROI is often confined to bottom-funnel metrics like downloads or conversions, but influencer marketing drives returns across the customer journey.

“When you start to use influencer content across the entire journey, sales are definitely part of [your results]. But what’s the ROI of the awareness you’re building and the consideration?” he says.

In our LinkedIn influencer marketing roundtable, Kennedy emphasized how influencer content often fuels higher engagement than branded content. Our Q3 Pulse Survey also found that 79% of marketers describe influencer content as necessary for their customers’ experiences, and 81% describe influencer marketing as an essential part of their social media strategy.

“We’re getting better awareness, engagement, purchase, retention and advocacy because the content resonates more with people,” he says.

2. Influencers can help balance brand and performance marketing

The push and pull between brand and performance marketing is a common experience among chief marketing officers. Leaders often view performance marketing as a safer bet because it can be measured clearly and held more accountable for business results, making it easier to see how a company’s marketing dollars connect to revenue. But today’s consumers are savvy and recognize when brands only see them as dollar signs—so balancing brand and demand efforts becomes even more important.

Kennedy agrees and notes that, historically, performance marketers haven’t tapped into influencer marketing—but the landscape is changing:

“With A/B testing, they’re finding that influencer content converts faster and gets better click-through rates than branded content.”

3. Marketers must measure ROI to earn more buy-in

ROI is the key to commanding a larger influencer marketing budget. Even though the majority of marketers say influencer marketing is vital to their social strategy, only 34% have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing.

Influencers can help marketers reach their goals and earn more buy-in for future collaborations. Our data reveals social marketers rate influencer marketing as having a significant impact on their brand’s efforts including brand awareness (89%), increased brand reputation (87%) and customer loyalty (87%).

How to measure influencer marketing’s ROI: The 5 W’s + H of influencer strategy

Kennedy explains that calculating influencer marketing ROI is tricky because there isn’t a simple equation.

“You can’t just say, ‘We spent X on influencer marketing, we got this many sales and our ROI is Y.’ There are a lot more variables that need to go into that.”

Instead of searching for a formula to calculate success, consider several factors that impact a brand’s ROI. Kennedy organizes most of these into the Five W’s of influencer strategies (who, what, when, where and why)—and advises how leaders need each to better understand audience interest, behavior and preferences, which can further inform your influencer selections and campaign execution.

The who: Influencer identification

Our Pulse Survey data shows finding the right influencers is the top influencer marketing challenge. This is where the first of the Five W’s comes into play.

The “who” includes your target audience, their demographics, interests and affinities. Kennedy underscores the importance of hiring influencers based on audience fit and historic performance. He recommends looking at influencers who talk about your industry and whose content outperforms when they mention your topic or product.

Many marketers will start by searching a database to find influencers for their campaigns. They search based on audience demographics, location or topics the influencers discuss.

“Before I can even think about the influencer I need to hire, I need to consider what my channel strategy is,” he says. “I want these influencers to be authentic when they talk about certain themes or products.”

He says you must understand your product category or industry to help determine the most important channel(s) and which influencers to hire based on their social presence. Then he recommends filtering down to the target demographics and geolocation. Historical performance is another essential metric to track to ensure the influencer maps to their goals.

Another integral piece of the influencer identification process is checking their audience’s affinity. He points to an example of a health food company.

“The company may want to work with a particular influencer. But when you view their audience, their followers care about candy bars. That’s not the right audience because they’re not necessarily looking for healthy products, even if the influencer is on board,” he says.

“If the influencer’s audience makes sense, the influencer makes sense because they both talk about these [topics or interests]. Two plus two can equal eight with influencer marketing. So historical performance and audience alignment within your category are most important,” he says.

The influencer identification process is a manual journey that can take a lot of time and effort, but with Sprout, you can use People View to discover and organize profiles that interact with your brand.

This view ensures that you can authentically interact with the people who engage with your brand the most. People View can help foster connections with influencers, manage your VIP lists and view conversation history. This feature helps expedite the influencer identification process because you can see your most active audience members.

The where

Where you activate your influencer campaigns is equally important as the content. If your brand’s community is more active on one network versus another, that can help narrow down which influencers your brand should partner with to capture share of voice.

Kennedy explains when he asks brands why they are running a campaign on one platform, it’s widely based on assumption. But they’re often better suited to another platform because of their industry and audience. The engagement they are looking for is happening on entirely different channels.

The what

The “what” refers to the content types that will resonate with your target audience. For example, a 30-second makeup tutorial on TikTok may see higher engagement for people under 25, but longer videos may resonate with older audiences.

The content type you choose will depend on your brand’s audience, but our Pulse Survey shows giveaways (65%), product collaborations (62%) and influencer-led advertisements (57%) are the most common.

Each phase of the customer journey has different goals and KPIs. To maximize influencer marketing ROI, Kennedy advises brands to incorporate influencer content across all of them.

When most people think of influencer marketing, they think of content within the purchase stage like product reviews, tutorials and Live shopping experiences that support sales KPIs, but there are opportunities at every stage.

For example, in the awareness stage, the goal is to boost brand or product visibility. KPIs may include impressions, reach and views. This is when you could leverage posts on an influencer’s profile and repurpose influencer content for paid media.

In the retention stage, you’re aiming for repeat purchases and to increase KPIs like retention rate and customer lifetime value. You could leverage influencers in exclusive memberships or customer appreciation content. For advocacy purposes, influencers can support referral programs.

The why: Influencer marketing business goals

The “why” refers to your business goals. The driving force behind influencer campaigns is often one of two reasons: your competitors are spending a ton in this space, and you need to level up, or there are benefits to your products that you must highlight. For example, let’s say you want to understand the current landscape of influencer content about pickup trucks in the U.S.

