Marketing Research: Calculating Marketing ROI from Celebrity Tweets
I knew that clubs and restaurants would pay celebrities to make an appearance, but I didn't know that celebrities got paid for tweeting about products.
This morning, I learned otherwise. Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research tells the story in his very enlightening and entertaining blog: The Merrill Dubrow Blog.
Companies pay celebrities to tweet about their products. Are you kidding me?! What are they thinking?? OK, if they make a commercial or show up at a trade show - that makes sense. But a tweet? That's 140 characters!
And this is not chump change we're talking about. (Well, actually, for celebrities, this probably is chump change.) Merrill reports the following tweet-rates:
- Lindsay Lohan: $2,353 per tweet
- JWOW: $2,353 per tweet
- Mike Tyson $3,250 per tweet
- Jose Conseco $3,900 per tweet
- Khloe Kardashian $8,235 per tweet
So, assuming Khloe Kardashian uses all 140 characters in her tweet, that's just under $59 per character! And in the case of a recent tweet (again reported by Merrill), "OMG… Wheat Thins has a new limited time sweet cinnamon flavor…. Why am I so excited about this? LOL" - she only used 100 characters, making the per character cost a little over $82!
Now, I am not a Kardashian fan and I really can't think of any celebrities that I have enough regard for that could influence my purchase decisions. But can this really be effective marketing?
Merrill gives another perspective: calculating the ROI of the tweet. Given that Ms Kardashian has 5 million followers (yes, that number IS correct!), here is Merrill's ROI calculation:
"If 1% [of her 5 million followers] take action because of Khloe’s tweet that would be 50,000 people. If you don’t like that number (which might be too high) let's use 10% of that number, which would be 5,000 or .0001% of the original number (which might be more likely) and multiply the 5,000 people who buy the product (call it body lotion) for $25.00 generates $125,000 in revenue.
So the tweet cost you $8,235 and generated $125,000 – who wouldn’t take that ROI?"
So the ROI on that tweet-investment was 1500%?? I am seriously in the wrong business....
What do you think? Would you personally be influenced by a celebrity tweet? Do you think enough people would be to make this ROI calculation reasonable?
Download our free white paper:
