One of the largest airlines in the world, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, is also considered one of the best in converting “Likes” into paying customers. Part of their marketing success is their willingness to take bold yet calculated risks. They are able to do this because they understand the customer buying journey. The touch points along the journey a lead or existing customer takes as they experience the KLM brand and then, how KLM works to improve each touch point along the path.
They began in social media the summer of 2009. Since then, they had a few failures along with great successes. One of their more controversial and successful campaigns is their Meet and Seat initiative. See below video. It’s a way for you to see who you may be sitting next to days before you board the plane.
Seven Social Media Campaigns Documented
To read the case studies of each campaign, go to their Facebook Page and click our social journey. They provide details about each campaign and insight into what made each one successful. They also did a 4 part series about their social media strategy. Part 3 of the series talks about some of the campaigns. Skip 1, 2, and 4. Weak on substance and depth. Not worth your time to read unless you are new to social media.
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.
New Zealand fashion week, similar to New York’s fashion week, created a successful multi-platform social media strategy that helped grow attendance and revenue during the entire week of the event. Fashion weeks are a way to bring the top designers, retailers, socialites, and those just passionate about fashion together in one place to party and do business.
Harvard Business Publishing, a subsidiary of Harvard Business School, manages the HBS blog with 500,000 subscribers worldwide and tens of thousands of pages on the site with new content posted daily.
Success Factors
You can’t overlook their secret weapon – content creators – some of the smartest people in the world work for the HBS blog. If you take that variable out of the equation I don’t know if they would have 500,000 subscribers – statistics show it would be closer to 500 or less if you compare it to similar blogs lacking in great content creators. Leads us to the saying, “Content Is King.” I don’t believe that. I think – great content creators who are gifted in storytelling is King.
The HBS content creators are given tools (SharePoint) to manage new content during the create and edit process. I would not recommend SharePoint. There are so many other more robust and less costly tools for editorial management of content available. I like DivvyHQ for a paid system or for free, I created one you are welcome to try out on Google docs - click here.
All content creators are given guidelines on how to communicate – the persona, voice, tone, personality are all outlined but at the core they are encouraged to be storytellers not bloggers.
Leverage – they always think about how many channels a single piece of content can be re-purposed on. If it can’t, they don’t create the content.
They are good at broadcasting (pushing) their message on social media channels.
They use social media to listen to conversations around keywords – primarily “entrepreneurship” to find ways to then push their content to channels that are talking about what they write.
Then, they monitor spikes in conversations around the world in those keyword areas to see if the HBS content is floating to the top of conversations.
What They Are Not Good At
They are not good at the “social” part of social media. They do not have a team in place to quickly and regularly communicate back to the hundreds of thousands of people trying to reach out and talk to them.
A singular focus proves successful. By holding true to their philosophy to only provide content that helps their visitors find more ways to look better and feel better after using their products, Burt’s Bees found the formula for success in converting visitors to paying customers. They are practicing the “dynamic liquid content” methodology Coke has been preaching since late 2011.
Burt’s Bees was founded in 1984. They started by selling beeswax candles and have grown into a global brand making over 150 natural personal care products. Their mission is to “try to make people’s lives better every day–naturally.”
Describe the business problem or objectives of the campaign
Flagler Hospital Bariatric found they could not accurately track new leads or new surgeries by using traditional marketing (TV, billboards, etc.). They came to XE Corporation to explore using a social media campaign to gain awareness of their services and increase the numbers of their surgeries.
Other areas in need of improvement included:
Increase new patient counts
Increasing the number of attendees to their free seminars.
Increasing referral rate to both seminars and Flagler Bariatric.
Increasing past patient participation/engagement on social channels and at events.
Increasing fan counts/participation on Facebook.
How were the business challenges / campaign objectives addressed?
XE Corporation formulated a comprehensive social media campaign that utilized offline and online tactics to create buzz around their brand, establish an on-going conversation around their services and engage members of their community to refer their friends to attend Bariatric seminars and then become new patients of Flagler.
Tactics:
Customize Facebook Landing Page
Re-branding of the Facebook page via landing pages and other customization to better control the experience for users.
Create Online Invitations for Events
Promotion of Flagler Bariatric Events using social networks to gain more attendance
Launch a Referral-Based Giveaway
Created a referral-based Wii Fit Giveaway requiring entrants to “like” the Facebook page and to refer a friend to attend one of the Free Seminars held by Flagler Bariatric.
Online Surveys
Designed and promoted surveys to gather feedback specific to social efforts from the Bariatric community
Fan-Favorite Recipe Module on Website
Creation of Fan-Generated “Menus”, where current and past bariatric patients shared their favorite recipes/meals to eat that are bariatric-approved.
“Spotlight Fan” Facebook Contest
Patient submitted Before & After pictures as part of “Spotlight Fan” Facebook Contest to increase support and conversation among fan community.
Campaign Results
Cut marketing costs by 93% by switching from traditional media to social marketing.
Increased Facebook Fan Page conversation by 5 times
Increased visits to the Facebook Fan Page by 400%
30% participation rate with online survey after 5 weeks
Using “crowdsourcing” from survey – it helped Flagler decide on the next Facebook patient appreciation campaign – Giveaway a year’s supply of custom vitamins and supplements
Recruited 40+ volunteers to be community leaders online to help promote the Flagler Bariatric Community with other fans and potential patients.
Produced 24 qualified leads to attend free seminar
For the curious among you, know that Tayto crisps come in the following mouth watering flavours: Cheese & Onion, Salt & Vinegar, Smokey Bacon, Ready Salted, Prawn Cocktail (!), and Tex Mex.
Carnival Cruise Lines thinks it’s pioneered the use of social media to build customer loyalty and satisfaction. Its campaign included launching a blog, a Twitter stream, Flickr photostreams, and a web site offering a virtual interactive tour, an online community/ social network offering photo/ story sharing, scrapblogging, trip planning, event organizing. The target audience was travel agents and new as well as existing customers. The results — more than one million hits on the web site and more than 20,000 online bookings Case Study
The Rose Project, a Dublin based charity that helps HIV/ AIDS patients in East Africa, collaborated with Brightspark Consulting to launch a social media campaign to spread awareness about this noble cause. The campaign involved a brand new web site, a blog, Facebook page and Twitter profile. The results have been phenomenal – donations received from as far as Alaska and Adare. Amazon collaborated with The Rose Project through its Twitter feed and started distributing gift wraps for the project. Case Study
Joffrey’s Coffee and Tea Company launched a blogging campaign to drive traffic to their site. It launched the Joffrey’s Java Beta Test targeting bloggers and the tech-savvy audience. Bloggers signing up were provided with free samples of ‘Jamaican Me Crazy’ coffee and given trackback links to their blogs from the test site. The results were astonishing — more than 1,500 blogs signed up, numerous incoming links from multiple websites and coverage on leading blogs like Mashable, CNET and others in addition to heavy traditional media coverage. Case Study
One of the largest airlines in the world, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, is also considered one of the best in converting “Likes” into paying customers. Part of their marketing success is their willingness to take bold yet calculated risks. They are able to do this because they understand the customer buying journey. The touch points along the journey a lead or existing customer takes as they experience the KLM brand and then, how KLM works to improve each touch point along the path.