“You may discover that towing capabilities are a popular topic. But when you review existing influencer content, another brand is being talked about most regarding towing capability. Although your product may have the best functionality, you’re actually being talked about the least. But now you’ve identified the white space in your industry and can start building a content strategy.”

Our survey shows two-thirds of marketers use social media engagements such as likes, shares and comments to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Social engagement data and conversion rates (in terms of sales, signups or downloads) rank as the two most important metrics to secure buy-in for influencer marketing campaigns.

The when

Campaign timing can make or break your influencer marketing results and effectiveness. Time can be broken down into multiple increments in terms of year, day of the week, or even the hour of the day that will yield the highest engagement.

Kennedy points to the example of content for a yoga company. The holiday season isn’t an ideal time for investment because people prioritize time with family and friends or travel for vacation. But after the holidays, you’ll see a spike in interest because people often focus on renewing their health and wellness rituals in the new year. Spring would be an ideal time as well.

“Understanding those time periods and the seasonality of your industry will be important. We’re going to get better engagement during the times of the year when people care about your industry and product,” he says.

The how: Influencer management overhead

Along with identifying the right partnerships, leaders have to consider influencer management overhead. From contracting to creative collaboration, there’s a lot that goes into daily influencer management. It can be an expensive undertaking if teams lack a transparent process for working with influencer management. Our survey reflects that 64% of markets manage influencer campaigns by working directly with their agents or reps.

Kennedy advises brands to consider local influencers to minimize travel and accommodation expenses. He also stressed considering the “when” of influencer management overhead to get the most out of your spend. “Even if you’re doing an earned campaign where I’m handing the influencer a product, we still incur manufacturing and shipping costs. It’s still paid media,” he says.

With Tagger by Sprout Social, you can integrate influencer marketing with your brand’s social strategy by harnessing data and analytics. With tools like Sprout’s publishing calendar and Tagger Projects, marketers can manage social campaigns and content, streamline influencer workflows, collaborate with talent and provide influencer compensation through a dedicated workspace.

Proving influencer marketing ROI with data insights

Illustrating influencer marketing ROI is a nuanced process. But by considering the Five W’s of influencer marketing strategy and weaving your content across the buyer journey, you’ll be able to prove your marketing dollars are well spent.

To learn more about using Tagger to shape the best path forward for your brand’s influencer marketing strategy, complete our inquiry form.

The post A 6-point framework for maximizing influencer marketing ROI 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.

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.

The modern consumer is looking for more than just a good deal—they want brands they can trust. They want brands that consistently provide superior customer care experiences that adapt alongside their changing preferences. Once that trust is secured, businesses can reap the benefits.

If you want to keep your hard-earned customers for the long haul, keep reading. In this article, we’ll delve into the fundamentals of brand loyalty and how to cultivate it. We also gathered three examples of brands that have excelled in fostering loyalty to inspire your own strategy

• What is brand loyalty?
• What are the five characteristics of brand loyalty
• How to build brand loyalty that lasts
• 3 brand loyalty examples to inspire your approach

What is brand loyalty?

Brand loyalty describes a consumer’s inclination to keep choosing a specific brand, even in the face of competitive offers or challenges. This loyalty is often a result of the value a brand offers to its consumers. For example, superior customer experiences drive more loyalty.

In that sense, these brand-consumer bonds are similar to everyday relationships. Think about it: Lasting friendships aren’t formed after a single trip to the movies. Instead, they evolve gradually as two individuals spend more time together.

The same goes for brand loyalty. It develops over time as a brand shows its commitment to customer service and satisfaction.

Brand loyalty vs. brand affinity: What’s the difference?

Brand affinity is the belief that a business aligns with the values or principles of its customers. While brand loyalty refers to the actions consumers take with a specific brand, brand affinity encompasses the emotional ties between consumers and a brand.

So which is more important? The answer is both. Brand affinity drives brand loyalty by forging deeper connections between a brand and its consumers. Similarly, brand loyalty can drive brand affinity through positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

Take Stanley, for instance. Their now famous Adventure Quencher Travel Tumbler achieved viral fame on social media, particularly resonating with Millennial and Gen Z women.

This viral success triggered a chain reaction, leading to both greater brand loyalty and brand affinity. The tumbler transformed into a lifestyle accessory that strongly resonated with specific audiences. This resonance, in turn, fostered loyalty.

Why brand loyalty matters

According to The 2023 State of Social Media Report, the top priority for business leaders in today’s economic environment is building brand reputation and loyalty.

As market competition heats up and consumers become pickier about what they buy, brand loyalty helps ensure that your product or service doesn’t end up on the chopping block. The loyalty of your top customers is what keeps them from being tempted by other offers, acting as a protective shield that prevents competitors from chipping away at your market share.

What are the five characteristics of brand loyalty?

Now that we’ve covered the why, let’s get into the how. A customer’s brand loyalty is made up of five distinct characteristics that inform how they engage with your brand.

Emotional connection

Have you ever gone out of your way to get to your favorite coffee shop? It feels silly, but the emotional attachment between a person and their favorite beverage is no joke. It’s your favorite for a reason.

Maybe their service is incredibly consistent, or maybe they nail emotional marketing plays that speak to being cozy and comfortable. Whatever it is, it’s created a personal connection that has fueled a lasting relationship.

Resistance to competition

Brand loyalty makes customers less likely to be swayed by competitive offers because they believe the value your brand offers is greater than anything a competitor can provide.

After several positive experiences with their chosen business, brand loyalists view that brand as more valuable. They’re confident that the brand will consistently meet their needs and offer better quality, which makes them less inclined to explore other options.

Positive word-of-mouth

The greatest influencers are often our co-workers, family members and friends. That’s what makes positive word-of-mouth recommendations so powerful.

