guerrilla social media marketing free download chapter 5

131

GUERRILLAROI

One of the core differences between guerrilla

social media marketers and other marketers is how

they measure success. When asked about return-on-

investment (ROI) from social media marketing, many

will claim it’s impossible to truly measure. Some will

say that it’s all about community and suggest meas-

urement isn’t necessary.

Guerrillas measure their success neither by

awards from other marketers nor the amount of

noise they create. Guerrillas measure success by the

C H A P T E R 5

amount of net profit or net results they generate from their market-ing activities. They don’t care about revenues unless they are turning

a profit. Your marketing budget shouldalways be based upon a percentage of thenet profit you expect to gain from yourmarketing attack.

Sometimes it’s not practical or rele-vant to measure ROI solely by profits cre-ated. Net results are positive actions orresults that may not be directly monetary

but affect your profitability or organization’s overall success. Some examples of net results are:

� A nonprofit society looking to help more people in its com-munity may measure success by the number of new peoplewho reach out for help and support.

� Your human resource department will not measure success byrevenues directly. Its social media ROI may be based upon thenumber of qualified new job applicants.

� A parenting meetup organizer’s social media ROI would bemeasured by the number of new members who attend anevent.

� A customer service team could measure success by how manywork hours the team saves through use of Twitter and a cus-tomer-driven service Wiki.

WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS IMPROVED

Anyone who says social media marketing can’t be measured justplain doesn’t get it. Social media is one of the most measurable plat-forms that has ever existed. Every Twitter update, blog post, Face-book link share, and YouTube video view is recorded and can bemonitored with tools like Google Analytics. It is possible to know

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132 GUERRILLA SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Most social media efforts

are abandoned long

before their results

can be measured.

exactly which Facebook status update or link embed prompted acustomer to eventually buy a product or service and what pages onyour blog or website he viewed before doing so.

SalesForce.com can integrate with your website forms, GoogleAnalytics, and the entire sales pipeline, and lead flow can be trackedfrom beginning to end. When a member of your sales team closes adeal that comes from a web lead, you will know what Twitter post orFacebook link originally prompted the visit to your site.

With tools like PostRank Analytics, Radian6, and Biz 360 youcan also track the net increase of engagement based upon your socialmedia activities overall. You can drill down and compare individualblog posts to see why one got more buzz than the other. By correlat-ing information requests or e-mail subscriber patterns with engage-ment levels you can determine what content motivates youraudience to give you greater levels of consent. You may, for instance,look at how many people subscribe to your newsletter or requestadditional information during a specific duration.

The importance of tracking with Google Analytics and usingtools like Radian6 is that you can get direct and precise feedback onwhat works. This feedback allows you to learn how to improve yourguerrilla marketing attack.

GUERRILLAS MEASURE ALONE AND TOGETHEREach guerrilla social media weapon and action must be measured.Guerrillas measure both individual activities and the results of all ofthe combined social media marketing as well. Figure 5.1 is a hypo-thetical example of how Joe’s Software measures its social mediaactivity. Software Joe’s approach will help him test and improveeverything from how he writes individual headlines to what monthlysocial media topic or theme was the most engaging and profitable.

In many businesses there are results that need to be recorded andaccounted for that may not be measurable by guerrilla intelligence

GUERRILLA SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 133

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tools. Imagine if someone sees your Twitter updates, joins your Face-book page, watches your videos online, and then physically walksinto your business and makes a purchase. You may not be able toconnect the activity directly with the result. Guerrillas use coupons,special offers, and incentives that ensure that people tell them wherethey heard about their business or promotion. This can make it easyfor you to connect online marketing with offline results.

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F I G U R E 5.1

Joe’s Software

Joe is using Twitter, Facebook Pages, blogging, and social bookmarking sites like Digg and

StumbleUpon to engage his audience and drive traffic to his site.

With Twitter, Joe may measure:

• time of day that produces the most click-throughs.

• individual updates that got shared the most.

• posts that got the best click-through rates.

• posts resulting in the most forms filled out.

He could also compare what landing page designs people interacted with the most and what

blogging post titles got the most votes on Digg and StumbleUpon.

Drilling down to individual tweets and blog posts in a larger campaign or marketing push

allows Joe to tweak specific social media tool and actions. It also allows him to master the

use of the weapons.

Joe also knows that using multiple social media tools at once increases engagement and buzz

much faster than using one tool at a time. Naturally Joe will also measure the overall effec-

tiveness of this activity by looking at increases in engagement levels, form submissions, traf-

fic, and, of course, the sales that result.

RETURN-ON-INVESTMENTGuerrillas measure profit and net profitable action, not gross rev-enues or traffic. That said, there are many social media soft activitiessuch as social banter on Twitter that eventually lead to hard resultsand returns on investment. It’s important to note that guerrillas usegross profits, not gross revenues, in their ROI formulas. It’s not howmuch money you make; it’s how much you keep that builds a guer-rilla lifestyle!

ROI happens in many ways. Many social media activities andresults are community-oriented, reinforce your brand, and can’talways be directly linked to a sale in the short term. Although noteverything can be measured or accounted for, it’s important for youto measure and quantify what you can.

Return on investment is a simple formula to calculate:

(Gross Profits – Costs) ÷ Costs = ROI

For instance, if Joe’s Software invested 50 hours of employeetime on a social media launch at an average hourly wage of $20 andgenerated $10,000 in gross sales with a 25 percent profit margin (aprofit of $2,500), then the ROI would be:

($2,500 – $1,000) ÷ $1,000 = 1.5 times ROI

That formula gives you a concept of how ROI can be measured,but your investment may not always be measured in time. Guerrillasdig deeper and use analytics and guerrilla intelligence tools to lookat what core activities and conversations occurred during that time.

Joe could evaluate his return on investment from Twitter con-versations by looking at the data he collected and then calculatingthe average ROI of a conversation. Joe’s Software had 22 Twitter con-versations with potential customers with an average time investedper conversation of five minutes or a total of one hour and 50 min-utes. Joe’s average hourly staff wage is $20. Thus the rounded up costof tweeting was $40. Joe’s Software did an average of five updates per


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conversation and one tweet per person included a link, totaling 22links shared. Of those shared, ten were clicked on and four resultedin a gross sale of $399 each for a total of $1,596 with a profit marginof 25 percent or $399.

The ROI is:

($399.00 – $40.00) ÷ $40.00 = 8.75 times the investment

We can also calculate the average profit on each activity leadingup to the sales. A total profit of $349 would mean:

� 22 conversations were worth $15.86 per conversation� 10 clicks from Twitter were worth an average of $34.90 perclick

� 110 tweets were worth an average of $3.17 per tweet

It’s important to note that the only way that this type of ROI canbe achieved is if you engage as a true guerrilla. You can’t just writeheadlines; they have to be great headlines. Your conversations onTwitter, Facebook, or any other network must be engaging, focused,and build trust.

If Joe had several employees tweeting, he could compare theprofitability and ROI of each person’s conversations and determinewho on his team had the best approach. This insight could help hisentire team increase its profitability.

Note: Joe’s ability to calculate ROI would be based upon the ana-lytics tools he used for link tracking and onsite activity and pur-chases. Google Analytics provides the ability to do this, and it’s free.

20 TYPES OF GUERRILLA ROIAlthough guerrillas know that profits are the number-one metric tomeasure success, they also know that there are many types of ROIthat contribute to profitability but aren’t always easy to quantify.These types of ROI include positively impacting the community,

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finding great employees, and pinpoint-ing better business intelligence. Whilemeasuring your social media ROI, it’simportant to take all of your net out-comes and results into account. Many ofthese outcomes come as a result of yourcontributing to and connecting with thecommunity. So here are the 20 differenttypes of guerrilla ROI.

1. ReputationThe more content you put out there and the more value you add tothe community, the stronger your reputation becomes. Reputationis a key currency in social media marketing, and it increases every-thing from click-through rates to on-site conversions. Although rep-utation can’t always be directly correlated to profits, it is a vital typeof social media ROI. Your reputation is built by providing a superiorcustomer experience and a great product service. It’s also built byyour behavior as others observe your actions online.

