The Challenge Oftentimes small retailers and dealerships have little or no budget for a dedicated social media manager. Finding and creating compelling content on a consistent basis puts a burden on sales managers and staff and frequently is one of the last things a...
The Story Behind A National Powersports Brand’s New Recreational Vehicle Launch
Facebook Ads Revved Up Leads for A Leading Powersports Manufacturer
Their Story
Our client, a leading brand in the recreational vehicle space, had a unique, new product launching and needed to leverage the best performing high-awareness channels they could to bring their product to market. This leading manufacturer started from humble beginnings, but their product portfolio now includes a variety of motorcycles, dirt bikes, watercraft, ATVs, and side-by-sides. They also rely on and heavily support their dealer network through a variety of localized efforts, including automatic organic social media posting of their brand’s high-quality digital assets through ThumbStopper’s Brand Manager platform. When their team was preparing for the product launch of their newest side-by-side, they turned to ThumbStopper to go the extra mile and drive low-cost leads to their dealer network to support their launch.
Their strategy included dealer-level localized Facebook Ad campaigns promoting a “$1,000 off” factory incentive for the new recreational vehicle. To provide scale and expertise, our client collaborated with ThumbStopper’s social experts to develop a co-op supported campaign for interested dealers. This meant that they would allow dealers access to co-op marketing dollars to subsidize the cost and provide scale. The campaign included comprehensive Facebook Ads for each participating dealer, to kick off at the end of 2019. The ThumbStopper team facilitated the enrollment and growth of the campaign for the manufacturer by reaching out and configuring their dealers who chose to participate. When the campaign started, 279 total dealers elected to take advantage of this win-win co-op advertising opportunity.
Their Strategy
First, to boost awareness, the brand created product-focused videos to attract people who were not specifically familiar with the newer product model. In collaboration with their creative team, the video was optimized for social with strategic guidance from the social experts at ThumbStopper. Second, to increase reach, ThumbStopper worked together with the manufacturer to prepare the ad audience and targeting strategy. To ensure a localized audience per location, location targeting was adjusted based on the population density in the surrounding area of each participating dealership, targeting individuals in a radius ranging from 25 to 50 miles per location. From a demographic perspective, there were some site-specific variations applied to each dealership to drive the most successful leads, but 90% of the targeted demographics fell into this range:
In terms of the conversion elements of the campaign, ThumbStopper utilized the Facebook Lead Ad unit, allowing for an in-app or on-site conversions for interested consumers. The Lead Ad unit allows consumers to stay within the native Facebook environment to convert, ensuring maximum conversions per dealership. In all, six separate creatives were prepared for testing for the campaign. By choosing to leverage the inherent algorithms of the Facebook Ad platform, the ad unit’s spend was optimized by Facebook, which determines the ad that is most effective at generating leads by audience, then adjusts spend to allocate budgets towards the most effective ads. The multiple ads also helped to curb ad fatigue, minimizing lead attrition.
The Results
The ad creatives were geared towards enticing people to take the next step to purchase. They featured stylized shots of the vehicles traversing rugged landscapes, plus messaging about rebates and pricing. Each Lead Ad used the “Learn More” call-to-action button; when clicked, it opened a contact form pre-filled with information from the consumer’s Facebook profile, including name, email address, and phone number. The brand automatically integrated the leads into its internal CRM so the marketing team could track which leads (and eventually sales) came from the Facebook Ads. The participating dealers saw better-than-anticipated results from their campaign. Generating over 6,300 leads from 279 participating dealers, ThumbStopper measured the results from their campaign against Facebook data on industry averages, which revealed:
The best performing ad, featuring the Recreational Vehicle’s suspension action, delivering a Return on Ad Spend of 4.09, or $1.81MM. Not bad for an off-road dream machine that comes well-equipped for around $20,000.
Featured Resources
CASE STUDY
How STIHL Canada Drove a Successful Co-Op Marketing Campaign Utilizing Marketing Technology
GUIDE
How to Get Retailers to Participate in Your Channel Marketing Program
Key Points:
- Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
- Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
- Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.
Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.
Social Media for All
The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.
Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.
Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns.
Making Content Accessible
Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.
For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.
None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible.
Text
- Use plain language that’s easy to understand
- Avoid text in all caps
- Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case
Videos
- Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
- Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
- Use captioning for live videos when possible
Graphics
- Use color contrast checkers to make sure low-vision people can see images
- Try not to completely rely on color to show contrast
- Add alternative text on each social platform
Distribute Accessible Content
Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.
That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business.
Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.