Today, the most admired brands are built on social.From heritage to emerging
DTC brands, they break through the endless scroll of the feed, moving culture forward, connecting on an emotional level and getting consumers to engage and share.Those same brands invest millions in nurturing relationships with customers, prospects and lapsed users, convincing them to spend more and buy more frequently.
But over the years, a divide has emerged.Marketers have come to view social as the top of the funnel, measured on vanity metrics or brand studies—miles away from customer relationship management (CRM), which lives at the bottom of the funnel and is measured by incrementality and transactions.This outdated framework is holding us back, and disjointed organizational structures seep into the customer experience.
That’s why the traditional marketing funnel
needs a rewrite.Marketers must invest in the mid-funnel journey and closing the mid-funnel gap, building relationships by connecting social, commerce and CRM.
Otherwise, their disjointed org charts reap inefficiencies, tarnishing consumer relations and thwarting business outcomes.
While closing the mid-funnel gap to ensure your org structure isn’t “showing” is easier said than done, here are some ways to get started.
Explore the power of social commerce
The social-CRM divide must evolve to account for how online shopping and social media have changed consumer behavior.With the collapse of the funnel, consumers can go from discovery to purchase all with the tap of a finger.No longer are consumers on a linear journey.And no longer can marketers create an artificial divide between social and CRM, throwing consumers over the proverbial fence.
For an example of how the divide can rear its ugly head, a company could have duplicate profiles for the same person, one generated from social and the other from past sales, with customer information split between the accounts.Without breaking down the funnel, the brand can’t address that error, and the customer will experience friction, maybe even driving them away.
And without breaking down organizational divides, brands can’t step into the full potential of social commerce, a sweeping trend
expected to reach $80 billion by 2025 that’s quickly grabbing consumer attention.In fact, 61% of U.S.
consumers under the age of 25 completed a purchase entirely on social in 2021, and this number grows to 64% when we look at all social media users globally.
While marketers have historically viewed bottom-of-funnel relationships as the key to revenue, this is changing with the potential for consumers to discover and purchase from a brand in one swipe on social.
As social becomes a sales channel in its own right, it’s even more crucial for brands to integrate social data with their CRM system, where sales have traditionally lived.Bridging the two worlds will give marketers a more unified view of customers, which can power better targeting, more resonant messaging and richer relationships, all while driving a new revenue stream.
Treat direct messages as the new inbox
It’s not just social commerce that brands should think about when looking for gaps in their mid-funnel marketing.A specific feature of many social media platforms is quickly becoming a verified marketing channel: direct messaging.
Brands should think about integrating direct messaging on social as a touch in their existing CRM efforts.With
Gen Z using email less than any other generation, DMs are becoming the new inbox.
For this to be successful, brands must invest time, infrastructure and creative energy into applying the processes and rigor of CRM to social to connect with their audience in a new way.
New tools and integrations are enabling brands to scale their direct message marketing across platforms with
automation.For instance, you could set up a campaign where everyone who comments on a paid ad gets an automatic direct message from the brand, starting a more intimate relationship right on the platform of discovery.
Brands can then build out workflows and full decision trees to automate further messaging, strengthening the connection and driving business objectives.
Integrate brand values into your email campaigns
While DMs offer marketers a new avenue for reaching and communicating with consumers, traditional emails aren’t going anywhere either.And it’s important for brands to ensure that the social, environmental and emotional values that they promote on their social media accounts make their way into emails.
While brand building usually lives in the top-of-funnel realm of social, and email is thought of as more of a CRM tool, breaking down organizational barriers will unlock new opportunities to strengthen brand identity through email marketing, where a brand’s most loyal customers are typically the audience.
One way to bring the power of social to lower-funnel email campaigns is through communication on
values, which are increasingly important to consumers young and old.
In fact, as many as 82% of consumers want the brands they buy from to hold values that align with their own.
For brands, communicating those values can be a huge boon to sales.
When corporate communication teams craft social campaigns on CSR, ESG and DEI initiatives, departments must communicate so that those values also inform communications on CRM channels like email.This cooperation will ensure the brand has a unified message that builds the brand and the business at the same time.
Align on KPIs and incentives across teams
The benefits of integrating data and efforts across social and CRM are myriad.So, why hasn’t it already happened? Zooming out, the two approaches have historically been separated by their own incompatible metrics.
At the top of the funnel, social is measured with vanity metrics and brand studies.And on the bottom, CRM performance is assessed by measuring incrementality and sales.The siloed measurements make it hard for brands to identify trends and unify messaging.
But the funnel has collapsed, and we need new integrated metrics and KPIs that can measure across CRM and social for one holistic view of brand outcomes.New measures of success will be able to help brands cohesively assess the emotional strength of their customer relationships and the affinity that consumers feel toward their brand, empowering marketers to understand how all of their different touch points impact sales.
If brands fail to unify their funnel to account for shifting consumer behavior, their antiquated org structure will be apparent to consumers, and the disjointed experience will drive them away.Brands must answer the call to integrate their funnels to give audiences the seamless experience they’ve come to expect..
