Tag: adaptation and innovation
14 Ways to Master Your Successful Social Media Campaigns: Learning from These
Social networking is not about farming followers, it’s a way of cultivating relationships. Over the past decade or so there have been tons of awesome successful social media campaigns to stimulate learning. Here are three of the best we have found to illustrate what lessons that follow.
Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.
More examples: Social Media Campaigns to Stimulate Learning
Social Media and Starbucks Marketing?
When choosing to learn from others social media strategies, it is always helpful to choose one of the top dogs in social media.
Meet Starbucks. They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan since the first days of social media and social commerce. For over 5 years, and their strategies have played a significant role in their growth.
An introduction to Starbucks is unnecessary.
With more than 18,000 retail locations in 60 countries, the coffeehouse is the picture of success.
Starbucks rode the baby boomer trend in the 1990s, the swelling ranks of mid-age professionals that created the need for a third place, ‘ an affordable luxury’ where people could share and enjoy a cup of coffee with friends and colleagues, away from work and home.
In our opinion, the company has inserted itself into the American urban landscape more quickly and craftily than any retail company in history. It has forever changed the way companies market themselves to customers. Here is how we feel they have been so successful:
Successful social media campaigns … market segmentation
The company has stayed with the upper-scale of the coffee market, competing on comfort rather than convenience, which are the case with its closest competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts.
Execution
The company continues to focus on its original product bundle that includes good coffee, quality service, and a nice environment to hang around. They keep their attention on paying attention to the details of great execution and service.
Social media
One of the earliest adopters of the use of social media for marketing and social commerce, Starbucks has certainly taken a leadership position. Their social media strategy is built around their company website and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G+, YouTube, and My Starbucks Ideas. We will review Starbuck’s social media strategy in detail below.
Successful social media campaigns ideas … adaptation and innovation
Starbuck’s business crowdsourcing, via its My Starbucks Idea website, has been a huge success. Why may you ask? Because they have combined the concepts of change, experimentation, social media, customer engagement, and market research and made the results key components of both their brand as well as their marketing strategy. Have you given My Starbucks Idea a try? What did you think?
Starbucks has clearly embraced the digital realm. With a strong presence on multiple social networks, the brand has set a high bar when it comes to being social and engaging its customers. They are at or near the top of nearly every major brand ranking in social media.
Starbucks’ ability to wear so many hats corporate success, “local” favorite, and Internet sensation warrants strategic examination.
Why is Starbucks such a social media marketing success story? There are seven key reasons their social media strategy is a successful difference maker for their marketing campaign:
Here is our take on why:
Customer relationships
Instead of solely focusing efforts on accumulating new customers, it cultivates its current relationships. This ensures more fans/followers in the long run, as well as the continued existence of brand advocates. This holds true across the board: In-store experiences are highly valued, along with online engagement, emphasizing the importance of customer service.
Best social media campaigns ever … going to its customers
When Starbucks takes a photo, it shares it on Instagram, posts it to Facebook, tweets it on Twitter, and pins it on Pinterest. It clearly goes to where all its customers like to hang out. Cross-promotion is more valuable as the world becomes more digitally focused.
Each network provides an opportunity to reach a new audience, and integrating your strategy on each is crucial to increasing visibility and promoting the brand.
Customer engagement
They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible. They listen carefully, observe, and apply new ideas from what they learn.
Encourages sharing
Happy customers are eager to share good experiences and offers. For example, the Starbucks frequent promotions like “buy 1 get 1″ garner an extraordinary amount of engagement on social media through comments, “likes,” and shares.
My Starbucks Ideas
The My Starbucks Idea website, where Starbucks does its business crowdsourcing, has been actively engaging customers for over 4 years now. It encourages customers to submit ideas for better products, improving the customer experience, and defining new community involvement, among other categories. Clearly, Starbucks has seen and believes what Peter Drucker has to say about business adaptability.
Customers can submit, view, and discuss submitted ideas along with employees from various Starbucks departments ‘Idea Partners’. The company regularly polls its customers for their favorite products and has a leaderboard to track which customers are the most active in submitting ideas, comments, and poll participation.
The site is at once a crowdsourcing tool, a market research method that brings customer priorities to light, an online community, and an effective internet marketing tool.
Experience customization
Starbucks provides its unique experience through programs such as My Starbucks Rewards, personalized “signature” drinks, and localized store experiences. Their social sites, in particular, Pinterest and Instagram, encourage users to share their Starbucks moments’ whether it be the return of a favorite holiday drink or just an artsy coffee cup shot.
