We all know consumer spending is down, Jack Neff wrote in Ad Age, “Packaged goods are supposed to be recession- resistant staples people can’t do without. Yet things have been different in this recession. People have proven they can do without, or at least spend less.” (http://adage.com/article?article_id=146675)
In this economy, it is critical for brands to retain every one of their customers and use them to influence competitors’ customers to switch brands. It is in the social media space with its existing channels that brands can have an impact of achieving customer retention and new customer acquisition goals, as well as integrate Social Intelligence into Marketing and Sales strategies to achieve this broad sweeping goal across the enterprise. This was the overall theme of the SOCAP (Global Community of Relationship Experts) International Conference this year; how you can integrate your marketing efforts and social media monitoring software tools to gather new customers and build loyalty campaigns and then share best practices across organizations: PR, Customer Service. And integration is not simply sharing of software; it is literally customer service taking on traditional marketing roles, PR taking on traditional sales efforts, albeit through different channels. And to this point, marketing recognizing the strength in the knowledge base of existing organizations, especially at a time when companies are running lean across the board, and utilizing these groups.
