Hair Club, North America’s leading provider of hair restoration solutions for men and women created a mobile website with one purpose, to get mobile phone users to “click-to-call” for more information.
They worked with Google’s new free mobile marketing resource site to identify best practices in mobile marketing, from how to design their site to proper calls to action to move a mobile visitor to call their 800# or visit a nearby store. Their “click-to-call” button goes to a live sales person within seconds. Once a call is made, their close rate goes up exponentially.
Lesson Learned
There is still time to be an early adopter. Even though Hair Club’s mobile site is not visually appealing, it’s their effort to go mobile that paid off. Their competition is slow to act and they come up first on search from a mobile device leading to the clicks and calls. full case study.
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
- Estimated 16 new surgeries from this campaign
Want your own success story featured here? Tell us about your social media campaign!

image source: Wikipedia
With a name like Sullivan, count on me to kick things off with a case study from the Emerald Isle.
Founded in the 1950s, Tayto (a division of Largo Foods) is a top Irish crisp manufacturer (that’s potato chip to you, mate!) with the lovable Mr. Tayto as brand mascot. A veritable cultural icon, Mr. Tayto has his own autobiography and even made an appearance as a fake candidate in the 2007 Irish elections with a number of write in votes to his credit, no less. Needless to say, after more than 60 years on the market, it was time to spruce up Mr. Tayto’s image. Cue Ray Swan and the good people at McCann Erickson Dublin, Mindshare and Boondoggle, who came together to create a multichannel marketing and PR campaign that made mouths water:
Objectives:
- Develop a campaign that allows the audience to engage with the brand
- Make Mr. Tayto relevant again
Results:
- An increase in sales of nearly 1 million extra packets of Tayto crisps
- 90 000 hits on Bebo and Facebook
- Tayto regained the title of Number 1 crisp in Ireland
How did they do it? Check out this entertaining case study video posted by McCann on YouTube, as well as the campaign website and “Mr. Tayto – Guess who’s looking for love?” and “Mr Tayto – Clothes make the man” videos. You can also get campaign partner Mindshare’s take on the Tayto triumph through their own online case study.
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.
After you’ve … dare I say it … digested this case of Taytos, have fun watching this stand-up routine by Irish comedian Dara O’Briain and get a bit of a sense of what a cultural phenomenon the Tayto really is on the “udder” side of the pond.
Enjoy!
Michelle
Sometimes elaborate tactics aren’t required to stimulate a viral response; all it takes is one great idea. Ad agency McKinney’s idea was to take holiday ecards to a new level by putting an employee inside a giant inflatable snow globe for four days and broadcasting it on a microsite 24 hours a day. Visitors could receive “season’s greetings” from Snowglobe Boy and chat with him.
In a week, a small seed of a Facebook page, a YouTube video and about 1,000 emails to McKinney’s friends attracted about 50,000 unique visitors, network press coverage and lots of search traffic. The buzz was astounding. The campaign generated 105 million PR impressions across all mediums.
Read full case study