Taking a stand
Giving consumers a charitable reason to buy that steaming cup is beneficial for all. The takeaway from Starbucks is to know your customer and tie that in with what matters in the world … so, pay attention to how your brand can fit into trending topics.
Starbucks reflects a mission
Its mission is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit” one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” They believe lifting customers up will lead to more customer loyalty. It’s ‘The Way I See It’ quote campaign is a perfect example.
Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated … which ones do you feel could benefit your business?
How could you improve the Starbucks Coffee Social Media campaign concept for your business?
Starbucks is one of many businesses we can learn from. Please post your comments below, offering questions or your own great examples of social marketing strategies.
Do you like to read the best social media educational blogs? There are quite a few great ones out there. The very best out there, BY FAR, is the one Neil Patel puts out. You’ll find lots of great tips, examples, and actual results from his businesses in his blog. His material in Quick Sprout is also excellent.
Social media case studies … the Google use of a story
Facts don’t persuade, feelings do. And creative stories are the best way to get at those feelings.
Have you seen the Google Reunion video where a story of long lost friends is told? The video was made by Google India, and the point, of course, is to promote Google Search. But it also reaches a new level of what can be done with the value of creative stories.
If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here …a short 3+ minutes.
The story is this: a man in Delhi tells his granddaughter about his childhood friend, Yusuf. He hasn’t seen Yusuf since the Partition of India in 1947, when India and Pakistan became separate countries and the two friends were forced to separate. The man’s granddaughter arranges for the two to meet again.
The story is simple and direct. It’s beautiful and honest, and true. The photography is spectacular. The music adds to the very good acting…
Do you use stories in your customer engagement … or perhaps in marketing messages? Good stories are a great way to develop the identity, personalize and build your customer base. Good stories:
Immediately focus on engagement, experiences, and emotion – central tenets that are attractive to customers.
The narrative makes your message relevant and memorable through personalization.
Stories are a great means for sharing and interpreting experiences, and great experiences have this innate ability to change the way in which we view our world.
Creative story lessons
A lot of us are trying to figure out how to improve the use of storytelling as part of our marketing. Very few of us do it well. There are several things to be learned from this excellent video:
Emotional connection
This video is about as emotional as it gets. Stories like this provide a chance to experience a variety of emotions without the risk of those emotions themselves. Emotions like wonder, fear, courage, or love can be tested out in the minds of those as they listen to a story. You may remember the feelings of emotions which can trigger memories or create resolve as a result of hearing such stories. The experience of hearing stories can awaken portions of emotional lives that may have lain dormant or have not yet been explored.
Be dynamic with your stories like Google. Nothing is more important to narrative content than imagination, so give vivid descriptions and use emotional hooks and humor to get people fully engaged. This story definitely engages us, doesn’t it? Be creative, not only with words and images but also with the methods you use to convey them. Like the music as well as the messages.
Understanding others
Well-told stories can help us to learn about other cultures, ideas and ways of thinking. They can provide opportunities to know how past generations responded to challenges. They can also let us know how new generations are encountering and dealing with similar opportunities or the new challenges they face.
This video has some of each and then some. In the background is the partition of India, a painful episode in the history of India and Pakistan. These aren’t just two old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. This is a creative story that builds on some big forces: politics, religion, geography, nationalism.
If you really listen to your customers, like Google has, you can leverage their stories to drive your creativity. By analyzing their stories of how your products and services fit into their lives, you can gain valuable insight into their needs and desires, which can be hugely beneficial to other aspects of your business. Like product design and development and ongoing marketing strategy. The reunion has done that well don’t you think?
Growing intimacy
People are thirsty to know that they are seen and heard in our over-stimulated society. The rampant growth of “reality” TV shows certainly proves this. When personal and life stories are shared, there’s a chance to know that “I am not alone.” The two old friends certainly don’t want to be alone any longer.
Remember, stories, when properly written, pull people into a dialogue. It’s about engagement and interaction. The audience is just as active a participant as the storyteller. In contrast, many companies and brands still relentlessly push messages to their employees and into the marketplace—without meaningful context or relevancy.
The brand can be central in the story
It’s obvious that this video is promoting Google. But the use of Google is woven into the narrative in a way that feels natural. It’s not intrusive or forced. It works very effectively. Especially when it is not about Google but about Google customers. Simply about how people use Google products.
