Sprint Dials In ROI Tracking Of Social Media Buzz Via Omniture, Lithium Apps

January 27, 2009
Written by
Published in DemandGen Reports

For its marketing campaign Sprint says it’s the “now network.” Its social media network is proving to be just as urgent and ROI oriented.

While marketers have been struggling to find ROI around social media, Sprint recently partnered with Omniture and Lithium to demonstrate the tangible benefits of its online community. Sprint’s key social media initiative, BuzzAboutWireless.com, is a leading online community for wireless users, powered by Lithium. The site lets users help each other in using wireless products and services, and generates rich customer data that complements Sprint’s corporate and e-commerce Web pages. After launching Buzz About Wireless, Sprint quickly recognized the need to integrate data from its social media initiatives into its Web analytics.

Thanks to Lithium’s integration with Omniture’s Genesis partner program, Sprint can now perform integrated Web analytics across corporate and community content by augmenting Omniture SiteCatalyst with detailed community user and session information. The social network data enhances the enterprise customer intelligence, allows analysts to measure its impact on key business drivers (such as customer acquisition and average purchase value) and, ultimately, drives more integrated online strategies and decision-making.

Because of the data acquisition capabilities, Sprint was able to study online behavior and correlate it with demographic and attitudinal data through Web analytics. This effort enables Sprint to both optimize the online experience and more effectively anticipate and address customer needs across all channels, creating value for Sprint customers, and in turn, for Sprint’s business.

Buzz for the Brand
Integration of the social media data is key. The integration allows Sprint to determine whether or not customers are getting the information they need from Buzz About Wireless. It can also measure the relationship between community, content and behavior across Sprint’s Web presence. For example, Sprint can pinpoint which discussion threads drive increased purchasing behavior by a particular customer segment. From there, Sprint can strategically feature that community content on Web pages that those customers tend to frequent.

“Turnkey integration between Lithium and Omniture lets us easily and cost-effectively combine socially driven community data with our corporate Web site data to gain greater insights and ultimately deliver a better customer experience,” said Jason Lorei, senior manager, Sprint.com research & analytics.

The integration also allows Sprint to gain a holistic view of customer behavior across the company’s Web presence, including communities. It provides the ability to conduct more granular analytics measurement using SiteCatalyst. Data provides further insight on how community content affects retention and satisfaction, and which community content is most useful to particular customer segments.

“The integration Lithium and Omniture have built is what we would have built ourselves, but now we don’t have to. I’ve been impressed with the partnership between these two best-in-class solutions,” said Lorei.