Social media marketing using ‘relational’ and ‘intellectual posts’ is best for loyalty program members, NCSU study finds

RALEIGH – An worldwide crew of researchers finds the social media messages that resonate best with loyalty program members differ from the posts that work best with different prospects. The discovering might inform how best to craft social media campaigns aimed toward both phase of an organization’s buyer base.
“Loyalty packages and social media are each vital instruments in modern marketing, however there’s little or no analysis into how these two marketing instruments work together with one another,” says Mike Stanko, corresponding creator of the study and an affiliate professor of marketing at North Carolina State University.
Specifically, the researchers needed to know which social media posts make loyalty program prospects extra prone to buy one thing, and whether or not there was a distinction for prospects who aren’t a part of loyalty packages.

“This might inform a variety of marketing actions,” Stanko says. “For instance, does it make sense for an organization to commit sources to creating separate social media channels for prospects who’re members of a loyalty program versus prospects who are usually not? Or, if an organization is dedicated to using a single social media channel, does it want to make use of completely different messaging to achieve loyalty and non-loyalty prospects?”
For the study, the researchers centered on knowledge from a big European firm. Specifically, the researchers assessed a yr and a half value of social media posts, to find out which posts led to gross sales to loyalty program prospects and which led to gross sales to non-loyalty prospects.
The researchers used a crew of educated “raters” to evaluate all the firm’s social media posts, scoring them on a variety of traits, equivalent to how mental, behavioral, relational and sensory they have been.
“Relational” content material appeals to the bonds a person has inside their social community, equivalent to a social media publish that presents a model within the context of spending time with household and associates.
“Intellectual” content material appeals to a person’s acutely aware psychological processes associated to the sensible decision of issues, the stimulation of curiosity or the applying of the person’s creativity. These would come with posts that present detailed info or have interaction a client’s vital pondering.
“Behavioral” content material considerations a person’s bodily or behavioral actions, equivalent to posts exhibiting somebody making use of the related product or using the related service.
“Sensory” content material is designed to shock or produce a visceral response, equivalent to posts for ski resorts that present a mountain vista, or posts from a espresso firm that present colourful pictures of espresso crops.
The content material evaluation scores, and gross sales knowledge associated to every publish, have been plugged right into a statistical mannequin to regulate for confounding variables and decide which kinds of posts resonated best with loyalty prospects and non-loyalty prospects.
The researchers discovered that relational, behavioral and mental content material did properly throughout the board. In different phrases, the upper a given publish’s relational, behavioral and mental scores, the higher it carried out for each loyalty and non-loyalty prospects.
However, the dimensions of the impact diversified for loyalty and non-loyalty prospects.
The researchers discovered that relational and mental posts did considerably higher with loyalty program prospects, whereas behavioral posts did higher with non-loyalty program prospects.
“Loyalty program prospects are extra apt to systematically course of social media info from firms they’ve a relationship with – they’re merely extra prepared to take the time to listen to these firms out,” Stanko says. “We assume that’s why loyalty prospects are extra aware of mental and relational social media posts.
“Meanwhile, as a result of non-loyalty prospects are usually not essentially centered on a selected firm’s social media posts, they’re extra doubtless to answer behavioral posts. They see a publish that exhibits somebody shopping for a cup of espresso and they determine they need a cup of espresso.”
Surprisingly, sensory posts didn’t resonate with both viewers.
“We speculate that there is merely an excessive amount of spectacular or stunning content material on social media for sensory-oriented posts to face out,” Stanko says.
“It can be good to see extra analysis exploring this topic to raised decide how broadly these findings apply, however we expect there are clear takeaway messages,” Stanko provides. “For one factor, you really want to think about loyalty program prospects as a definite viewers from different customers. The findings additionally recommend that firms ought to hold observe of the extent to which their social media content material displays behavioral, mental and relational messages.
“In phrases of future instructions, it might even be value exploring how different kinds of content material, equivalent to sensory content material, might resonate with different audiences,” Stanko says.
The paper, “Brand-generated social media content material and its differential influence on loyalty program members,” seems within the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. First creator of the paper is Blanca Hernández Ortega of the University of Zaragoza. The paper was co-authored by Rishika Rishika of NC State; Francisco-Jose Molina-Castillo of the University of Murcia; and José Franco of the University of Zaragoza.
(C) NCSU

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