It’s not uncommon for brand loyalists to sing the praises of their preferred business, and their love isn’t restricted to casual conversations either. Digital word-of-mouth recommendations are also common, and can look like:

• Social media shout-outs and praise
• User-generated content
• Positive reviews
• Brand ambassadorship

Tolerance for price changes

Inflation. Supply chain issues. Market headwinds. Price changes are often the outcome of several contributing factors that businesses have little to no control over.

If yesterday’s price simply can’t be today’s price, brand loyalty can be a helpful buffer against price sensitivity. This allows brands to adjust pricing to maintain profitability without losing their most loyal customers.

Repeat purchases

The four characteristics we’ve covered thus far work together to encourage repeat purchases and customer retention.

Nothing encapsulates this phenomenon quite like the “If I like it, I’ll just grab it in a different color” TikTok trend. After the audio (originally shared by user @justsaraslife) took off on the platform, more than 39,000 people used it to show their dedication to the brands and products that they love.

That’s the power of brand loyalty. It keeps people coming back, even if it’s for the same thing.

How to build brand loyalty that lasts

There are plenty of marketing tactics that companies use to improve brand loyalty, including rewards programs, having a strong brand story, community building and more.

Let’s go in-depth on some of the best ways to build brand loyalty that lasts.

1. Provide best in class customer service

The quality of customer service a brand offers plays a huge role in driving brand loyalty, which is proven to have a significant impact on your bottom line. Research from McKinsey shows that customer experience leaders achieve more than double the revenue growth of customer experience laggards.

Turning your business into a leading brand starts with a well-documented customer service strategy that accounts for your audience’s preferred channels.

For example, if you get a high volume of customer service requests on social media platforms, you should make sure resources are allocated toward monitoring those accounts and responding in a timely manner. You can use a social media tool like Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox to help different team members quickly delegate and assign each social media message as it comes in.

Sprout’s Inbox not only lets you assign tasks to individual team members, but you can also enable approval permissions so that these critical messages are reviewed for brand voice and tone before they’re published.

It’s critical to establish these workflows, no matter who your audience is. Social media interactions are entirely public facing, meaning their impacts extend beyond the individual who requested support. Acknowledging your customers on social media—whether they’re giving praise or feedback—builds trust, and in turn, brand loyalty.

2. Find your brand voice and story

Create a unique voice that represents your brand and makes it feel approachable to people in your audience. Maintaining a consistent brand voice across all channels will make your brand more recognizable and memorable.

Fitness apparel and accessories brand Gymshark does this by taking a more informal approach to their social content. Instead of creating like a brand, they post like fitness content creator.

Their relatable memes and jokes do more than just get a chuckle out of their target audience. They help to humanize the brand by establishing a unique personality across different platforms. This personality creates emotional connections based on feelings of happiness, support and shared interests.

3. Use rewards programs

If you want to incentivize your audience to return to your website or shop with you again, a great strategy is to create a rewards or loyalty program. These programs typically offer discounts or coupons to repeat shoppers. Brands that give extra perks to their loyal customers can encourage more and larger sales down the line.

Starbucks has virtually gamified its rewards program in a way that makes its customers excited to use it. The Starbucks Rewards Card and app make it easy for customers to get their Starbucks order and collect perks along the way.

Starbucks also rewards people who aren’t necessarily repeat customers. Their birthday rewards and different holiday promotions are ways to spread awareness among less frequent customers and incentivize future visits with discounts and free items. They use social media to promote their rewards program and get new customers in the door.

Starbucks is an example of taking a rewards program to the next level with its extensive app, but even a punch card towards a free item or a discount will encourage repeat customers. Use social media to raise awareness on the value of your in-store programs, so customers know it’s available.

 4. Build a brand community

As more people turn to digital spaces for connection and conversation, brand communities present a major opportunity for businesses looking to cultivate loyalty.

The rise of community platforms and vertical social networks call back to a time where the internet was solely for connection and conversation. People ask questions, provide feedback, cheer each other on—it’s behavior that’s unique to what you’d find on your main feed.

Brands that create their own communities can unite their fans to benefit from this high-quality engagement.

To see what this looks like in practice, check out Sephora’s Beauty Insider community. Every day, thousands of makeup fanatics turn to their fellow Beauty Insiders for advice, recommendations and more. Community groups (like “Nailed It” and “Best Hair Ever”) allow community members to dive deeper into specific interests with other knowledgeable shoppers. It’s a place where questions are answered and friendships are forged.

All this activity creates a win-win scenario for Sephora and its customers. Customers receive round-the-clock advice and support from fellow fans, and Sephora gets a never-ending well of customer insights and feedback.

5. Use social media insights to keep up with your customer preferences

On social, brands can use clever combinations of copy and visuals to dive deeper into every facet of their brand identity. The channel is unparalleled in its near-constant opportunities to humanize your brand. 

To put it simply, social is where your brand comes to life. 

Using social media to build brand loyalty means telling a story worth your audience’s investment. It’s not enough to share product releases and business announcements. You need to hone in on what resonates with your target audience, and deliver on that message as creatively as you can. 

Gas and grocery chain Casey’s stays in lockstep with customer interests by using Sprout Social’s Post Performance Report to analyze content performance at a granular level. Sprout’s analytics tools help the Casey’s social team identify trends in content performance, so they can create content that resonates with audiences across their 16 states of operation.

Brands can replicate this approach by crafting a data-driven social media marketing strategy that prioritizes both quantitative and qualitative customer feedback. Test new messaging and creative assets often. Your findings can ensure that your brand continues to appeal to new audiences while maintaining and cultivating greater loyalty with existing customers.

3 brand loyalty examples to inspire your approach

It’s easy to see when a company is getting brand loyalty right. After all, their satisfied customers are often the first to sing their praises through rave reviews and repeat purchases. If you want to add your brand to those ranks, here are three lessons from businesses that excel in cultivating brand loyalty.

