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.
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.
Ben and Jerry’s, headquartered in Vermont, is the best among their competitors at integrating their social marketing into the fiber of their operations. It’s not a bolt on to the marketing department but at the core of their strategy and embedded into their operational and CRM software. The secret ingredient – they have a well thought out editorial calendar and experienced community managers creating and curating their digital content.
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
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.
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?
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.”
The Arizona Office of Tourism was spending a significant amount of money on traditional forms of advertising and they were seeking a cost-effective alternative to reaching interested parties. They decided to implement a marketing strategy on Facebook that would get visitors excited about the state of Arizona.
Promotion utilized popular keyphrases to maximize exposure
Drawings were held for free vacation getaways
Keywords were based off Facebook users’ various interests
The Arizona Office of Tourism saw an average of eight times more clicks to their website than what traditional advertising campaigns delivered. Over one in four of those visitors requested additional information about vacationing in Arizona, which was a much higher conversion rate than they had ever experienced before. Since the promotion delivered such promising results, 89% of the advertising budget for the Arizona Office of Tourism is now spent through Facebook. To read the actual study, click here.
Adidas approached the World Cup in 2010 as a genuine opportunity to create a strong public image in the minds of football fans around the world, so they decided to launch a Facebook campaign that would feature their F50 adiZero football boot before the matches actually started.
Although their overall goal was to establish themselves as the premiere sporting goods dealer for anything football relate, it was also very important to connect with South African fans on a personal level.
Target audience was worldwide, but specifically South Africans
Campaign raised funds for Nelson Mandela’s AIDS awareness program
Served as a link to original World Cup videos and editorials
Highlighted the product launch of the F50 adiZero football boot
Several 24 hour blocks were used to reach Facebook members
Throughout the campaign, over 2.3 million unique viewers had visited Adidas’s Facebook page, with 863,000 connections occurring over the first month alone. The average daily visits reached a half a million viewers, indicating that their campaign created genuine interest for return visitors. Brand awareness rose between 8-23% in different regions of the world. To view the actual study, click here.
Although Einstein Bros. Bagels had maintained a Facebook page throughout 2009, they saw that their number of new visitors had become stagnant with a total at a fan-base of around 5,000. Their campaign approach was designed to determine if direct marketing through Facebook could increase their overall sales, with a secondary goal of increasing feedback from consumers.
Campaign contacted previous Facebook fans with exclusive free bagel offer
Afterwards, a block ad was sent replicating offer to new fans
Promotion lasted 24 hours and sent to all Facebook members
During the first week of the campaign in January of 2010, Einstein Bros. Bagels saw a 1000% increase in fans on their website. On January 25th of the same year, their fan membership jumped from 50,000 to 300,000 in a single day. Those 300,000 members were then used to create a profile of their typical fan. A second campaign was launched to reach those within their most prominent demographic and the fan base doubled again to 600,000. For the mere cost of a bagel, Einstein Bros. Bagels became the 54th most popular business on Facebook. To view the actual study, click here.