By Paul Bernish

A new Gallup poll of business has revealed the not-so-startling finding that when it comes to online marketing, how many “followers” or fans you have is not nearly as critical to success as the quality and relevance to your brand of those who do follow you.

Well, duh!

It’s fair to say that any experienced marketer could have told you that, and saved companies millions of dollars in wasted social media efforts.  A simpler way of stating the Gallup research might be: “your best customers are your best customers.”

I’ll explain what I mean in a moment, but let’s look at the Gallup survey results in a bit more detail:

• A clear majority, 62% of respondents, said social media had no influence on their purchasing decisions.
• Only 5% of the 18,000 who were polled said social media greatly influenced their buying choices.
• Brands reached a mere 6% of their Facebook followers in 2013, down by nearly half (although in part due to the way Facebook enables people to access business marketing).

These are paltry results for marketing expenditures of more than $5.1 billion on social media, a fact that is causing some companies to rethink their online strategies and others to either cut back on social media, or abandon it altogether.

What seems to have happened among brand marketers and PR/marketing firms is yet another example of conventional wisdom trumping common sense.  The hype surrounding social media convinced many companies to jump in with both feet with suddenly expanded marketing budgets.  But that hype obscured a more basic principle of marketing: to drive purchase decisions, a company must seek out those consumers who are already predisposed to want your product or service.  (A rough analogy from political campaigns applies here.  Savvy campaign managers know that to win elections, a candidate must secure its base of already committed voters before trying to convince the lukewarm, or indifferent, or undecided).

I heard this lesson repeated many times back in the late 1980s and early 1990s from my marketing colleagues at Kroger, the supermarket powerhouse, where I managed corporate PR for 18+ years.  The oft-repeated rule of grocery shopping was that just 20% of your customers account for 80% of your sales!

This truism popped into mind as soon as I read the Gallup results.  “Frequent shoppers,” as that 20% is called, are people who are predisposed to like your produce or value your deli selection or quick checkout.  The rest are pretty much an amorphous lot of bargain hunters, coupon clippers, and the just plain lost in the store customers who evince no loyalty to any retailer or brand.

Kroger has masterfully mined its frequent shopper base with an intense, virtually nonstop promotional program (online and coupons) that reinforce Kroger brand loyalty on a daily basis.  It works, I know, because our household shops at Kroger almost exclusively and finds great benefit in coupons targeted directly at our needs.  Gas discount points also help.

Little wonder, then, that Kroger has expended very little energy on social media beyond marketing to that 20%.  Nor have other companies who understand that your best customers are your most consistently loyal fans.

Amazing, isn’t it, that businesses large and small spent more than $5 billion to have that lesson driven home once again.