Inside sales social media use and its strategic implications for salesperson-customer digital engagement and performance

Highlights Inside salespeople rely on four main strategies when it comes to using social media in their roles to engage with customers. Inside sales strategic social media use leads to higher levels of customer digital engagement and, ultimately, performance. Firm digital technology resources may shape the effects of inside sales strategic social media use. Abstract The nature of inside sales has shifted, increasing in autonomy, importance, and scope. Moreover, buyers are changing their preferences from face-to-face interactions to virtual-based relationships, leading to a future full of opportunities for inside salespeople using social media. The practitioner literature suggests that inside sales represent the sales business model of the digital era and a distinct strategic selling approach. While there has been a recent surge in theoretical research on inside sales, extant research fails to explore how and why inside salespeople uses social media as a critical tool. Research on social media use in sales has neglected to consider the growing role of inside sales, where sellers lack the opportunity to meet with customers face-to-face and must routinely rely on remote communication to interact with customers. As such, we use a grounded theory approach to investigate the “lived experiences” of inside salespeople at the intersection with social media in sales. Emergent from our findings is a framework depicting: inside sales strategic social media use → inside salesperson-customer digital engagement → inside sales performance. We also find that firm digital technology resources serve as enablement factors that shape the effects of the social media strategies that inside salespeople use

Customers Co-Creation Intention: The Mediating Role Of Customer Brand Engagement On Social Media In Fashion Retail

Social media has become an important channel for marketing activities shaping customer brand engagement (CBE) and interactions. Empowered by the rise of social media, customers are no longer a ‘passive audience’ but ‘active co-producers’ who engage in behaviours that strengthen their relationship with the product or brand, such as value co-creation for innovation, particularly in the fashion retail context. Customer value co-creation is critical for marketing success and innovation, especially for fashion Micro and SMEs (MSMEs) facing rigid competition with larger firms. However, many firm-initiated co-creation activities face difficulties in attracting and engaging promising customers. Therefore, research is needed to investigate the factors influencing CBE for value co-creation intention since previous research in this area is limited. Additionally, social media allowed the emergence of influencer marketing and endorsements which significantly shape customers’ behaviors and intentions including value co-creation intention. Based on the social cognitive theory, this thesis aims to develop a research model to understand the factors influencing customers’ value cocreation intention behavior from the perspective of customer brand engagement. Moreover, social effect theory was integrated to investigate the effect of influencer marketing on customers’ value co-creation intention

The impact of brand communication on brand equity through Facebook

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to fill the gap in the discussion of the ways in which firm-created and user-generated social media brand communication impacts consumer-based brand equity metrics through Facebook. Design/methodology/approach: We evaluated 302 data sets that were generated through a standardized online-survey to investigate the impact of firm-created and user-generated social media brand communication on brand awareness/associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty across 60 brands within three different industries: non-alcoholic beverages, clothing, and mobile network providers. We applied structural equation modeling techniques (SEM) to investigate the effects of social media brand communication on consumers’ perception of brand equity metrics, as well as in an examination of industry-specific differences. Findings: The results of our empirical studies showed that both firm-created and user-generated social media brand communication influence brand awareness/associations; whereas, user-generated social media brand communication had a positive impact on brand loyalty and perceived brand quality. Additionally, there are significant differences between the industries being investigated. Originality/value: This article is pioneering in that it exposes the effects of two different types of social media brand communication (i.e., firm-created and user-generated social media communication) on consumer-based brand equity metrics, a topic of relevance for both marketers and scholars in the era of social media. Additionally, it differentiates the effects of social media brand communication across industries, which indicate that practitioners should implement social media strategies according to industry specifics to lever consumer-based brand equity metrics

Marketing management capability:the construct and its dimensions: an examination of managers’ and entrepreneurs’ perceptions in a retail setting

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the relationship between corporate cultural/intangible assets and marketing capabilities by examining managers’ and entrepreneurs’ perceptions in a retail setting.Design/methodology/approach: Nineteen face-to-face interviews were conducted with UK small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs) managers and entrepreneurs to identify six sub-capabilities that form marketing capability. The authors further validated the relationship between marketing sub-capabilities and its antecedent tangible and intangible assets. The qualitative approach used provided a deeper insight into the motivations, perceptions and associations of the stakeholders behind these intangible concepts, and their relationships with their customers.Findings: The research identified that there is a strong relationship between tangible and intangible assets, their components and the following capabilities: corporate/brand identity management, market sensing, customer relationship, social media/communication, design/innovation management and performance management. In addition, companies need to understand clearly what tangible and intangible assets comprise these capabilities. Where performance management is one of the key internal capabilities, companies must highlight the importance of strong cultural assets that substantially contribute to a company’s performance.Originality/value: Previous work on dynamic capability analysis is too generic, predominantly relating to the manufacturing sector, and/or focussing on using a single case study example. This study extends the concept of marketing capability in a retail setting by identifying six sub-capabilities and describing the relationship of each with tangible and intangible assets. Through extensive qualitative analysis, the authors provide evidence that by fully exploiting their embedded culture and other intangible components, companies can more favourably engage with their customers to attain a sustainable competitive advantage.</p