The messages
There are two messages in the video that are being driven home by Google. The first is that the work Google does is making a difference. It is making the world a better place by its search engine. But it’s not about technology. It’s about what people do with the technology. How they apply it to solve their problems.
The second message, while a definite subset of the first, is as important. That being the old world was one where people were driven apart. But there is a change in the old world where technology is ushering in a new world. A new world where people are brought together in a way that would not have existed a decade ago.
As a storyteller, I know my audience is experiencing one of the above benefits as they listen to my serious or funny stories. I see their breathing change, their attention focus and their foreheads wrinkle or relax. So much is happening in our shared experience.
There are no shortcuts when it comes to crafting a quality narrative. It takes a ton of creativity as well as time, patience, planning, and polishing to give your brand’s story sparkle and make it shine. We recommend you dive into using creative stories!
Next time you are building a marketing campaign, use a great story built from these lessons.
KLM social media design examples
When choosing to learn from others’ social media marketing campaign strategies, it is always helpful to choose the best of the best. Those that are most innovative and very eager to try lots of new and different ideas. And not afraid of a failure or two. KLM Airlines marketing certainly deserves to be this camp. Real social media marketing innovators. They frequently come up when marketers are discussing the best in social media marketing.
They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan for over 4 years, and their strategies have played a key role in their marketing and customer engagement.
If you’re not familiar with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, known by its initials KLM, is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. With headquarters is in Amsterdam, KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 90 destinations worldwide. It is the oldest airline in the world, still operating under its original name (Founded in 1919).
Their social media strategy is built around their company website and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, their blog, and recent additions of Foursquare and Pinterest.
Over the past four years, they have launched a number of social campaigns – some big, some small. They had a few failures along with great successes. Let’s examine some of their more noteworthy campaigns.
KLM Surprise
Remember how great it felt the first time you got a social response from a brand you love or business you deal with? All the goodwill generated by their speedy response? Well, KLM decided to run an experiment with its social community, for people who check in via foursquare for flights or tweet about waiting to board the next KLM service, and they called it “KLM Surprise”. The aim of this campaign was to bring random surprises and happiness to the boring wait for flights.
Here is a video KLM made on this campaign.
KLM’s social campaign involved a team of people identifying KLM passengers currently waiting for flights (and hanging out on twitter), before researching each person’s social profile to find out a little more about their personality and destination. Given that information, they matched passengers to a surprise gift that they’d give before each person boarded their flight. The aim was to add a little surprise to create happy customers who have plenty of time on their hands to tweet their network about a great KLM experience at the airport. That’s a very cool social experiment.
Meet and seat
The meet and seat campaign objective was to offer passengers a choice of seat-mates by accessing each other’s Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. If passengers so chose to participate, their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles were linked to their check-in information which was shared with other passengers also choosing the service.
Of course, passengers don’t have to link up their profiles if they’re not interested but what if they play along and end up with someone who just wants to make a sales pitch? The answer is you could have ended up with a worse result by taking your random seating chance. What would be your choice?
Listening to customers
In another act of social media genius, KLM used Twitter to add a flight to its roster.
It all started when a Dutch filmmaker tweeted his disappointment about the lack of a direct flight from Amsterdam to Miami. Specifically, he was looking for a hangover-reducing direct flight to/from the Ultra Music Festival taking place in Miami on March 21st, 2011. A KLM rep rapidly responded with a wager – if the filmmaker could book an entire flight (351 seats) before December 6th, KLM would add the non-stop flight to its schedule.
Beyond all expectations, the resulting campaign Fly2Miami sold out the entire flight within 5 hours.
“We can rightly call it a first – the first time KLM deployed an aircraft following a request on Twitter,” replied Martijn van der Zee, VP of e-commerce at KLM. “Social media are becoming more and more important to KLM to offer information and service to our customers.
I’ll say it again. Talk about a GREAT ability to listen to customers, and act, yes?
KLM Must See Maps
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is ramping up its digital engagement with KLM Must See Map, a friend-sourced destination map that combines social and print.
Users create a map for a destination and ask friends for travel tips via Facebook, Twitter and email. Facebook check-ins show which friends have already visited the destination, their tips on favorite places and their locations. You can add your own tips, then order a copy of the map in print and receive it for free.
Up and running in 24 countries, the application comes from the Dutch agency Code d’Azur.
