In December, 2009 I conducted a survey to learn more about how and why companies are creating online marketing tactics.

As I expected, the primary reason people employ online marketing is to fill the top of the sales funnel.

But can you guess the second reason? It’s actually quite surprising.

To find out, download Creating Online Marketing Tactics.

The Great Discovery

The barrier to implementation is not budget.

The barrier to implementation is a lack of internal resources to develop and manage the online marketing projects.

The Hidden Cost

The hidden cost of online marketing  is not the money to do the media buy – fthere isn’t one in the traditional sense. It’s the unknown.

The picture snaps into sharp focus when the talent issue is seen in combination with the second most often mentioned hurdle, the lack of internal consensus on metrics – especially ROI.

What becomes clear is that many (most?) companies are weighing the potential benefits of adding staff to capitalize on what may be a first mover opportunity; against an unknown and unknowable ROI in a still-tight economy.

Here’s To The Doers

Despite all this, the few who are in place, appear to be getting enough done to make a difference.

75% of the content is being created specifically for use in online tactics.

These are people who are too busy to go out for sushi…

They are the people whose work will establish the metrics that we will rely on in the not too distant future.

They are the front line, the grass roots who are taking the theories and making online media part of global business.

I am very appreciative that they made time to complete the survey.

And I am confident that once you review the findings, you will be too.

I look forward to your comments and to answering any questions you might have.

• How do the findings in this report compare to your experience at your company?

According to Google, “social media funnel” may be a new term that I am contributing to the social media lexicon.

I coined the term, social media funnel, to describe how social media can be incorporated into the buying funnel. Note that I am deliberately pairing social media with the buying funnel because both social media and the buying funnel concepts are  pull models.

As a creative consultant, my interest lies in determining which tactics are best suited to moving a prospect from Awareness of the Problem, to Identifying Alternatives, to the Decision to Purchase to what is perhaps the most important stage to influence, Post-Purchase Evaluation and Recommendation.

Just to be clear – which may or may not make you nod your head – I do not  harbor any illusions that social media is the solution to every problem.

Nor do I subscribe to the popular notion that mass media is no longer relevant.

While the enthusiasm is understandable, we’ve seen it all before – at least enough to know that social media is not a one-size-fits-all panacea anymore then television advertising is.

As used here, social media is an umbrella for a range of techniques not a religion. Some of the techniques are well suited to marketing, or to selling goods and services which is why it is important to match the right technique to the right step in the funnel.

Other techniques are not; one reason that people struggle to demonstrate ROI where in some cases there is none.

I believe that in both B2B and B2C we will see more and more exciting examples of how social media pull, integrated with one or more traditional push tools such as advertising, public relations, trade press, tradeshows and sponsorship; will be used to create a richer, more compelling buying experience.

I will be discussing what I learn and see here on a regular basis. I hope that you will participate in the discussion.

How are you using social media to convert awareness to loyalty?