Case Study: What Pays Off and Works Best in Online

A fundamental underpinning of the CLM movement in restaurant marketing is being able to identify what works best, doing what works best again and always working on a way to do even better the next time.   It begins with questioning whether a 10% return as good as we can get or are there more things we can do to increase that return to 12% or 15%? Improving and increasing the ROI of our marketing spend (Return on Marketing Investment = ROMI) is the goal.

I came across an example of the power of CLM in action in an article at QSRWeb.com the other day where they reported that "Consumers exposed to social content are significantly more likely to increase their spending and consumption than those who aren't". 

This was a big deal - the article does a good job of quantifying it at an industry level with data that says that a consumer exposed to social content is 2-7x more likely to spend more when visiting an establishment.

Let's breakdown how does the investment in a social presence make sense in this example.  If we make the assumption that the cost of adverting online and social media is the same as traditional marketing, the answer is immediately 'Yes' - spend the same on marketing and get more revenue?  Sign me up...

The study by Ogilvy (big time, global marketing agency) reported on by QSRWeb shows that the socially savvy consumer will spend more than those not reached by social marketing.  This means that there is increased revenue per ticket, all other things being equal.

If we apply information that shows social marketing actually requires less investment than traditional marketing, then the return on the social marketing investment takes an even higher position when compared to traditional.  As a counterbalance to the basic assumption, consider that only 24% of the group reported exposure to the social content; 69% reported exposure to the TV marketing.  The total effect is not an uplift on all sales, just that portion of the Consumer market that catches content about you in social media setting. 

In a CLM system, this level information is apparent because it is tracked and the merchant is then able to determine at a glance what's working, what's not and where to invest more or less without poring over piles of data.