How Do You Track the Effects of Social Media and PR on Sales?

I was e-mailed this questions a few times after the webinar earlier today so I thought I would answer the question on the blog. Here’s a brief overview of the analytics process we use at Malibu Boats to track our effectiveness with PR and social media online.

Here is a list of the tools we use. Nothing fancy and nothing too expensive.
GetClicky $100 per year (www.getclicky.com)
Google Analytics (free)
Channel Blade Technologies (lead management)
warranty card submissions

So we analyze the traffic to our web site with Clicky and/or Google Analytics. We look at where people are coming from and what part of our site their going to. For example... Are they coming to the Malibu Boats web site as the results of an e-newsletter we sent out, a news release, or are they coming from the Malibu Boats YouTube Channel or the Malibu Flickr gallery. We also pay attention to whether or not they fill out a lead. If they did, we track that lead via our lead management system to see where it ends up in the buying process with our dealers. Then we crosscheck that lead with our warranty card submissions to verify a sale.

This is pretty round about, but we have found it is accurate in getting us ROI for our PR and social media efforts. What this process doesn’t tell us is whether or not these types of PR were the only determining factor in the buying decision or if they based their decision on other influencers like the nearest dealer, a friend, magazine advertisements, etc. Of course, in reality that could all be considered PR. We assume that they are learning about Malibu Boats through several sources so we take the social media ROI data with a grain of salt.

It all comes down to managing relationships. If the customers you talk with, or communicate with via the web, are generally happy with your product and services that is a big indicator of your success, our analytics process simply gives us the number of actual sales that were affected by our online PR efforts. currently we still use other type of Marketing and PR to get the word out about the Malibu Difference.

Tags: Amy Mauzy | Malibu Boats | public relations |social media | analytics | ROI