How real time communications drives measurable ROI at Fortune 100 companies

UPDATE November 2, 2010 - Partly as a result of the buzz generated by this ebook release yesterday morning, over the past 24 hours, my new book Real-Time Marketing & PR has ranked between #6 and #22 overall of all the millions of books books sold by Amazon.com. Thank you to all who purchased a copy.

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In a new free ebook releasing today, I describe my research of the Fortune 100.

Breaking news!

Interestingly, the Fortune 100 companies that engage in real-time communications beat the S&P 500 stock index on average while the companies that do not communicate at speed underperformed.

Download Real-Time: How Marketing & PR at Speed Drives Measurable Success now.

I name names.

In my research, I contacted the communications departments of the Fortune 100 companies and found that only 28 percent engaged with me in real-time. Many of those 28 companies have comprehensive real-time communications programs in place, which I describe in the ebook.

Download the ebook

Download a package of real-time images to use in presentations and on blogs

I'm using hashtag #RealTimeMPR

What is the ROI of real-time communications?

My research is an attempt to answer a simple question: How much of an effect does real-time communications have on the performance of companies?

Watch an interview of me talking about the research.

Comparing the closing stock price of each Fortune 100 company on December 31, 2009 through closing prices on September 3, 2010 (when my book manuscript was due to my publisher - John Wiley & Sons), I found that the stock prices of 67% of companies that operate in real-time were up, while only 42% of those that do not were up in 2010 year-to-date.

In the ebook I provide much more information from the research including those companies that responded with helpful and relevant responses, such as State Farm Insurance and Boeing, the companies that did not respond at all, such as Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil, and those that simply sent automatic, canned auto-responses with irrelevant information, such as Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance and Walgreens.

Portions of this new ebook appear in my brand new hardcover book, Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Consumers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now, which is released by Wiley today.

Comments

[Dan Schawbel]

Great research report and I blogged my opinion of it as well. The speed of business is quite fast these days and if you aren't active 24/7, then you might miss a business/job opportunity, or fail to respond to an angry customer.

[Keith Jennings]

David,

I hope everyone looks at page 25 of your ebook. Telling!

My brother-in-law works for Wal-mart and my best friend works for Home Depot. I'm sending them copies of this ebook.

My wife bitches about shopping at every grocery chain except Publix. Interesting to see that their real-time response time aligns with their in-store responsiveness.

This is fantastic. I hope this kick-starts a lively debate!

[David Meerman Scott]

Dan and Keith -- Thanks! The more I dig into the data, the more I learn. Keith - thanks for adding the info about Publix!

[Eugenie Verney]

Another absolute gem - thanks, David!

I also recently played a lengthy round of the hunt-the-PR-contact game, on a batch of oil and gas majors' sites, and had a very similar experience. I ended up spending way too much time on transnational phone calls tracking PR and marketing departments from country to country, and still ended up with little to show.

In fact, of those who did eventually respond none did so without being nudged at least once. And the question only required a simple 'yes, here you are' or 'no, sorry it's not our policy' response - not a shedload of work on anyone's part!

Interesting to note that News Corp was among your non-responders...

Greatly looking forward to the book, and now off to give this a wider audience...

[Nettie Hartsock]

David,

Incredible information and every single company needs to understand how today's journalists and real-time news work. Staying silent, being non-responsive and spending too much time creating yakkity-yak talking points no longer wins the competitive game for coverage.

Brilliant insight in the ebook!

Nettie

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks so much Eugenie and Nettie!

[Dave Meyer]

Great stuff as usual David! The study is fascinating.

From a conclusion standpoint though, I'd be careful not to over interpret the results. Really what you've keenly shown is that companies that engage in real time communications are performing better. What we don't know is their performance prior to implementing real time communications. Perhaps they were doing well already and on the other side of the coin perhaps the lack of agility of the non-responding companies also impacts other areas of their company.

In any case I look forward to your next work. You’re a true leader in the field.

Dave Meyer

[David Meerman Scott]

Dave - Yes, you are correct. This analysis doesn't necessarily "prove" anything. But it is certainly interesting.

Everyone always asks me about the ROI of online engagement. I'm happy to have some original research to be able to quote -- and that the CFOs and CEOs will understand.

[Dagmar Bisky-Groh]

Great e-book and I surely will love the hardcover version - I am registered on Amazon's pre-order list since months till the book is available end of November in Germany.

[Petro Kacur]

Responsiveness and transparency are critical to both media engagement and consumer interactions, especially with the increasing influence of social media today. Both are cornerstones of our communications approach at The Coca-Cola Company. Organizations today need to embrace this changing landscape. As our Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, Joe Tripodi recently said 'If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.
- Petro Kacur, The Coca-Cola Company

[David Meerman Scott]

Hi Petro - You're the first representative of a Fortune 100 company to leave a comment here. Many thanks for jumping in!

(I love Joe's quote. Thanks for sharing).

[Rob Bayuk]

Hi David-

Thanks for making this e-book available - looking forward to digging in!

Rob

[Justin Tabas]

I would argue that there are too many variables and no control to draw conclusive evidence from this data. Who is to say what caused the stock increase. I think it is very possible that that companies with better customer service are having better stock prices and real time responses are just a function of their larger customer service initiatives. The data does not give information on other possible variables and it seems like it could be propoganda that is yeilding these conclusions and not hard data

[David Meerman Scott]

Justin. I'm just pointing out a correlation. Nothing more. It is not a scientific study.