Here at Talkwalker, data is our business.
We crawl every corner of the web to find mentions of your brands, keywords and organizations on social media, forums, TV and even print media. We then slice and dice this data to help give the numbers context and turn it into insights that can be used by all departments and industries. Essentially we can provide you with a whole bunch of “external” data.
But we also recognize that data comes in all shapes and sizes and a lot of this data is private or internal. This can be anything from sales data, to conversion rates, customer retention statistics and much more. And one of the great things about data is that if you combine it well, its value increases. That’s why we are constantly working on multiplying integration possibilities of Talkwalker.
Our recent partnership with data dashboard experts Klipfolio brings to life an easy way to visualize Talkwalker dashboards. Now you can gather multiple data sources together and easily spot correlations between different data sets. And it’s in this process that you can truly get to grips with the power that data of all kinds has to offer.
To explain exactly how marketing professionals can leverage Talkwalker’s integrated social intelligence to deliver business insights, here are a few examples:
#1 Prove ROI of Your Marketing Activities: Volume of Mentions & Sales Data
For most companies, sales figures are one of, if not the main number by which they measure performance. In the end, it all comes down to the bottom line but for marketers and comms professionals in particular, correlating sales with their campaigns and activities isn’t always easy.
One way to do this however is to chart sales figures and metrics like online mention volume on one graph (Note: Sales figures in the graph are not real figures).
In this example we’ve overlaid Coca-Cola’s positive and negative social mentions over a one month period on top of hypothetical sales figures over this period. Analysts can then look for correlations between the two charts to see if there is a relationship between a certain campaign and sales. Scales can of course also be adjusted so weekly mentions/sales could be examined rather than daily.
What this does on the marketers side is give them hard figures to back up the performance of their activities and prove ROI. Management, on the other hand, can quickly get an easy to understand snapshot of marketing performance to empower future business decisions.
#2 Optimize Your Social Channels For Conversion: Sentiment & Google Analytics Goals
These days, however, sales figures are just one small part of the picture when it comes to data. For digital marketing teams in particular, Google Analytics has become a key part of any marketing team’s measurement arsenal.
The strength of Google’s Analytics lies in its ability to track all aspects of your owned performance in terms of website traffic, traffic from social channels, goal conversions, you get the picture. What it’s missing is the impact that some marketing metrics like brand awareness or perception can have on brand health.
Here again Talkwalker’s data can help. Talkwalker can track and divide online mentions by media channel. The peeks and troughs in this data can be overlaid with, for example, Google Analytics goal conversion data.
Examining the correlations between both can help you to understand how your social presence is affecting your ability to reach particular marketing goals and by tracking this data over time, you can start to refine your social media strategy to ensure best conversion rates for every social media channel.
#3 Boost Your Lead Generation Campaigns: Volume of Mentions & Salesforce Leads
Talkwalker data can be combined with, for example, Salesforce leads data to get an idea of how marketing campaigns are impacting lead generation.
By visualizing both data sets side by side, marketing teams can see exactly how effective their lead generation campaigns are. They can then work together to see how these data sets are related and find ways to improve the correlation. By adding more detailed data such as contract value and leads volume by media channel, you’ll be able to assess the lead generation potential of each channel and reduce the cost per acquisition.
#4 Reduce Customer Churn: Sentiment & Customer Retention Rates
Getting new customers is important but keeping hold of your existing customers can be even more critical. For many businesses, existing clients not only drive revenues through upselling, but also can boost brand awareness and Sales by serving as vocal brand advocates.
Customer retention rates are therefore key for all companies and here again Talkwalker data can be used to get a better understanding of the issues affecting customer churn.
For larger companies in particular, sentiment levels may be the best metric to look at in this scenario as this can give you an idea of how a crisis or negative reviews are affecting your existing customer base.
Did a recent high profile news story have an actual effect on existing customers or did they trust your handling of the issue? Or conversely, has a string of positive coverage helped to reduce customer churn or have other less public issues negated the effect of this positivity? You can even look at metrics for rival companies to see if positive mentions for their services are driving your customers away.
The possibilities really are endless when it comes to integrating different datasets and the data that matters for each business will be different. These are just a few examples but the best way to find out exactly how to make data work better for your business is to try it out for yourself and have fun with it. With new data sets popping all the time, there’s no telling what kind of correlations you can find and by trying different combinations, you may be able to find those hidden insights that can give you an extra edge on your competitors.
Image Credit: Colston Consulting, cropped & resized to 1024 x 582 pixels