In this case, KLM’s goal is to enlarge its global e-mail database. “The KLM Must See Map campaign perfectly fits KLM’s ‘little act of kindness’ social media strategy,” says Viktor van der Wijk, Director Digital Marketing, KLM. Participants get a free personalized city map delivered at home and we receive their e-mail addresses in return. That makes a great win-win and that’s what KLM was looking for.
Tile and inspire
The KLM Tile and Inspire campaign sought to engage customers by soliciting tile image designs from them. The winning designs would be put on one KLM aircraft.
The Boeing 777 with over 4,000 Delft blue images from Facebook fans are still flying around the globe! Let’s see … 4000 winners telling 20 of their closest friends about the experience, and then they each tell ten more friends. That is a great way to spread your message, isn’t it? Here is a great little KLM video on this campaign.
Twitter social care
Have you checked out KLM’s Twitter account lately? If not, go take a look at their banner ((https://twitter.com/KLM). You will find something really neat: the average expected response time for customer care. And it is updated every 5 minutes!
The company has rocked the customer service area for almost three years because it understands that there is no business without customers. The social media team gets the job done 24/7 on Twitter and Facebook, and fully embraces monitoring and improving their response time to customers.
KLM is considered by many to be the role model for social customer care. As a sign of just how truly devoted they are, they’ve added a live graphic on their Twitter page, updated every 5 minutes, which lets you know how long, on average, you should expect to wait for a reply from their Twitter team.
One of the largest airlines in the world, KLM 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 touchpoint along the path.
The conclusion from these examples
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.
Always do your research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.
There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention that means being social, building relationships, and creating trust.
Bottom line, listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed how much you can learn about your audience when you shut up and listen. Try it!
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on social media marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Improve Telling Stories by Employing These Remarkable Examples
Find your Content Marketing Creative Ideas
Creative Ideas Can Add to Publix Social Media Marketing
Network Connection … 23 Actionable Tips for Relationships
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Marketing Strategy Examples: How To Explode Your Growth
Have you noticed that the world of marketing is changing? A big cliché, yes? Yes, it is, but it is
having a significant impact. And the change is rapid. Traditional media vehicles are losing effectiveness as people communicate in new and different ways. Here we will illustrate learning from the best marketing strategy examples.
If you can dream it, you can do it.
– Walt Disney
Mass audiences are fragmenting into small segments. Developing a point of difference is harder than ever. It takes a lot of creativeness, but it is certainly doable.
Whatever is the case, many organizations, Google among them, find it a very useful way to guide investment and it’s amazingly simple to learn and apply.
70% – Sustaining Innovation
Sustaining innovations are improvements to existing products and services that align well with your organization’s current strategy. While these types of innovations are often derided as “incremental innovations” that pales in comparison to “disruptive” or “radical” innovations, that seem more exciting, they are at the heart of any strong innovation effort.
The truth is that it is sustaining innovations created by the vast majority of value. To understand why to think about Moore’s Law. A new generation of computer chips may not seem that exciting, but the incremental improvements over the past 50 years are what has driven the digital revolution and made many “radical” innovations possible.
Another aspect of sustaining innovations is that they tend to fit in well with current processes and customers, so costs for ramping up production and gaining adoption tend to be far lower. That’s why even when you look at wildly innovative companies like Google and Apple, most of their budgets are focused on improving existing products.
Most of your resources — about 70% — should go toward sustaining innovations.
20% – Exploring Adjacencies
Every business, no matter how successful, eventually declines. You can be the most efficient buggy whip maker in the world and you still won’t make much money, simply because there is not a huge market for buggy whips these days. At some point, every square-peg business meets its round-hole world.
You always want to be exploring adjacent markets and capabilities. Amazon greatly improved its business by exploring product categories other than books and car manufacturers are currently investing billions in electric car technology in order to be able to compete in a post-carbon world.
Unfortunately, adjacent opportunities are far riskier than sustaining innovations. Amazon is doing great with its Echo smart speakers but completely flopped with the Fire smartphone. So you don’t want to bet your future on customers and technologies in which you don’t already have a strong operational presence.
Still, by going into an adjacency you aren’t completely taking a shot in the dark, because these markets and capabilities already exist somewhere, just not in your organization. So you may very well be able to leverage your existing resources to create something significant.
10% – Building A New Paradigm
Over the past 100 years, just about every business IBM has dominated has hit the skids. It was a pioneer in tabulating machines, mainframe computers, personal computers, and installed IT services, just to name a few. Nevertheless, every 20 years or so, each one of these business has been disrupted.
