Comment: Retailers should use social media to their advantage

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With the general retail outlook remaining gloomy, retailers should look beyond the confirmation page in order to maximise the return on investment from their marketing efforts.

Instead of seeing the checkout screen as the end of a purchase cycle, retailers should view the initial customer purchase as a launch pad for further sale referrals. By failing to continue the marketing cycle through checkout and beyond, thousands of retailers are losing out on valuable incremental sales.

In the UK, where social referral marketing is starting to gain pace, retailers do not have the tools they need to empower the army of advocates (newly satisfied shoppers, for instance) they are investing in through their marketing spend. Retailers are missing a significant opportunity to spread the word about their products and services by not capitalising on the goodwill a customer feels immediately after completing an online purchase.

Referrals made by trusted friends convert much higher than customers acquired via less personal channels. This suggests that a carefully timed and well-placed incentive to recommend a product would drive interest and create positive exposure for the retailer’s brand.

These recommendations, which can be tailored to be shared via social media, publicise products by existing customers to potential customers - the ultimate aim of any social marketing campaign.

Retailers work hard to offer quality goods and excellent customer service, but many aren’t encouraging their own customers to share experiences with their friends and family. Retailers should focus less on cost of acquisition and more on cost of access to the customer’s social network.

Considering the power behind ‘word-of-mouth’, retailers should encourage and incentivise satisfied customers to tell their friends and families about new purchases through their own social networks.

This is a great way for smaller retailers to get involved in affiliate marketing, via their customers rather than third-party businesses. For larger retailers that already work with an affiliate network, this type of social recommendation provides a good opportunity to drive more incremental, referred sales.