1. Le Creuset

How much bakeware could one person possibly need? To Le Creuset fan, the limit does not exist.

For nearly 100 years, the French kitchenware brand has been a mainstay for chefs and home cooks alike. Obtaining your first Le Creuset Dutch oven is a momentous occasion for many, but it doesn’t stop there. Fans continuously flock to seasonal releases, hoping to get their hands on the latest and greatest in enamel-covered dishes.

So what makes these dishes so special? Quality aside, the brand taps into its audience’s emotional needs.

The art of cooking is already deeply rooted in care and connection, giving Le Creuset an easy in to their audiences hearts and minds. Layer in their reputation for reliability along with some cozy visuals of simmering pots and delicious meals, and you get a diehard fan base of brand loyalists.

Takeaway: How do you want your brand to make people feel? Zeroing in on the emotional pull of your brand and product can set the foundation for future, long-term brand loyalty.

2. Marks & Spencer

How do you reinvent a brand that’s more than a century old? That’s the question Marks & Spencer, a UK-based retailer specializing in clothing, beauty and home products, had to answer in 2019 after dropping from the FTSE 100 for the first time since the city share’s index began in 1984.

Fast forward to today and you’ll see a company back on the up, largely due to an omnichannel customer experience strategy that creates cohesion across its many offerings.

To bring the brand into the digital age, Marks & Spencer introduced an app-based loyalty program in 2022. The program, called Sparks, treats loyal customers to gifts, prizes, personalized offers, charitable donations and more.

Source: Marks & Spencer

The M&S team came up with these benefits by listening to audience feedback and experimenting with incentives to get them in-store—and so far, it’s working. More than 4.3 million active users turn to the Sparks app to stay connected with the retailer.

Takeaway: Boost your brand loyalty by creating a customized program that matches your audience’s interests and desires. When you actively connect with your customers, you’ll uncover ways to strengthen loyalty that go beyond occasional discounts.

3. Slack

Brand loyalty isn’t exclusive to B2C brands, and Slack proves it.

Over 100,000 organizations use the business messaging tool to connect their workforce, and professionals across industries swear by it. While the product itself is impressive, what truly sets the company apart for many fans is its unique voice and tone.

Slack seizes every opportunity to reinforce its brand’s distinctive voice. When you interact with them online, they come across as your favorite coworker—friendly, smart and genuinely human. According to their brand microsite, their voice is at the core of their brand identity, and they approach everything with genuine warmth and care, even their app release notes.

These small, thoughtful touches surprise and delight their audience, making the Slack brand feel more relatable and earning them even more loyalty.

Takeaway: If you want to build meaningful connections with your loyal customers, ditch the business speak in favor of what sounds real and relatable. Root your approach in customer-centricity and refine as you go.

Tap into the power of brand loyalty

Turning your customers into loyal advocates isn’t about fancy marketing gimmicks or viral campaigns. It’s about reinforcing the core strengths of your business and reliably offering excellent products and services. When you earn your customer’s trust, their loyalty is sure to follow.

As your loyal customer base expands, you’ll naturally build a broad network of brand advocates who can help spread the word about your brand, bringing in a fresh wave of customers. And if you’re aiming for even greater success, consider diving into brand advocacy. Your business’s biggest fans might just be your key to unlocking new revenue opportunities.

The post How to cultivate brand loyalty (strategies and examples) appeared first on Sprout Social.

When Lisa Cole, Chief Marketing Officer at Cellebrite, stepped into her role last year, these were the questions constantly on her mind. She wanted to illustrate the marketing department’s ability to drive results and improve work-life balance for employees.

Enter the impetus for solving both challenges: artificial intelligence (AI).

Cole brought in Nicole Leffer, a CMO AI advisor, to help navigate this new frontier. I spoke with them to learn how marketing leaders can incorporate AI across their teams effectively. Their partnership is just one example of how brands are using AI in marketing to achieve incredible results.

“Rather than fight against technology, how do you train and develop the next generation of marketers so they can leverage it to have a greater impact on the company—rather than be disrupted by it? It feels better to take control,” Cole says.

Tapping the marketing strategist in your pocket

Both Cole and Leffer have interesting philosophies when it comes to AI. For Cole, AI is an ever-present partner to brainstorm and ideate with.

“Oftentimes, I get my best ideas during nights and weekends, when I don’t want to bother my team. But I also don’t want to slow down. So when I want to flesh out an idea, the world’s smartest marketing strategist is in my pocket at all times,” she says.

Cellebrite is a mission-driven organization whose technology is used to save and protect lives, so they wanted to mobilize a movement. When Cole was brainstorming for a new publishing commitment campaign, she looked to ChatGPT to help pressure test and anchor for the campaign. She says this critical brainstorming happened on a rainy Saturday afternoon at home. She asked a variety of questions, from solutions to fighting crime to how to increase global safety.

“I was trying to research websites and data points, but I wasn’t getting there fast enough. [AI] helped me connect dots faster than I could have done on my own. There were some real themes that came out of that exchange. And I used it to flesh out what became the framework for a global campaign,” she says.

With Cole’s personal experimentation being so successful, she was motivated to bring Leffer on board to illustrate the power of the tool across her team.

Combating challenges and nurturing exploration

Leffer encourages clients to embrace an experimental mindset to overcome the many challenges of implementing AI, from combating learning curves to crafting better AI prompts.

A common pattern emerges when marketing teams begin to adopt the technology. Many people begin experimenting with AI because they’ve heard about the hype, or they’re skeptical and want to learn more. In some cases, good first impressions are wiped away when users start discovering issues like hallucinations and glitches.

