Pinterest is on the lips of every company with beautiful or creative products. When Lowe’s was faced with the desire to engage their one million Facebook fans on their Pinterest boards, they went to where the people were.
By using a custom Pinterest Tab on their Facebook Fan Page, Lowe’s is able to automatically pull content from their Pinterest boards and fans can see the many Lowe’s ideas and products, all without having to leave Facebook. In just nine days, Lowe’s saw a 32% increase in engagement with their followers on Pinterest. Now, almost a year later, the company has 2.1 million fans on Facebook and 3.4 million followers on Pinterest.
Lowe’s has been actively cultivating the audience of mostly women, ages 25-34, who spend the majority of their webtime on Pinterest by posting product images tied to home décor and do-it-yourself project ideas since October 2011. Followers are also encouraged to “pin” their own product pictures (with pricing), video clips and ideas on any of the 25 boards created by the company.
Other retailers and brands tapping into the Pinterest audience include Whole Foods, Nordstrom Bergdorf Goodman, HGTV and Real Simple Magazine.
The Gap is giving its Facebook fans an easy way to convert any photo from their profile into a printable postcard ready to send to their friends and family during the 2012 Christmas season. They are doing this to build brand loyalty and create an emotional connection to the Gap brand. They are giving away 1,000,000 postcards to their fans. Two per person.
AWeber Communications, an email marketing firm, wanted to increase subscribers to their blog by optimizing their landing page through A/B Testing. They focused on stronger headlines, social proof, and a more direct call to action. As a result, opt-in rates quadrupled.
The Purpose
The goal of this campaign was to increase the amount of subscriptions to the blog, and make sure the current sign up process was the best it could be. Anticipating significant results, AWeber also wanted to use it’s test as an example for why A/B testing is important.
Old Page
Prior to the test, AWeber had a functional landing page in place since 2008.
New Page
Recently they decided it was time for a change. They found a number of successful blogs use the “X Reasons to Subscribe” format. This format states compelling benefits to joining the mailing list. Below is what they migrated to after a number of A/B tests and revisions. The results were almost 4 times as successful as their prior landing page above.
Why New Page Outperformed Old
Justin Premick, Director of the Education Marketing Team at AWeber, says this: “Looking at the pages side by side, it seems obvious that the 2nd one would do better. The “X Reasons to Subscribe” format is powerful stuff. And if that’s all you need to take away from this to go test your own subscribe page, that’s fine by me.”
Data for this case study was graciously provided by one of our readers, Crystal Gouldey, of AWeber.
The Children’s Place, a trendy children’s clothing chain, had an online party hosted by Denise Richards and other celebrities to celebrate their one millionth fan on Facebook. Their goal – to increase the lifetime value of thousands of their customers using social media.
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To promote the party their primary expense was in the famous talent they hired to host the party. Most all other promotion was done through teaser posts to their existing 975,000 Facebook fans the week leading up to the party. They attribute most of the success to the gifts and discounts offered to entice people to signup to attend.
Results From Campaign
The campaign lasted one week and culminated in a one hour chat party to celebrate breaking the one million mark.
72,473 clicked to register to win one of 375 gifts and get a 20% coupon
48,245 people finished the registration process
During the week prior to the party they got 21,116 new fans
10,000 unique authors contributed during the one hour chat
Route 66 Harley Davidson, a dealership in Tulsa, OK created a 12 day themed texting/SMS campaign featuring a 20% discount on a different product from their retail department each of the 12 days. From $500 helmets to T-shirts. They increased walk-in traffic, retail sales, and high-dollar item sales as a result. The “12 Days of Christmas” was used as their theme and ran from Dec 12 – 24, 2011.
Notable Results
T-shirt sales up 250%
Motorcycle sales up – no conclusive data
Helmet one day sales matched previous week’s 7 day total
FanFeedr, a sports news site, discovered the secret formula to getting 10x higher click through rates than typical Facebook ads. Their company aggregates, organizes, and then publishes content from over 10,000 sports related sites each day in a format their visitors love.
