Customer centricity has become a priority for CMOs and CEOs alike

61% of CEOs now say they must exhibit “customer obsession”. As chief customer advocates, it falls to CMOs to understand how to make this happen. And with social data they have finally found their ultimate weapon.

In a survey we carried out with European CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) in July 2011, we identified that CMOs were “playing it safe” with their social strategies. Few were sharing social insight beyond the marketing and customer service teams and only a small number of decisions were being influenced by social data.

When we shared the results of our latest CMO survey with some of Europe’s biggest brands, we discovered that the tide has started to turn.

As the business world re-centres around serving and delighting consumers, social data is turning CMOs into customer champions — and heroes within the C-suite.

This study reveals the results of an online survey of 100 members of The CMO Club, which includes CMOs of global business-to-consumer and business-to-business organizations.

Key findings

• Social data impacts decisions for nearly all CMOs. Almost half of CMOs have used social data to make predictions or forecasts, and nearly nine in 10 say this data has influenced their decisions.
• CMOs use data to drive smarter decisions beyond marketing. While marketing teams and agencies most often uncover the data itself, insights are used in product development, customer experience, sales, and C-level discussions.
• CMOs believe social reveals consumer sentiment and improves brand awareness. CMOs are most confident in social data analysis of product/service sentiment, and in its impact on overall brand loyalty and awareness.

Social data impacts decisions for nearly all CMOs

Social data reveals insights into consumers, products, and brands that traditional market research and focus groups can’t. This is something that several of our European clients are beginning to discover and use to their advantage. For example, as part of a new product launch, German electronics retailer, Conrad, will invite their most trusted reviewers to test their products and post their opinions online. “Test reviews enable us to give feedback to our suppliers, so they can respond with product improvements” says Social Media Marketing Manager at Conrad, Katje Klafka.

Social is a real-time fountain of consumer conversations, and analyzing this dialogue is influencing CMOs and their teams to craft effective, consumer-centric marketing. Nearly all CMOs (89.4%) say social data has impacted some of their decisions. This includes 21.3% of CMOs who say social data affects at least one in every five decisions they make.

Social data can also hint at future consumer sentiment and campaign success. Nearly half (47.3%) of all CMOs have used social data to make predictions or forecasts, most commonly to project sales.

[Download PDF to see Graph]

CMOs use data to drive smarter decisions beyond marketing

Many CMOs surveyed receive reports on social data from multiple teams inside and outside the organization. Agencies are most commonly responsible for reporting to CMOs on social data, according to 50.9% of CMOs. Marketing research teams (45.6%) and marketing communications (45.6%) are also responsible for reporting on this data.

Brand management teams make the most use of social data, with 59.6% of CMOs saying this team accesses the data. But findings from social data are also useful to many teams outside of marketing. Many CMOs indicated that multiple teams access social data, including sales teams (36.8%), customer experience and web design teams (36%), product management and development teams (35.1%).

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At Dell, for example, social insight that was passed on to the engineering team led to 20 feature changes on one of their notebooks. While still at Dell, Former Executive Director of Global CSMB Online Marketing & Marketing Strategy, Michael Buck, commented, “we have a strong belief that customer feedback helps us improve products and services and Bazaarvoice has given us a way to scale that process”.

And this data helps to drive discussions in the C-suite, elevating CMOs as owners of the brand-consumer relationship. Nearly all CMOs (97.3%) share findings from social data with other C-level executives at least annually. Most CMOs (67%) report to the C-level on social insights at least monthly, including one in four CMOs who share these insights every week.

[Download PDF to see Graphs]

CMOs believe social reveals consumer sentiment and improves brand awareness

Analyzing social data reveals a wealth of information about consumers and businesses — sentiment, demographics, individual influence, brand awareness, campaign success, and more. CMOs are most confident in social data’s effectiveness in analyzing consumer sentiment toward individual products and product lines, rating their confidence level 6.4 out of 10, on average.

As a whole, 83.3% of CMOs believe social data is effective in indicating discernible trends or patterns that may impact the business — sales forecasts, brand awareness, campaign success, share of voice, etc. And 77.9% find social data effective in analyzing influence of individuals or groups on the purchase decisions of others. In their future uses of social data, CMOs are most interested in identifying their customer influencers and advocates.

Anders Drakenberg is the Marketing Manager for Lexus Sweden and is working with Bazaarvoice to do just that. He reports that 99% of reviewers on his website indicate that they would recommend their Lexus with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5. For Lexus Sweden, these high ratings and recommendations are just a starting point. “Our objective is to take the customer experience beyond a rating of 5 to create active ambassadors for the company who spontaneously recommend us,” says Anders.

When it comes to the actual impact of social, 82.3% of CMOs are confident that their brands’ social efforts have a measurable impact on brand awareness. That’s closely followed by the 81.5% who are confident that their social initiatives have a measurable effect on brand loyalty.

[Download PDF to see Charts]

CMOs: Are you making full use of your social data?

• Are you analyzing your social data for trends, and using these trends to inform your predictions or forecasts? Take advantage of this real-time flood of consumer information to drive consumerfocused decisions on your team.
• Are you promoting social data across your entire organization? As CMO, you’re chartered with making your company truly customer centric. Spread social insights across your business to improve operations and decision-making for every team, and become a hero in the C-suite.
• Are you measuring your social efforts to track real-world success? Social initiatives are only as successful as you can measure. Beware vanity metrics like likes and followers. Focus instead on goals already driving your organization: sales, brand loyalty, awareness, etc.

Methodology behind Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs

This study is based on an online survey of members of The CMO Club, comprised entirely of CMOs. For purposes of this survey, “social data” is any data collected based on consumer use of social. This includes interactions, connections, posts, comments, likes, retweets, and mentions by consumers via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other social platforms, as well as demographic, influence, and psychographic data from user profiles, behaviours, and network analyses. Social data also includes user-generated content including submitting product feedback, asking or answering questions in online forums, or participating in any online community.

Over half (56.1%) of the brands represented have over $1 billion in annual revenue. Another 36% show $100-999 million in annual revenue, and 7.9% have annual revenue of $0-100 million. These brands are headquartered mostly in North America, and operate in the B2C (52.6%) and B2B (38.6%) spaces, with some CMOs identifying their brand as both B2C and B2B (8.8%).