Yet still, IBM remains one of the most valuable companies in the world because it keeps developing new technologies. Today, as its business for installed solutions continues to decline, it’s building completely new businesses based on technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and neuromorphic chips.
Let’s consider a couple of examples to illustrate.
Guinness marketing strategy shows their creativity
This Guinness marketing campaign demonstrates that Guinness marketing has certainly noticed.
And Guinness marketing has adapted and come up with some cool new marketing ideas. This new ad from Guinness proves that beer commercials can be so much more than guys and bars.
“Empty Chair,” tells the story of a bartender who leaves a pint of Guinness at an empty table every night amongst birthday celebrations and sports team’s victories. No one sits at the table, and the woman shoots a dirty look to anyone she catches eyeing one of the empty chairs.
Without fail, the frosted glass is there each and every night. It’s a powerful image that serves as a sign of hope for the bartender. But we aren’t exactly sure who the beer is for until the very end. Everything comes together when a soldier finally returns home to claim his Guinness.
The spot finishes with the tagline “The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character.”
Guinness’s marketing story based on emotion has flipped traditional beer advertising on its head by getting rid of the template and telling a story – a real emotional story – that connects with people. The responses were overwhelmingly positive … customers and particularly the target customers are looking for meaningful stories. The emotion in this marketing strategy certainly is addressing this end state in our opinion.
This Guinness “Empty Chair” commercial salutes the character of a community as they honor one of their own who is out of sight, but not out of mind. They remind us that a true test of character is what you do when no one’s looking.
The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character. Guinness proudly raises a glass to those who are #MadeOfMore.
Guinness has made the message as clean and simple as possible. You cannot overachieve on the simplicity of the message. A message that the reader will quickly grasp and fully appreciate. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words. Guinness certainly gets it and tells an interesting story as it weaves the message together.
Many business leaders are uncertain about the future. What will great marketing look like in the years ahead? Guinness’ spot shows the way.
Marketing works in many ways.
First, it breaks through the clutter. It is visually arresting, surprising and beautiful. After watching it once, I wanted to watch it again. There are no better means of influence or the power of persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion. And enhanced with a great dose of curiosity.
Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the experiences are important to remember.
Second, it has solid branding; it is clear that this is for Guinness and the brand’s personality.
Third, it communicates a benefit. The entire spot revolves around the Guinness commitment to people. It is very clear that Guinness has something special and remarkable that they want to share.
The ad has generated an astonishing amount of buzz and attention. It is engaging, well branded and focused.
The ad was serious and emotional. It is like they left a note that says:
… there will be a seat left open, a light left on, a favorite dinner waiting, a warm bed made…because in your home, in our hearts; you’ve been missed. You’ve been needed, you’ve been cried for, prayed for. You are the reason we push on.
It touches deep emotions about loss and longing. And the spot worked to build the brand; it made people feel proud of Guinness and its values.
Example takeaways
Stories and emotion are the future of great marketing strategy, aren’t they?
12 Lessons from Ben and Jerrys Marketing Strategy
Ben and Jerry’s marketing is changing the game of social.
What are your favorite brands? Which ones do you follow closely and learn the most from? When choosing to learn from other marketing successes, it is always helpful to choose great brands to follow. We follow Ben and Jerry’s marketing strategies because of their creativeness and unique approach to customer focus.
Meet Ben and Jerry’s. They have been successfully executing their social marketing strategy and plan since the first days of social media and social commerce. For over 20 years their strategies have played a significant role in their growth.
An introduction to Ben and Jerry’s is unnecessary, isn’t it?
With more than 600 retail locations in 34 countries, the ice cream scoop shop is the picture of success.
Ben and Jerry’s rode the baby boomer trend in the late 1980s, the swelling ranks of mid-age professionals that created the need where people could share and enjoy a unique ice cream dessert with friends and colleagues, away from work and home.
In our opinion, the company has changed the way companies market themselves to customers. Here is how we feel they have been so successful:
Marketing strategy examples … market segmentation
The company has stayed with the upper-scale of the ice cream market, competing on product quality rather than convenience or price, which are the case with its closest competitors. They target customers with high-end ice cream tastes and unique flavors.
Marketing strategy examples list … execution
The company continues to focus on its original product bundle that includes great ice cream, unique flavors, quality service, and a nice environment to hang around. They keep their focus on paying attention to the details of great execution and service.
