• by Stephanie Miller , December 7, 2009

The panel this morning started to talk about the impact of social marketing on email marketing ROI, but turned into a discussion of what metrics are actually important. Turns out that very few of us (at least among the audience here) are doing a great job of measuring and optimizing email marketing based on the data we have now -- opens/renders, clicks and conversions. As a contribution to overall revenue, social marketing seems to just add depth and breadth to those metrics, rather than having to introduce brand new measures.

The impact of social marketing seems to be in these areas, according to the panelists:

Cadence/Reach: With each email marketing offer or news article gaining legs via social marketing, the footprint of each message grows. Cadence and the pace of the messaging across channels may also need to be timed, spaced out or reduced. (via Ryan Deutsch, StrongMail Systems)

RFM Scoring/Influence: The old RFM concepts can be applied to social marketing, like assigning a referral value to those who forward or participate with information about the brand. Easily accessed data allows us to score those influencers into levels. (via Ryan Deutsch of Strongmail). (SAM NOTE: It's also important to get beyond the super influencers into your "long tail" of influencers. All those advocates with small networks can add up to some really powerful reach and conversions.

Influence: Twitter has an 18:1 influence, while email is closer to 4:1, according to ShareThis data. But email is so much more influential in terms of conversions. Like in many marketing situations, reach alone is not the key metric - it's impact and conversion that matter. (Via Tim Schigel, ShareThis)

Privacy: Social marketing makes us very open - some would say TMI (Too Much Information) as we learn about every take off, landing and lunch platter. As we create marketing channels in this environment needs to be aware and conscious of privacy impacts. We have to be really open about how we use data, how those who participate in conversations about our brands may be pulled into larger conversations that they may or may not track (and is the brand liable for anything that happens there?!), and how we disclose our intentions. (via Dennis Dayman, Eloqua)

Data Collection & Management: There are two basic types of data - listening data (like in the PR department) and CRM data (where are our customers hanging out). The key is to connect these two types of data. (Via Joel Jewitt, Rapleaf)

Segmentation/Niche marketing: Take data from Twitter searches by time of day on key topics, and send email marketing at times that are optimal for your audience. (Via Greg Cangialosi of BlueSKy Factory)