Seventy per cent of marketers plan to increase their social media advertising, but photo messaging app Snapchat reportedly charges US$750,000 per day, a recent Salesforce survey suggests.
According to the survey that included more than 5,000 marketers globally, they plan to increase investments in social media, location-based mobile tracking, mobile apps and email marketing “in an effort to create cohesive customer journeys”.
This “customer journey” seems to be the new buzzword in the industry, with the report finding that it’s critical to a sector that has now shifted away from campaign-focused advertising.
“The future of marketing is building cohesive customer journeys across sales, service and marketing interactions. It is more important than ever to connect with each person interacting with your brand, and personalise journeys based on their actions and preferences,” said Scott McCorkle of Salesforce.
“Our 2015 State of Marketing report shows that this will be the year that businesses connect the dots accordingly and implement a truly multi-channel approach to personalise each customer’s engagement.”
A fast way to spend
However, aligning that “journey” with your chosen budget is not entirely easy on social media if a recent report by AdWeek is anything to go by.
Garett Sloane claimed Snapchat is looking for US$750,000 a day to advertise on its app. The first ad to feature on Snapchat was for the film Ouija late last year, with global brands McDonald’s, Samsung, Macy’s and Electronic Arts getting in on the act since.
Reaching millions of users a day (potentially), and also homing in on the younger market (presumably), Snapchat looks like a fine way to get your message across to the masses. However, as Sloane wrote, there are drawbacks.
“Snapchat has limited reporting capabilities, for one; it can’t even tell brands how many men versus women saw an ad, and there are no age breakouts.”
The numbers say it all
Also, if it is the younger market that predominantly uses Snapchat, that renders rather high-paying alcohol and cigarette companies rather obsolete.
However, social media spend in general is set for a big increase, according to Salesforce’s figures on marketers’ plans:
- 64pc now view social as a critical enabler of products and services, up from 25pc in 2014
- 70pc said they would increase spending on social media advertising
- 68pc report they have integrated mobile into their overall marketing strategy, up from 48pc
- 65pc plan to spend more on mobile push notifications, a 32pc increase
- 58pc now have a dedicated mobile marketing team, up from 35pc
- 73pc agree that email is core to their business, and 92pc say email produces an ROI
- 47pc cited click-through rates as the key metric for measuring email marketing success
- 43pc identified conversion rate as the key metric.
Social media marketing image via Shutterstock