Social Media
One of the earliest adopters of the use of social media for marketing and social commerce, Ben and Jerry’s has certainly taken a leadership position in social engagement. Their social media strategy is built on its company website and six additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G+, Instagram, and YouTube.
Basic marketing strategies … adaptation and innovation
Ben and Jerry’s have clearly embraced the social realm. With a strong presence on multiple social networks, the brand has set a high bar when it comes to being social and engaging its customers. They are at or near the top of nearly every major brand ranking in social commerce.
Ben and Jerry’s ability to wear so many hats on corporate success, “local” favorite, and Internet sensation warrants close examination.
What makes this company so good at being social and executing a great marketing strategy? And what can it teach us? Here are our thoughts on these questions:
Customer collaboration
Collaboration with customers is used to obtain customer ideas on new flavors. Fans inspired the best-selling Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavors.
Customer relationships
Instead of solely focusing efforts on accumulating new customers, it cultivates its current relationships. This ensures more fans/followers in the long run, as well as the continued existence of brand advocates. This holds true across the board: in-store experiences are highly valued, along with online engagement, emphasizing the importance of customer service.
Interactive customer engagement
Engagement is a high priority for the brand, and they continually look for new ways to collect inputs from customers. A good current example is their ‘Scoop Truck’, which travels around the country giving out free samples of new products and soliciting customer inputs.
They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible. They listen carefully, observe, and apply new ideas from what they learn.
Encourage sharing
Happy customers are eager to share good experiences and offers. For example, frequent promotions garner an extraordinary amount of engagement on social media through comments, “likes,” and shares.
Social mission focus
Ben and Jerry’s brand has always chosen a social mission … to stand for and stand behind. One great example of an issue they got behind was supporting the push to get corporate dollars out of politics … www.getthedoughout.org.
Experience customization
Ben and Jerry’s provides its unique experience through programs such as personalized ice cream flavors and localized store experiences. Their social sites, in particular, Pinterest and Instagram, encourage users to share their Ben and Jerry’s moments’ which are shared on all their social sites.
Taking a stand
Giving consumers a charitable reason to buy that ice cream cone or package is beneficial for all. The takeaway from Ben and Jerry’s is to know your customer and tie that in with what matters in the world … so, pay attention to how your brand can fit into trending topics.
Showing customer appreciation
Appreciation for their customers. The lead in a quote to this article from Ben Cohen says it all about their culture and success at showing customers appreciation.
Whether we are discussing businesses that are social, the best at engaging customers, or being great at a social commerce business, there are few businesses in the class of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.
Being social is a core component of Ben and Jerry’s marketing strategy. It is the integrating ingredient of their online and online to traditional marketing/media.
Not all businesses can go to the extent that Ben and Jerry’s does. But they can support local issues and do weekly online promotions to increase customer engagement, gain new customers and convert good customers into advocates.
Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated … which ones do you feel could benefit your business? How could you improve the Ben and Jerry’s marketing strategy for your business?
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improve your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of a business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Pinterest Marketing … Rich Pin Tips for Discovery Shopping
Improve Success with Small Business Tagline Designs
How to Get Small Business Press Coverage
Secrets to BMW Marketing Videos … Effective Campaign?
Like this short blog? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.
12 Lessons from Ben and Jerrys Marketing Strategies
What are your favorite brands? Which ones do you follow closely and learn the most from? When choosing to learn from others’ marketing successes, it is always helpful to choose great brands to follow. We follow Ben and Jerry’s marketing strategies.
Why? because of their creativeness and unique approach to customer focus.
Steve Jobs liked to say that it’s not enough to kill bad ideas, you have to kill good ones too. That’s because the good strategy is about making choices and it takes more than intelligence or even instinct, it takes discipline, one of Jobs’ most overlooked qualities.
Marketing strategy is particularly difficult because, as I’ve noted before, the rules have changed. A generation ago, brands mostly strove to create buzz and “drive awareness,” now they need to build compelling experiences that keep consumers engaged.
However, the old tasks have not gone away. We still need to run TV ads and in-store promotions, man conference booths, and hand out brochures, but now on top of that, we have a whole new world of algorithms, apps, and devices to master.
There is a spiritual aspect to our lives … when we give we receive, when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them.
– Ben Cohen
If you want to effectively build your personal brand, you have to center everything around a story.
And not just any story, your story.
Meet Ben and Jerrys. They have been successfully executing their social marketing strategy and plan very early in social commerce. For over 20 years their strategies have played a significant role in their growth.