The role of social effects and perceived risk in driving profitable online customer interactions

The emergence of online channels has been of special relevance, as it has promoted a more active participation of consumers in the value creation process. In this study, we draw from the Stimulus-Organism-Response model to provide a theoretical understanding of the role played by two critical factors that drive online customer initiated interactions (OnCICs): social effects and perceived risk. In addition, we also investigate their consequences by establishing a direct link between these interactions and customer profitability. Merging longitudinal objective data with subjective data for a sample of 1,990 customers in the financial services and applying Partial Least Squares (PLS), the results reveal that social effects influence perceived risk. Perceived risk consequently promotes the development of OnCICs, while social effects reduce the need for such interactions. In addition, OnCICs help promote high-quality relationships and leads to higher performance

Mobile Social Media as a Strategic Capability: Expanding Opportunties Social Media Has to Offer to B2B Firms

Mobile social media (MSM), an interaction, exchange of information and creation of user-generated content, mediated by mobile devices is becoming the locomotive that drives forward evolution of online world. So far, limited number of academic studies touched upon the MSM subject with all the papers being of conceptual nature. No empirical evidence is available to prove whether and how firms utilise MSM for their best advantage. This paper addresses this gap by employing the grounded theory approach (GT) to analyse interviews conducted in twenty-six B2B firms. This study found that eighteen firms use mobile technology primarily as a platform to access social media sites, understand canons of MSM consumption and utilise MSM as a strategic capability to reinforce the strategic position of a firm. Our data illustrates that the MSM strategic capability includes four main activities: (1) market sensing; (2) managing relationships; (3) branding and (4) developing content. These activities can results in the decreased research and development spendings without sacrificing innovativeness because MSM is a valuable source of information about the market and a source of ideas for new products/services. In practical terms firms can examine MSM activities and decide whether there is an opportunity to utilise MSM advantageously

Corporate reputation and B2B inter-firm partnerships

In our networked world today, business-to-business (B2B) inter-firm partnerships are increasingly a feature of the organisation. At the same time, corporate reputation has been strongly identified as a key factor in the success of organisations (Fombrun & Van Riel, 2004; Fryxell & Wang, 1994). However, reputation has most often been looked at from the perspective of a single organisation and how its stakeholders perceive it. By comparison, less attention has been paid to the importance of the reputations of organisations when they form a partnership. This is surprising given that partnerships are to be found in so many walks of life today including business, sport, the arts and the media. B2B partnerships are often the subject of significant investments and it is therefore important to understand the value that can be derived from them. An example of a successful B2B partnership is that of the Boeing Company with Rolls-Royce plc. The reputations of each are synergistic and together they are seen as pioneers in greener air travel with the new Trent 1000 range of multi-fuel (kerosene/biofuel mix), efficient and quiet jet engines used as part of the 787 Dreamliner product family of commercial aircraft. Successful partnerships are those in which close collaboration arises because of synergistic skills and complementary outlooks that result in positive outcomes. These partnerships have reputations, and in some cases create a strong advantage over competitors by broadcasting a jointly fostered sense of identity and culture with employees and a sense of community and loyalty that attracts other stakeholders. If the reputations of such partnerships are important to those within the dyadic exchange (Bennett & Gabriel, 2001; Arend, 2009), then there is merit in assessing the impact of partnership reputation more widely in a network setting. This report discusses the importance of corporate reputation and the characteristics and outcomes that result from such B2B partnership reputations. It is based upon work conducted jointly at Henley Business School and Albers School of Business and Economics at the University of Seattle, and which has been published in the Industrial Marketing Management journal (Money et al, 2010)

The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands

Researchers and brand managers have limited understanding of the effects social media communication has on how consumers perceive brands. We investigated 504 Facebook users in order to observe the impact of firm-created and user-generated social media communication on brand equity, brand attitude and purchase intention by using a standardized online survey throughout Poland. To test the conceptual model, we analyzed 60 brands across three different industries: non-alcoholic beverages, clothing and mobile network operators. When analyzing the data, we applied the structural equation modeling technique to both investigate the interplay of firm-created and user-generated social media communication and examine industry-specific differences. The results of the empirical studies showed that user-generated social media communication had a positive influence on both brand equity and brand attitude, whereas firm-created social media communication affected only brand attitude. Both brand equity and brand attitude were shown to have a positive influence on purchase intention. In addition, we assessed measurement invariance using a multi-group structural modeling equation. The findings revealed that the proposed measurement model was invariant across the researched industries. However, structural path differences were detected across the models