Retailers should be cautious about putting too many eggs in the social media basket this holiday season, according to the ForeSee Results report “Online Customer Acquisition: Quality Trumps Quality.” Tried-and-true techniques such as marketing e-mails and Internet advertising offer more reliable methods of customer acquisition, says ForeSee Results, which monitors consumer satisfaction with web sites.
The report found that for 32% of consumers surveyed the main reason they visit a particular web site is “familiarity with the site, company, or brand.” The report suggests that since they often know what to, 77% report being satisfied with the experience and 84% say they are likely to return to the site. Of those who return to the site, 76% say they will purchase something online again from that retailer and 66% say they will make an offline purchase from that retailer, more than customers influenced by other factors like advertising or search engines.
For sites that can’t rely on familiarity, online marketing techniques such as promotional e-mails (13%) and Internet advertising (12%) are the next leading means of customer acquisition. Promotional e-mails are particularly useful, according to the report, since 75% of consumers drawn to a site via a promotional e-mail report being extremely satisfied with the experience—more than any other paid acquisition source.
Compared to other ways of attracting consumers, social media acquisition sources lag behind in terms of volume, returns, and recommendations in every area except recommendations from a social media site. While only 3% of respondents said that recommendations via social media sites spurred them to visit a retail site, 74% of those who did so reported being satisfied with the experience. Moreover, traffic that stems from social media sites rivals that from more traditional sources, such as word-of-mouth recommendations, in terms of satisfaction and likelihood to return, recommend the site or purchase again online or offline.
But since it can be difficult to influence those recommendations, the report says it’s difficult to see a direct impact on high-quality site traffic.
“They still have a ways to go before they can compete with other acquisition sources,” the report says.
ForeSee’s results are based on data, collected in the spring, from more than 22,000 respondents who had visited the top 100 online retail sites within the previous two weeks.
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