“Generative AI hasn’t worked out all the kinks. It forgets things every now and then. So beginners start running into the errors or they don’t get the results they really want, especially if they don’t know to prompt correctly,” she says.

She explains there are groups of people who will step away once they hit an error, but there’s also a smaller segment of users who will have a more experimental mindset.

“Once you start experimenting, you start seeing how to overcome those limitations. The more someone experiments, the more they learn. You get to the point where you’re like me or many of my clients—you’re using AI constantly. I’m always trying to see what’s possible.”

Building a culture of experimentation

In her experience training CMOs, Leffers says the most common challenge is getting teams to embrace and use new technology. Ultimately, it comes down to leading by example. Executives must shape a culture of using and studying AI.

“You can’t just give the people the tool once, and then expect them to adopt it. Certain people are going to get so excited, and they’re going to go run with it. But other people need to be reminded. You’re changing habits that they’ve had their entire lives and professional careers,” she says.

Leffer notes there will be generational challenges as well. She says many people think younger employees will adopt AI fast while older generations will need more time, but it’s actually often the opposite.

“Anyone who has blown in a Nintendo cartridge to fix it, grew up having to tinker with technology to get it to work. The technology wasn’t already ready for you. You learned to navigate these technologies without a guide. I think those people are having an easier time adopting AI. Younger generations have had an iPhone most of their entire life. There was no figuring it out because it was ready to go. So adopting something as open-ended as AI is harder,” she says.

Data from The Sprout Social Index™ reinforces this phenomenon, as digital natives are most likely to be concerned about the emergence of AI in social media interactions. Some 46% of 18-24-year-olds say they’re apprehensive about increased AI usage, making them second only to consumers ages 57-75.

Proving the power of AI in real time

Cole’s advice for overcoming the challenges of incorporating AI across various teams and generations? Practice what you preach and show others the best way to tackle the technology.

“What has worked for my team is to prove to them—with real evidence—that the output reflects the quality of input that you put in. [Showing them] it’s meant to be an iterative process versus prompting AI and using the initial response as your final product,” she says.

Showing these proof points when collaborating with Leffer helped Cole’s team see the power of AI. Cole gave Leffer their most common workflows, personas, messaging framework, and their brand voice and tone guide. Leffer used these foundational inputs to create real examples of how the team could use AI. For example, Leffer produced a blog article and a series of emails to promote the piece and other distribution assets.

“She walked through how she got there in real time. We proved to them the output could be really strong. Then we provided them with the prompts and the training on the iterative process to question it, to strengthen the end result,” Cole says.

The art of crafting the right prompt

Leffer underscores how part of the AI learning curve stems from not knowing how to prompt. Instead of chatting back and forth and just asking/answering questions, she recommends starting an initial query and using ChatGPT’s prompt edit button to reflect the difference in the desired output.

“I’ve learned how to prompt so much faster because you see directly what information it needs, what’s irrelevant and what changes the outputs. Early on, it might’ve taken me six to eight edits to get what I wanted, whereas now, one or two will get me there,” she says, “I hear other people talking about how they had too long a chat, so ChatGPT started forgetting. You don’t have that issue when you’re refining through the edit button.”

Cole agrees this iterative approach is necessary for refining and differentiating a point of view or message. She explains that when she uses ChatGPT, she’ll refine outputs by asking for clarification, alternatives or to edit for brevity.

“It’s a conversation. It’s almost like a music composer. They might hear the same chords, but the way they put the chords together, the music itself, that’s a reflection of you and I bantering and brainstorming,” she says.

5 steps for incorporating AI across your marketing organization

Here are five steps for incorporating AI into your teams, based on Cole’s and Leffer’s advice:

1. Encourage failure

Leffer advises cultivating a culture where failure is OK. She would rather teams experiment and fail than not try at all. She recommends celebrating when people use AI and sharing those tests across the team.

“Recognize that people on your team come from different backgrounds and comfort levels. This is an opportunity to elevate everyone to an even playing field. But it’s also another place where we need to make sure people aren’t slipping through the cracks,” she says.

Leffer recommends going beyond the common approach of asking “Where can I use AI, or what things can I do with AI?” Instead, she recommends reversing this philosophy and ask, “Can I use AI for this? How?”

She advises using AI as often as you can to accelerate the learning process. Instead of knowing how to use AI for one or two things, you open the door for wider adoption.

2. Identify opportunities to use AI in current projects

Leffer advises leaders to ask about AI in team discussions to help teams understand how this new resource connects to their day-to-day work.

“One thing I found really helpful with getting my team to adopt the technology was, whenever we would be talking about projects, I would immediately ask, ‘How are you going to use our AI tools for this?’’’ Leffer says.

You can also share prompts and best practices on your internal communication channels to build a culture where everyone is expected to play around with AI.

3. Break down workflows step by step

When it comes to improving workflows, Leffer advises teams to first audit every discrete step in their existing processes. Identify where AI can expedite your workflow or improve the quality of your final output.

“Unless you’re sure the tool is going to extend something that takes 10 minutes to three hours, try to incorporate AI. You might find that you didn’t think AI would make a big difference. But if it saves you 15 minutes 20 times a day, you’ve just saved a lot of time,” she says.

She referred to the example of writing a blog, which encompasses a content brief, research, drafting and reviews. After reading the content brief, the writer starts researching. From there, the writer could feed content from their own research into ChatGPT, perhaps to organize key bullet points. Then you can continue leaning on AI to craft an outline or help you work on the first draft.

You have to be careful about doing research with any generative AI tool. Sometimes they will present information for illustrative purposes or will hallucinate and claim something is factual when it actually isn’t. Hallucinations can stem from the AI erroneously connecting inputs to another idea. Whether you’re using AI for social copy, video scripting or event collateral, fact-checking is vital. AI is not a research or creative replacement—humans should still review and build on anything coming out of these tools.

