â–¶ Companies Not Feedback Fans: While consumers are increasingly engaging with brands through social media, the vast majority of companies—94%—do not use social media to gather customer feedback, according to a study from MarketTools. How are companies gauging consumer response then?
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• The study found that the most common ways companies gather customer feedback are: e-mail/online surveys (51%), formal phone surveys (28%) and informal phone calls (28%).
• The study also revealed that there’s some disparity in how companies think and how they act. Although 92% of respondents believe that satisfied customers are very or extremely important to their company’s bottom line, fewer than half (42%) solicit customer feedback on a continuous basis, and more than one-fifth (22%) solicit feedback only once a year or not at all.
• Still, this mentality might be shifting: 39% of executives surveyed said that their companies increased focus on customer satisfaction in 2010 versus 2009, with 21% stating that they invested more in customer satisfaction-related products and services in 2010 versus 2009.
Source: MarketTools
â–¶ Marketers Ready to Spend: Marketers have an optimistic outlook on the new year, with half of businesses planning to increase marketing budgets. E-mail and social media marketing are the top targets for spending allocation with 65% and 57% of marketers, respectively, planning to invest in them, according to a StrongMail survey.
• The most important e-mail marketing initiatives for 2011 are increasing subscriber engagement (52%), improving segmentation and targeting (49%) and integrating social media and e-mail marketing (43%).
• Facebook is the biggest platform priority, with 35% of marketers saying it’s their top focus, followed by viral/referral marketing programs (22%).
• Awareness building is the top goal for social media initiatives for 63% of respondents, followed by loyalty acquisition (54%) and reaching new audiences (42%). Social media marketing is seen as least effective at generating leads and revenue.
• Following e-mail marketing and social media, the top areas for marketing investment in 2011 will be search (41%) and mobile (35%). Direct mail and trade shows/events are the top targets for decreased spend.
• Despite budget increases, 44% of respondents indicated a lack of resources/staff to be the biggest e-mail marketing challenge in 2011. Integration with customer data (41%) and e-mail deliverability (36%) rounded out the top three e-mail marketing challenges. PRN
Source: StrongMail