Facebook only reaches "heavy buyers"

The current study "What's Not to Like?", conducted by a team of researchers from the University of South Australia, makes it clear that fan pages are hardly suitable for attracting potential new customers to a brand and thus giving the brand a growth boost. Facebook fanbases consist primarily of "heavy buyers" who can be reached relatively easily with other communication tools.

Marketing research shows that brands can only achieve sustainable growth if they manage to expand their customer base in the long term. In other words, it is not enough to encourage loyal customers to make repeat purchases; the aim must also be to convert non-customers into new customers and bring occasional customers closer to the brand. Against this background, the question arises as to what contribution fan pages on Facebook can make to growth-oriented marketing communication.

To answer this question, the Australian research team examined the differences between the customer base on the one hand and Facebook fans on the other for two consumer goods brands - a soft drinks brand and a chocolate brand. Data from a representative consumer panel provided information about the customer base. The purchasing habits of Facebook fans were determined by surveying a total of 1520 fans. The respective populations could be divided into four categories: "Heavy buyers" are buyers who have purchased the product four or more times in the last 12 weeks. "Moderate buyers" purchased the item two to three times, "light buyers" once and "non-buyers" never.

The analysis of the customer base of the two consumer goods brands shows that the number of consumers per category decreases with increasing purchase frequency. In plain language, this means that there are very many non-customers overall, fewer "light buyers", even fewer "moderate buyers" and very few "heavy buyers". The analysis of Facebook fans, on the other hand, paints a completely different picture. "Heavy buyers" are very strongly represented here, while consumers with a lower purchase frequency are even rarer. The distribution of Facebook fans is mirror-inverted to the overall customer base. Or to put it simply: Facebook fans are much more likely to be regular buyers than non-customers or occasional customers.

The picture is different for TV. An additional survey of 397 American consumers who had watched the Super Bowl 2012 on TV shows that the structure of TV viewers is very similar to the typical customer base: 13% of TV viewers were "heavy buyers", 11% "moderate buyers", 29% "light buyers" and 47% "non-buyers" of the soft drinks brand. In contrast, 63% of the Facebook fanbase consists of heavy buyers and 24% of moderate buyers. The "light" and "non-buyers" make up only 9 percent and 4 percent of the fan base respectively. The evaluations for the chocolate brand show a similar picture. Facebook fan pages can therefore primarily be used to reach "heavy buyers" - consumers who can also be addressed relatively well with other tools, such as packaging. Consumers who rarely or never buy a brand, on the other hand, cannot be adequately addressed via Facebook. A significant proportion of a brand's current and potential customer base cannot therefore be optimally addressed via Facebook.

Clemens Koob