2. Risk ReductionSocial media provides many types of risk reduction that can prof-itably impact your business. Being engaged and being involvedmeans that you will identify and react to threats or social mediaattacks on your brand quickly, reducing the damage to your brandand success. Another form of risk reduction comes from commu-nity. There is strength in numbers; with the fusion partners you cre-ate online, you can share marketing costs, and business intelligence,and help defend each other’s brands.

3. Client RetentionProviding value-added content and having multiple channels to con-nect with your clients increases the level of engagement and frequency


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The numbers are exciting,

but they’re just numbers

until you make them real

and build good relationships.

of contact. In addition, being connected with your clients on Face-book, Twitter, or LinkedIn can help you monitor their activitiesand sentiment, and identify opportunities to deepen the relation-ship and close deals. Companies that provide Facebook pages,Ning networks, Meetup groups, and client Wikis can greatlyincrease customer retention and therefore profits through engage-ment and trust building. Sometimes retaining a good client is a sim-ple as quickly responding to a complaint about your business that itposted on Twitter.

4. EfficiencyUsing social media and social networks to automate, crowdsource,and outsource business activities can greatly reduce costs andincrease efficiency. As your network grows and your relationshipsdeepen, you will be more efficient at researching, sharing your mes-sage, and driving traffic. Social media can save you time, effort, andmoney by leveraging your online community connections.

5. Business IntelligenceGuerrillas rely on intelligence to help them stay ahead of the com-petition, pinpoint opportunity, and plan their next wave of market-ing attacks. By plugging into your online social media community,building alliances, and listening intently, you have access to impor-tant business intelligence from your community members and allies.Business intelligence can save you money, time, and effort, and helpyou make better business decisions.

6. DifferentiationMany guerrillas sell products similar to those of many competitors.In many cases the only differentiator between you and your competi-tor is your ability to establish meaningful relationships. You can alsodifferentiate yourself by providing more value, education, and evenentertainment to your target market. Investing in social networks in

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this way moves you from marketer and product peddler to trustedadvisor and community member.

7. Brand AssociationA brand is a promise that we keep or break with every interaction. Asingle Twitter update or an isolated blog comment doesn’t seemmuch like branding activity. Yet collectively all of your tweets, com-ments, photos, and conversations tell a brand story. This story eitherkeeps or breaks your promise. While competitors spend money onlarge short-term ad campaigns, guerrillas keep up the conversationwith the community. You must keep up the conversation becausethat personal interaction over time strengthens your brand.

8. PR and ExposureSomething interesting happens when you’re actively part of a com-munity and contributing. Your social capital, reputation, and net-work all grow. Guerrillas know that if they position themselves in acommunity as a resource and trusted business connection, peoplebegin to come to them for advice, insight, and direction. Many otherguerrillas also refer their friends and business contacts to you. Beingconstantly connected and present also puts you top of mind withjournalists and influential bloggers in the community. In addition,with a larger network and strong relationships, you increase theamount of buzz your message can generate.

9. Immediate RevenueGuerrilla intelligence helps you pinpoint immediate business oppor-tunities and prospective clients within your network. Most peopleyou connect with online for the first time take time to increase con-sent and enter the sales cycle. Others, because of their situation orcircumstance, are ready to do business today. The more active youare and the more connections you build, the more immediate busi-ness will be generated.


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10. Long-Term RevenueConsent to market to people and the depth of those relationshipsgrows with your long-term presence in the community. Your blogreaders, Twitter followers, and Facebook friends grow from fans tocustomers to advocates. Constantly adding value, delivering greatproducts and services, and contributing to the success of others helpscreate an ongoing and steady stream of new and repeat business.

11. Supplier Capacity BuildingFor many guerrillas, finding new sources and new products or man-ufacturing partners is vital to their success. The challenge is locatingnew suppliers and then qualifying them. Your community and socialnetwork can help you find these contacts and often provide back-ground information and personal reviews. This saves time andreduces the risk associated with dealing with new vendors or manu-facturers.

12. Perception ShiftingMany people have a negative or incorrect perception of your brand,products, industry, or even personal character. Your involvement,conversations, and behavior on social media sites and social net-works can shift the perception of those you interact with. Seeminglyfaceless large corporations who get human and connect intimatelywith these networks can warm up the chill surrounding their brand.

