When you apply for a new job, do the people with strong ties to you prove more helpful or those with a weak link? Counter to what you may feel is correct the fact is that more people find new and exciting jobs through their weak network of friends rather than through their close friends or family. Let us think about it for a minute. Your mother likely knows you really, really, well. She knows your strengths and weaknesses and is probably more sincere about your well-being than anyone else in the world. However, when it comes to marketing yourself for a new job, you rarely approach your mother. Why? Research suggests that weak links can sometimes be more useful for general purpose marketing than strong relationships. This explains why you turn to numbers such as people who have read and liked a movie or book before choosing one. The best seller is your likely first choice not because all the people who recommend it to you are in your inner circle of friends but because you trust the numbers.
In Social Media Marketing platforms, for example such as Facebook, not all your contacts are equal. Some are strong connections with whom you communicate on a daily basis and others are weak connections with whom you rarely interact. However, in Marketing your weak connections can sometimes prove to be strong. This is especially true when those connections are united by a common goal or position in life. For example, food lovers could have a Facebook group or mothers of special needs children could have a group. In this case the people are not strongly connected to you but because they share the same passion in life, their opinions are worth a lot to you. In fact eighty percent of all Americans buy new products based on recommendations from friends. However, unfortunately only 20% of US companies actually measure Return on Investment (ROI) from their marketing strategies? The two figures in combination seem surprising as one would expect more companies to realize the importance of measuring ROI from their marketing strategies.
AvidTrak does call tracking, analysis and reporting for 2.6 million phone calls a month. Not all of these phone calls are received from a core target audience to whom marketing is directed. However, call tracking enables AvidTrak’s clients to measure which calls resulted in an actual sale and which calls did not affect the client’s bottom-line. This is critical information in evaluating the client’s Return on Investment (ROI). As the client becomes aware of which channels are generating the highest sales, she is able to reallocate marketing dollar to optimize ROI.