This case study covers a number of the ads that yielded high returns. Their primary objectives in using Facebook ads are:
Futurestate IT, a software company based out of Toronto went the swashbuckling route at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 held in Las Vegas to drive more traffic and new business to their booth. It worked. They used the power of a fun treasure hunt theme coupled with an 8 step social media strategy.
Goals Of Campaign
To promote new enhancements to their product offerings. Primary goals were:
Build a buzz around the theme and company name
Attract as many people to the booth as possible to generate leads
Be very interactive with the attendees to begin building a relationship
Get an initial conversation started for those who are highly interested in the solution
8 Touch Strategy
Microsoft Management Summit (MMS2012) was a technical conference attended primarily by “left-brain” techies. Left brainers tend to be more reserved, but not when they arrived at the Futurestate booth. See their Facebook page for almost 200 photos of attendees having a blast. Note – Futurestate jointly hosted the Treasure Hunt with Juriba, its technology partner.
#1: Create Landing Page For Conference
To get the buzz started early, a separate MMS Treasure Website (www.mmstreasure.com) was created to inform people who have registered for the conference that there will be a treasure hunt event. People were able to download treasure maps at their leisure, and many people did.
#2: LinkedIn Event
To inform people of the Treasure Hunt event, a LinkedIn event page was created to generate awareness. Posts were also made within the official MMS2012 LinkedIn event.
#3: Conference Guide Ad
In the event that people had not heard of the treasure hunt by the time they arrived at the conference, an ad was placed in the hardcopy Conference Guide, to inform and attract their attention.
#4: Vertical Banner at the Booth
To ensure that interested attendees could find the booth easily, a vertical banner was erected near the booth to direct the traffic.
#5: Lady Pirates play Pirate Blackjack
To keep the treasure hunt light and fun, attendees could play Pirate Blackjack at the booth with the resident lady pirates. This gave them a chance to spend more time at the booth, and be interested in finding out more about the company’s solution.
#6: Treasure Hunt Rules and Instructions
Postcards were printed, and included the rules for the treasure hunt. Attendees could take away the postcards, in case they forgot the instructions on how to find the treasure.
#7: Twitter
A Twitter page was created to allow the attendees to interact with the company. A picture was taken of each attendee that played Pirate Blackjack with the lady pirates. Pirate gears were then added to the photo to make attendees into pirates. The modified photos were then tweeted.
#8: Facebook
A Facebook page, complete with information about the pirate ship arriving in Las Vegas with the resident feline mascot Thomas onboard, was also created to generate interaction. Throughout the treasure hunt, the Facebook page allowed attendees to find their modified photos and share them.
Those attendees that were able to find their photo, share or re-tweet it to their friends, got a chance to win one of three prizes: Microsoft Kinect, or one of two $100 Amazon gift cards.
The company targeted generating 200 sales leads, 100 Facebook entries, 100 Twitter entries, and an increase in company name recognition.
Measurable Results
The treasure hunt occurred in a very short time frame, just over 2.5 days, coinciding with the exhibit hall days. The responses were tremendous, and well over the set target:
Leads
523 leads were generated, with duplicates removed. Many people returned to the booth to play Pirate Blackjack with the lady pirates, in order to get extra chances to get onto Facebook/Twitter. Of those who visited the booth, 40 leads were extremely interested prospects that the sales team could begin detailed conversation immediately.
Result: 260% of target
Facebook
193 photos were uploaded in the 2.5 days timeframe, of which many were shared.
Result: 193% of target
Twitter
283 tweets were sent, with 84 followers.
Result: 283% of target
“We set out to engage people, and to have them learn about us. The response was overwhelming, and people had fun while they listened to our solution story. I think it was a well balanced lead generation and relationship building exercise. It exceeded our targets, so I would consider this a huge success,” said Helen Ching, Director of Marketing for Futurestate IT.
A large online retailer who many of us buy from on a regular basis sells thousands of products online in dozens of categories. They noticed a big drop in conversion rates and revenue per client and didn’t know why.
They went to McKinsey & Company for help, who did a 20,000 person study on consumer behavior and how selling and marketing to consumers has changed. They identified where efforts should be directed to yield the highest return on marketing efforts. Click here to read a great brief about the study – “The Consumer Decision Journey.”