For example, when Cellebrite had to rename one of its products, a cross-functional team began brainstorming and thinking through how to defend their options. Each person used ChatGPT individually for ideas. Once the team was aligned on the best name, but before going into legal vetting, the group asked ChatGPT why the frontrunner was better than the others. Cole reminisces on how excited the team was to get a creative break and feel confident about the decision because they could articulate why the name was the right choice.

“AI reinforced the team’s collaboration and got them to a solution faster than several meetings would have. Increased speed to market and improved collaboration has been our biggest benefit of incorporating AI,” Cole says.

4. Be clear with what AI can be used for

Don’t let fear get in the way of people exploring AI. CMOs should partner with leaders across the business and consult with their legal counsel to develop an AI use policy.

“I see a lot of marketers who are hesitant to use it, because they don’t know what they’re allowed to do or not do,” Leffer says, “No one wants to feel like they’re sneaking around or doing something wrong. Make it clear on what is allowed, welcomed and encouraged.”

As Cole continues to work with AI, she’s concerned about what information is included in prompts, especially when it comes to protecting proprietary company data.

“I think about how we’re managing the data inputs and making sure we’re not putting anything sensitive on the other side. It’s important that we’re validating what we’re using, crediting the source and ensuring that the final output is compelling and differentiated,” she says.

Along with verifying outputs, leaders and teams should closely monitor the evolving ethics of AI.

“AI can enable us to do things we probably shouldn’t do, and we know that we shouldn’t do it. For instance, someone might scrape [a competitor] website or social media channels to use certain information against them. The red flags that your gut checks for should still apply,” she says.

5. Offer ongoing skills training and resources

Don’t assume people will figure it out on their own. Give them development resources that are tailored to your marketing teams’ specific roles and disciplines.

“If they’re a social media writer, give them resources around how to use AI for social media content. Talk through the use cases that are most relevant so they can see how to apply it,” Leffer says.

Take advantage of marketing communities like The Arboretum that connect professionals with their peers in real time so they can learn and explore together, especially when it comes to figuring out how to fit AI into their daily processes.

Preparing the next generation of marketers

We’re only in the early days of understanding the value AI can bring to marketing teams, with leaders like Cole and Leffer paving the way.

Today, Leffer says the biggest benefit of AI is the efficiency gain. “It opens up the potential to take on more projects, do things you maybe wouldn’t have had time for, and use your thinking for other higher level strategic work. That efficiency gain leads to being able to do more, which leads to a revenue gain at the end of the day,” she says.

To learn more about why over 80% of marketers say artificial intelligence (AI) has positively impacted their work (and how they plan to use it going forward), download The Sprout Social Index™.

The post AI in marketing examples: How CMOs are leading teams into a new frontier appeared first on Sprout Social.

In fact, the pattern mirrors the early days of cloud computing when the technology felt like unchartered territory. Most companies were uncertain of the groundbreaking tech—concerned about data security and compliance requirements. Others jumped on the bandwagon without truly understanding migration complexities or associated costs. Yet today, cloud computing is ubiquitous. It has evolved into a transformative force, from facilitating remote work to streaming entertainment.

As technology advances at breakneck speed and leaders recognize AI’s value for business innovation and competitiveness, crafting an organization-wide AI use policy has become very important. In this article, we shed light on why time is of the essence for establishing a well-defined internal AI usage framework and the important elements leaders should factor into it.

Please note: The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute formal legal advice. Please review our full disclaimer before reading any further.

Why organizations need an AI use policy

Marketers are already investing in AI to increase efficiency. In fact, The State of Social Report 2023 shows 96% of leaders believe AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities can help them improve decision-making processes significantly. Another 93% also aim to increase AI investments to scale customer care functions in the coming three years. Brands actively adopting AI tools are likely going to have a greater advantage over those who are hesitant.

Given this steep upward trajectory in AI adoption, it is equally necessary to address the risks brands face when there are no clear internal AI use guidelines set. To effectively manage these risks, a company’s AI use policy should center around three key elements:

Vendor risks

Before integrating any AI vendors into your workflow, it is important for your company’s IT and legal compliance teams to conduct a thorough vetting process. This is to ensure vendors adhere to stringent regulations, comply with open-source licenses and appropriately maintain their technology.

Sprout’s Director, Associate General Counsel, Michael Rispin, provides his insights on the subject. “Whenever a company says they have an AI feature, you must ask them—How are you powering that? What is the foundational layer?”

It’s also crucial to pay careful attention to the terms and conditions (T&C) as the situation is unique in the case of AI vendors. “You will need to take a close look at not only the terms and conditions of your AI vendor but also any third-party AI they are using to power their solution because you’ll be subject to the T&Cs of both of them. For example, Zoom uses OpenAI to help power its AI capabilities,” he adds.

Mitigate these risks by ensuring close collaboration between legal teams, functional managers and your IT teams so they choose the appropriate AI tools for employees and ensure vendors are closely vetted.

AI input risks

Generative AI tools accelerate several functions such as copywriting, design and even coding. Many employees are already using free AI tools as collaborators to create more impactful content or to work more efficiently. Yet, one of the biggest threats to intellectual property (IP) rights arises from inputting data into AI tools without realizing the consequences, as a Samsung employee realized only too late.

“They (Samsung) might have lost a major legal protection for that piece of information,” Rispin says regarding Samsung’s recent data leak. “When you put something into ChatGPT, you’re sending the data outside the company. Doing that means it’s technically not a secret anymore and this can endanger a company’s intellectual property rights,” he cautions.

Educating employees about the associated risks and clearly defined use cases for AI-generated content helps alleviate this problem. Plus, it securely enhances operational efficiency across the organization.