13. More and Better RecruitsPeople want more out of a career than just a paycheck. Today theywant to be part of something significant and work with a companythat has strong positive values and ethics. Another form of ROI insocial media is the reduction in recruitment costs for your organiza-tion. Tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and industry-specificcommunity networks give you direct access to new staff and talent.

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Most of these recruitment tools are free or nearly free. In addition,your blog entries, Twitter activity, and other content you createattracts a specific group of applicants that resonate with your orga-nizational values and brand.

14. InnovationInnovative ideas can occur in many ways. For some it’s a flash of bril-liance while they’re alone on a mountaintop. For many, innovativeideas are inspired by clients, competitors, or conversations that theyhave. Gathering business intelligence, interacting with differentindustry sectors, and working with other guerrillas online all canhelp you come up with innovative marketing concepts and solu-tions. Being able to interact with your customers in real time andspot trends and changes quickly is crucial for innovators.

15. Client EducationFor many prospects, their lack of action comes down to lack ofknowledge or understanding about the benefits of doing businesswith you. There is a large fear of the unknown that stops peoplefrom buying or even giving you consent to market to them. By pro-viding comprehensive content, insight, and open channels of com-munication, you can educate clients about your business at theirpace and in the medium they want. Additionally, tools likeMeetup.com are great for getting potential customers on Twitterand Facebook into in-person meetings and educational events. Themore knowledge that you and your customer have about each other,the greater your ROI will be.

16. Staff Capacity BuildingIt has been said that who you become in life has a lot to do with thepeople you have met and the books you have read. Today for manypeople it’s the people they meet online and the blogs and media they


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consume daily. There is an unending amount of great educationalmaterials and inspiring people on YouTube, Twitter, and the blo-gosphere. iTunes alone has thousands of hours of free business les-sons from independent authors and universities that people can tapinto. By getting involved in social media and social networks, yourteam has access to this content. In many cases it can also gain directaccess to the authors and leaders that create the content.

17. Network GrowthOne of the primary reasons people use tools like LinkedIn, Face-book, or Twitter is the social media and social networks that allowthem to rapidly grow their network. Guerrillas who understand theirtarget niches purposefully expand their networks into those indus-try or consumer groups. Guerrillas also create great value and con-tent that is focused on their core target markets. This focus drivespeople to seek you out and connect with you through multiple chan-nels. It takes time and money to grow your network. Social media ifused effectively is an efficient means of doing this quickly and witha laser focus.

18. Opportunity CreationAmazing things happen when you put a group of intelligent peopletogether and allow them to talk freely and interact. Ideas emerge,partnerships form, and people are connected and referred to otherpeople. Social media platforms and sites can sometimes resembleonline versions of cocktail parties and networking events. Guerrillasknow to take the time to be social with the right people. Throughgreat dialogue and conversations many business opportunities andalliances can be created.

19. Job SatisfactionToday’s employee is hyper-connected; many prefer to text people orinteract via Facebook than to pick up the phone. People don’t want

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to be isolated in their cubicle; they’re used to having access to abroader community via social networks. Creating opportunities foryour team to positively interact, collaborate, and express themselvesusing social media can add a new level of satisfaction in the work-place. This increased connectivity, if channeled correctly, can alsohelp your team collaboratively solve problems and efficiently inter-act with customers.

20. Trust BuildingSocial media allows you to let many parts of yourself and your busi-ness organization become visible and transparent. This openness andauthenticity makes the community and the consumer feel confidentand safe in dealing with you. Being present continually in the onlinecommunities you are involved in creates familiarity, and familiaritybreeds trust. Trust and credibility are, of course, the key ingredientsin making a sale that leads to a long-term profitable customer.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHERThere are both linear and nonlinear paths to ROI in social media.Guerrillas measure and account for both. Building a foundation oftrust, community, and credibility with your customers and prospectsultimately leads to better response rates and repeat business. You cantrack how many clicks a link gets and how many of those lead to asale. You can’t always track the smile a blog entry puts on someone’sface or the increase in trust that your latest video created.