Key Findings
They dug deep into existing online analytics to study the correlation between purchases and quantity of product per category
They used segmentation to calculate likelihood that customers in each category would “cross the aisle” and buy something in another category
After digging into the data, they found the lifetime value of a toy buyer increased greatly when they bought in other categories
Conversely, consumers who bought a lot of pet products did not buy frequently in other categories
After studying their consumer decision journeys they developed cross-selling and category penetration techniques to grow the lifetime value per customer
6 months into this project yielded a jump of 25% in email conversions, 60% increase in on-site conversions, increase in overall sales of 20% and and overall ROI of 30%.
Yahoo! Movies, a division of Yahoo! wanted to get a bigger piece of the multi-billion dollar movie going pie by the summer of 2012 through their Facebook page. Their goal is to become the source for movie goers who love to research, be in the “know,” get VIP passes to early showings, and communicate with other movie aficionados.
They get 24 million visitors on their main website but lack that kind of traffic on Facebook where they see untapped potential to grow their brand.
Joint Venture
Their campaign strategy was a joint effort with their offline partner, Regal Cinemas, who put up banners in theaters promoting the Yahoo! brand along with a QR code pointing to an offer most movie goers couldn’t refuse – free popcorn. People who did a social check-in via their Smart phones and liked the page got the popcorn. Offer applied online also. They would just redeem the popcorn when they arrived at the theater.
The Results From Campaign
1.2 million new Likes on their Facebook page
200,000 Check-ins
1.4 Million minutes spent on Yahoo! Movies Website
$1,000,000 of popcorn given away
Let’s Test Their Million Dollar Spend
They say their long-term goal is not about the “liking” it’s about building an audience of repeat visitors who will engage and make Yahoo! Movies their online source.
The great part about case studies like this is that you and I can take a peek behind the curtain and see if this is hype or really working. Below are the objectives/goals they hope to achieve now since the campaign began a few months ago. I encourage you to go to their Facebook page and see if the goals below are being lived out.
How Yahoo! Measured Success
Target a Season – focus on summer movie season
Hit Fans From All Angles – Reach fans online and offline
Relevant – Reward movie goers and capture “Likes” in return for continued activity on their Facebook page
Connect More – Interact with more movie fans via their website and Facebook page
Become The Movie Source – provide great content to keep fans coming back to their page regularly
My Take
I would question their last two goals – connecting and becoming the source. Out of the 2.15 million fans, they are not averaging the comments and interaction I would expect to consider this successful. It’s about amazing content and some of their biggest days of activity are based on movie blockbuster debuts or contests/giveaways they may be doing in a certain month. Their ratio of commenting back to people is very low and not that of a Sage archetype or the “in the know” type of a person I would expect running the page.
To view the full case study on SlideShare - go here. What do your think? Was it successful?
This case study features 4 examples of long form branded video content that drove millions of additional dollars and tens of millions of views using long-form copy in place of the typical 30-90 second spots.
What these videos prove is that people will make the time for well crafted stories that intersect with the narrative of their personal story. It is true that consumers are getting more savvy about the “noise” online by deleting, skipping, or unsubscribing from your site faster than ever but for valid reasons.
Most of the content online is not worth their time. Studies show that if you can capture their imagination and interest within the first 15 seconds of a video they will stay as long as you keep enriching them throughout the video.
Three of the four videos (HBO, Nike, KONY) in this case study are long. The forth, featured below, Chipotle, is just over two minutes but considered long because it’s a TV commercial. It was originally to air at the 2012 Super Bowl. Risking it would have to be shortened to 30 seconds due to budget concerns, Chipotle opted to preserve the full story and air it during the 2012 Grammy Awards. It ended up being so impactful it upstaged some of the Grammy performances that night.
Route 66 Harley Davidson, a dealership in Tulsa, OK created a 12 day themed texting/SMS campaign featuring a 20% discount on a different product from their retail department each of the 12 days. From $500 helmets to T-shirts. They increased walk-in traffic, retail sales, and high-dollar item sales as a result. The “12 Days of Christmas” was used as their theme and ran from Dec 12 – 24, 2011.