AI output risks

Similar to input risks, output from AI tools poses a serious threat if they are used without checking for accuracy or plagiarism.

To gain a deeper understanding of this issue, it is important to delve into the mechanics of AI tools powered by generative pre-trained models (GPT). These tools rely on large language models (LLMs) that are frequently trained on publicly available internet content, including books, dissertations and artwork. In some cases, this means they’ve accessed proprietary data or potentially illegal sources on the dark web.

These AI models learn and generate content by analyzing patterns in the vast amount of data they consume daily, making it highly likely that their output is not entirely original. Neglecting to detect plagiarism poses a huge risk to a brand’s reputation, also leading to legal consequences, if an employee uses that data.

In fact, there is an active lawsuit filed by Sarah Silverman against ChatGPT for ingesting and providing summaries from her book even though it’s not free to the public. Other well-known authors like George RR Martin and John Grisham too, are suing parent company, OpenAI, over copyright infringement. Considering these instances and future repercussions, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has set a precedent by forcing companies to delete their AI data gathered through unscrupulous means.

Another major problem with generative AI like ChatGPT is that it uses old data, leading to inaccurate output. If there was a recent change in areas you’re researching using AI, there is a high probability that the tool would have overlooked that information as it wouldn’t have had time to incorporate the new data. Since these models take time to train themselves on new information, they may overlook the newly added information. This is harder to detect than something wholly inaccurate.

To meet these challenge, you should have an internal AI use framework that specifies scenarios where plagiarism and accuracy checks are necessary when using generative AI. This approach is especially helpful when scaling AI use and integrating it into the larger organization as well.

As in all things innovative, there are risks that exist. But they can be navigated safely through a thoughtful, intentional approach.

What marketing leaders should advocate for in an AI use policy

As AI tools evolve and become more intuitive, a comprehensive AI use policy will ensure accountability and responsibility across the board. Even the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has minced no words, cautioning AI vendors to practice ethical marketing in a bid to stop them from overpromising capabilities.

Now is the time for leaders to initiate a foundational framework for strategically integrating AI into their tech stack. Here are some practical factors to consider.

Accountability and governance

Your corporate AI use policy must clearly describe the roles and responsibilities of individuals or teams entrusted with AI governance and accountability in the company. Responsibilities should include implementing regular audits to ensure AI systems are compliant with all licenses and deliver on their intended objectives. It’s also important to revisit the policy frequently so you’re up-to-date with new developments in the industry, including legislation and laws that may be applicable.

The AI policy should also serve as a guide to educate employees, explaining the risks of inputting personal, confidential or proprietary information into an AI tool. It should also discuss the risks of using AI outputs unwisely, such as verbatim publishing AI outputs, relying on AI for advice on complex topics, or failing to sufficiently review AI outputs for plagiarism.

Planned implementation

A smart way to mitigate data privacy and copyright risks is to introduce AI tools across the organization in a phased manner. As Rispin puts it, “We need to be more intentional, more careful about how we use AI. You want to make sure when you do roll it out, you do it periodically in a limited fashion and observe what you’re trying to do.” Implementing AI gradually in a controlled environment enables you to monitor usage and proactively manage hiccups, enabling a smoother implementation on a wider scale later on.

This is especially important as AI tools also provide brand insights vital for cross-organizational teams like customer experience and product marketing. By introducing AI strategically, you can extend its efficiencies to these multi-functional teams safely while addressing roadblocks more effectively.

Clear use cases

Your internal AI use policy should list all the licensed AI tools approved for use. Clearly define the purpose and scope of using them, citing specific use cases. For example, documenting examples of what tasks are low risk or high and which should be completely avoided.

Low-risk tasks that are not likely to harm your brand may look like the social media team using generative AI to draft more engaging posts or captions. Or, customer service teams using AI-assisted copy for more personalized responses.

In a similar vein, the AI use policy should specify high-risk examples where the use of generative AI should be restricted, such as giving legal or marketing advice, client communications, product presentations or the production of marketing assets containing confidential information.

“You want to think twice about rolling it out to people whose job is to deal with information that you could never share externally, like your client team or engineering team. But you shouldn’t just do all or nothing. That’s a waste because marketing teams, even legal teams and success teams, a lot of back office functions basically—their productivity can be accelerated by using AI tools like ChatGPT,” Rispin explains.

Intellectual property rights

Considering the growing capacity of generative AI and the need to produce complex content quickly, your company’s AI use policy should clearly address the threat to intellectual property rights. This is critical because the use of generative AI to develop external-facing material, such as reports and inventions, may mean the assets cannot be copyrighted or patented.

“Let’s say you’ve published a valuable industry report for three consecutive years and in the fourth year decide to produce the report using generative AI. In such a scenario, you have no scope of having a copyright on that new report because it’s been produced without any major human involvement. The same would be true for AI-generated art or software code,” Rispin notes.

Another consideration is using enterprise-level generative AI accounts with the company as the admin and the employees as users. This lets the company control important privacy and information-sharing settings that decrease legal risk. For example, disabling certain types of information sharing with ChatGPT will decrease the risk of losing valuable intellectual property rights.

Disclosure details

Similarly, your AI use policy must ensure marketers disclose they’re using AI-generated content to external audiences. The European Commission considers this a very important aspect of the responsible and ethical use of generative AI. In the US, the AI Disclosure Act of 2023 Bill further cemented this requirement, maintaining any output from AI must include a disclaimer. This legislation tasks the FTC with enforcement.

Social media platforms like Instagram are already implementing ways to inform users of content generated by AI through labels and watermarks. Google’s generative AI tool, Imagen, also now embeds digital watermarks on AI-generated copy and images using SynthID. The technology embeds watermarks directly into image pixels, making them detectable for identification but imperceptible to the human eye. This means labels cannot be altered even with added filters or altered colors.

