Making sales go viral: How Sony married big data with old-school marketing to drive 300% more business | VentureBeat | Business | by John Koetsier
Summary
Not only has the PC industry been slumping, with a record seven quarters of consecutive decreases in sales, only one vendor has actually been growing — and not it’s not Apple. But in a recent campaign, Sony mixed modern big data, social media analytics, and old-school marketing such as direct mail email marketing — and generated 300 percent more sales than control groups. “The goal is to drive sales,” Sony’s head of direct marketing in the U.S. Jeremy Lyons told me. The part of the campaign, however, that was directed at existing clients who were identified as social media influencers was much more viral. Then, importantly, Pursway analyzes social transactions in that group of close friends and relatives — and overlays actual transaction data — to pinpoint the 8 percent to 25 percent of people who are “topic-based influencers.” These are people who are leaders in their social circles, who others look to for buying advice.