Before we get started, let me ask you a question. Have you ever tried the Ben and Jerrys experiencc? Can you tell us about it in the comments section? We would really appreciate it.
An introduction to Ben and Jerrys is unnecessary, isn’t it?
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With more than 600 retail locations in 34 countries, the ice cream scoop shop is the picture of success.
Ben and Jerrys marketing strategies rode the baby boomer trend in the late 1980s. This was during the swelling ranks of mid-age social media professionals. They created the need where people could share and enjoy a unique ice cream dessert with friends and colleagues.
In our opinion, the company has changed the way companies market themselves to customers. Here is how we feel they have been so successful:
Ben and Jerrys marketing strategies market segmentation
The company has stayed with the upper-scale of the ice cream market, competing on product quality rather than convenience or price.
That strategy was the case with its closest competitors. They target customers with high end ice cream tastes and unique flavors.
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Execution
The company continues to focus on its original product bundle that includes great ice cream, unique flavors, quality service, and a nice environment to hang around.
They keep their focus on paying attention to the details of great execution and service.
Ben and Jerrys marketing with social media
One of the earliest adopters of the use of social media for marketing and social commerce, Ben and Jerry’s has certainly taken a leadership position in social engagement.
Their social media strategy is built around their company web site and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G+, Instagram, and YouTube.
Some excellent examples are shown here.
Adaptation and innovation
Ben and Jerry’s have clearly embraced the social realm. With a strong presence on multiple social networks, the brand has set a high bar when it comes to being social and engaging its customers.
They are at or near the top of nearly every major brand ranking in social commerce.
Ben and Jerry’s ability to wear so many hats on corporate success, “local” favorite, and Internet sensation warrants close examination.
Related: Marriott Marketing Makes Customer Experience the Difference Maker
What makes this company so good at being social and executing a great marketing strategy? And what can it teach us? Here are our thoughts on these questions:
Customer collaboration
Collaboration with customers is used to obtain customer ideas on new flavors. Fans inspired the best-selling Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavors.
Customer relationships
Instead of solely focusing efforts on accumulating new customers, it cultivates its current relationships. This ensures more fans/followers in the long run, as well as the continued existence of brand advocates.
This holds true across the board. In-store experiences are highly valued, along with online engagement, emphasizing the importance of customer service.
Interactive customer engagement
Engagement is a high priority for the brand and they continually look for new ways to collect inputs from customers. A good current example is their ‘Scoop Truck’, which travels around the country giving out free samples of new products and soliciting customer inputs.
They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible.
They listen carefully, observe, and apply new ideas from what they learn.
Encourage sharing
Happy customers are eager to share good experiences and offers. For example, frequent promotions garner an extraordinary amount of engagement on social media through comments, “likes,” and shares.
Social mission focus
Ben and Jerry’s brand has always chosen a social mission. A social mission to stand for and stand behind.
One great example of an issue they got behind was supporting the push to get corporate dollars out of politics … www.getthedoughout.org.
Experience customization
Ben and Jerry’s provides its unique experience through programs such as personalized ice cream flavors, and localized store experiences.
Their social sites, in particular Pinterest and Instagram, encourage users to share their Ben and Jerry’s moments’ which are shared on all their social sites.
Taking a stand
Giving consumers a charitable reason to buy that ice cream cone or package is beneficial for all.
The takeaway from Ben and Jerry’s is to know your customer and tie that in with what matters in the world.
So, pay attention to how your brand can fit into trending topics.
Showing customer appreciation
Always looking to show appreciation for their customers. The lead in quote to this article from Ben Cohen says it all about their culture and success at showing customers appreciation.
Whether we are discussing businesses that are social, the best at engaging customers, or being great at a social commerce business, there are few businesses in the class of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.
Being social is a core component of Ben and Jerry’s marketing strategies. It is the integrating ingredient of their online and online to traditional marketing/media.
Not all businesses can go to the extent that Ben and Jerry’s does. But they can support local issues and do weekly online promotions to increase customer engagement. Always looking to gain new customers and convert good customers to advocates.
The bottom line
Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated. Which ones do you feel could benefit your business? How could you improve the Ben and Jerry’s marketing strategy for your business?
Give it a try and show some patience. You will be surprised at how well at works!
Ben and Jerry’s is one of many businesses we can learn from. Please post your comments below, offering questions or your own great examples of social marketing strategies.