Guerrillas use a series of soft steps to build a relationship thatincreases consent and eventually leads to a lifelong customer. Thesesoft steps include free reports, webinars, hosted networking func-tions, commenting on other people’s blogs, and promoting yourprospects business online. Other soft steps may simply be taking thetime to have a dialogue with some Twitter followers about an area ofcommon interest. All of these activities build community and may


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not be seen as direct marketing investments, but they create strongrelationships and the return on strong relationships in business isvery high.

The guerrilla conundrum is that you always measure success inprofits but you generate those profits by using strong intentionalrelationship-building strategies. When you measure the number oftweets it took to get a click-through, you must also be very honestabout how authentic and relevant each update was as well. Never posta tweet, write a blog entry, or publish a video unless it truly adds valueand genuinely helps your audience. Your intent and quality of con-tent and conversation drives your return on investment much morethan the volume or level of noise in your social media marketing.

You need to record the time, energy, and money invested in yoursocial media activities monthly. You then need to record the volumeof traffic, clicks, and revenues generated. In addition, you record anyprofit, cost saving, or net results that have occurred in any of the 20types of ROI that have been discussed. Focusing solely on your levelof engagement and ignoring your level of profitability will cause youto be a very popular but most likely broke marketer. Only focusingon blasting messages and short-term results almost ensure youshort-term success and long-term losses.

Figures 5.2 and 5.3 are two ROI calculation templates. One hasbeen completed as an example, and the other has been left blank foryour use.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA ROIThe example included in Figure 5.2 is a one-month snapshot. Thereality is that most successful marketing campaigns in social mediaor traditional media take time to prove ROI. It is good to keep scoremonthly and also important to measure individual promotions. It isequally important to stick with your well-thought-out marketing

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F I G U R E 5.2

Joe’s Software Guerrilla ROI for March

Hours x Cost Cash Net Gross Weapons Invested Invested Savings Profit

Twitter 15 x $20 = $300 $1,000

Facebook Page 5 x $20 = $100 $1,000 $500

YouTube 6 x $20 = $120 $200 $400

Digg 4 x $20 = $80

StumbleUpon 4 x $20 = $80

Google Buzz 5 x $20 = $100

Blog 12 x $20 = $240 $1,500 $2,000

Meetup Event 20 x $20 = $200 $500

Tweetups 5 x $20 = $100

A = $1,320 B = $2,700

Additional Types How Was Net Gross of ROI Realized: It Realized? Savings Profit

Client Retention Solved complaints and $2,000problems using Twitter

Recruitment 3 candidates and 1 hire with no advertising $500

PR and Exposure Blog resulted in full- page newspaper article $2,000

Total: C = $2,500 D = $6,400

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F I G U R E 5.2

Joe’s Software Guerrilla ROI for March, continued

C $2,500 + D $6,400 = $8,900 (Gross Profit)

A $1,320 + B $2,700 = $4,020 (Cost)

$8,900 – $4,020 (Net Profit) ÷ $4,020 = ROI of 1.21

This month’s net profit = $4,880

This month’s ROI = 1.21

F I G U R E 5.3

ROI Calculation Worksheet

Hours x Cost Cash Net Gross Weapons Invested Invested Savings Profit

A = B =


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F I G U R E 5.3

ROI Calculation Worksheet, continued

Additional Types How Was Net Gross of ROI Realized: It Realized? Savings Profit

Total: C = D =

C __________ + D __________ = _____________ (Gross Profit)

A __________ + B __________ = _____________ (Cost)

Gross Profit – Cost (Net Profit) ÷ Cost = ROI

This month’s net profit =

This month’s ROI =

plan and guerrilla marketing attack for months, possibly even years.All of the hard work in launching a newblog and building a Twitter following cantake time to show the true and total ROI.The data you gather monthly should becompared month-to-month, quarterly,and yearly to track your progress.

One of the biggest marketing costsisn’t bad ideas, it’s abandoning good ideas

too soon. Mediocre marketing done consistently over time will beatinconsistent brilliant marketing every time. Use your measurementto fine-tune your approach and resist the temptation to changedirections too often.

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Integrate your tools in

your marketing but also

measure the effectiveness

of each tool individually.

Jay Conrad Levinson and Shane Gibson, Guerrilla Social Media Marketing, © 2010, by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced withpermission of Entrepreneur Media, Inc.

guerrilla social media marketing free download chapter 5

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