Integrate AI strategically and safely

The growing adoption of AI in marketing is undeniable, as are the potential risks and brand safety concerns that arise in the absence of well-defined guidelines. Use these practical tips to build an effective AI use policy that enables you to strategically and securely harness the benefits of AI tools for smarter workflows and intelligent decision-making.

Learn more about how marketing leaders worldwide are approaching AI and ML to drive business impact.

DISCLAIMER

The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute formal legal advice; all information, content, points and materials are for general informational purposes. Information on this website may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. Incorporation of any guidelines provided in this article does not guarantee that your legal risk is reduced. Readers of this article should contact their legal team or attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter and should refrain from acting on the basis of information on this article without first seeking independent legal advice. Use of, and access to, this article or any of the links or resources contained within the site do not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader, user or browser and any contributors. The views expressed by any contributors to this article are their own and do not reflect the views of Sprout Social. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this article are hereby expressly disclaimed.

The post How to craft an effective AI use policy for marketing appeared first on Sprout Social.

Fast forward to today and it’s difficult to picture any serious organization operating without a social media strategy. Leading brands recognize social is a goldmine for consumer and industry insights; where else can you get unfiltered feedback from your target audience or see how trends take off in real time? In fact, data from the latest Sprout Social Index™ reveals 76% of social marketers say their team’s insights inform other departments like product, sales and recruitment. That’s only going to continue as social becomes more ingrained in our everyday lives.

In five short years, I’ve seen the narrative around social media shift from it being an unproven marketing activity to a critical source of business intelligence. And while it’s long overdue to see companies invest in their social teams, we’re seeing new challenges emerge in the forms of how connected social marketers are to their colleagues across the organization.

For brands to truly take advantage of all that social has to offer, CMOs need to tackle the silos restricting the free flow of social data across their entire organization and isolating their social teams.

We’ve (unintentionally) put social in the corner

Brands may be all in on social media, but nearly half (43%) of social teams still feel siloed from other departments. This sentiment is felt even more strongly in larger organizations, with 48% of mid-market and 44% of enterprise social teams saying they feel siloed. How we’ve historically structured social media teams and the tools we’ve added to our tech stack are at the root of these feelings.

Like most organizations, there’s a good chance your social media team currently sits within the larger marketing department simply because that’s where social media got its start for many brands. But with departments like product and sales looking to leverage social data, it begs the question of who should own the function of managing social media. Factor in that 64% of social teams align staff members to a specific network, known as a network-based structure, and those silos within an already isolated team become that much deeper.

These structural divisions don’t just stifle cross-functional collaboration, they also restrict who can access social data. Relying on the team who owns social to disseminate insights that can inform everything from product development to market research is neither scalable nor sustainable. Brands that continue to silo social in one department will find themselves struggling to capitalize on social’s ability to transform the entire business.

Social is for everyone—not just marketing

As CMOs, we have a growing responsibility to understand and empower the end-to-end customer experience. Our customer’s experience, however, is executed by multiple teams within several departments—customer support, success, community, sales, account management, product, etc.

But, we are the clear mirror for whether we are meeting our customers’ expectations and should own the strategy for how that experience is delivered. It’s on us to advocate for solutions that encourage department-wide collaboration and lead by example when it comes to incorporating social data in our decision making. Short of brands restructuring their entire organization, marketing leaders have two avenues they can take to begin dismantling silos.

1. Look beyond single-point solutions

One of the biggest pitfalls marketing executives fall into when choosing a social management platform is failing to think big. Depending on your existing tech stack, your vendor search might be focused on filling a specific need for social listening, employee advocacy or social customer care. But the more important question to consider is what you and your team can gain with a platform that centralizes all of this.

With martech utilization down 33% and CFOs pushing tech consolidation in the name of cost savings, tools that only benefit a single department are prime candidates for the chopping block.

This is where CMOs can and should push for the adoption of a robust, unified social media platform that is not only accessible to every team but also integrates with the tools employees already use (think: your CRM, your business intelligence platform). In addition to democratizing social intelligence, it also creates opportunities for your social team to educate their peers and strengthen relationships across departments. As brands look for a return on their social media investments, identifying tools that empower non-marketing teams to take immediate action on social media intelligence should be a CMO’s priority.

2. Consider an unconventional team structure

Just because social media has always sat with the marketing department doesn’t mean it has to stay there forever. Changing your organization’s structure won’t happen overnight. But you can challenge why a network-based approach is the default, and start to evaluate who your social team interacts with the most to build a case for where social should sit. Aligning your social experts by internal functions or even audience engagement allows your team to stay agile and ensures social intelligence is disseminated on demand to teams when they need it.

If your social team regularly consults with your company’s recruiters to discuss employer brand initiatives or Glassdoor reviews, there’s a case to be made for staffing a social expert on the people team. Or if your customer care team frequently leans on social to inform their support strategy, it’s worth considering a team structure based on functions like community management or customer experience. The beauty of staffing your teams by use case is it naturally disintegrates silos and opens up new avenues for social’s impact to be felt more widely across departments.

Start building the social teams of tomorrow, today

Social teams are finally enjoying their moment in the spotlight, recognized by both their peers and executives as a crucial component in accelerating business growth. But as more departments leverage social for their own work, it’s clear social teams still feel like they’re operating in a silo apart from their colleagues. For brands to harness social’s profound business impact, CMOs need to reimagine their social teams to be more agile and embedded across the entire organization.

Ready to take advantage of the evolving social landscape and propel your business to new heights? Download the Sprout Social Index™, Edition XIX: Breakthrough today for the insights you need to inform a modern social media strategy.

The post CMOs: What will you do to remove social team silos in 2024? 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.

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.

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