Project overview
To celebrate 10 years of business, my client want to provide loyal customers with 10 days of exclusive sales, giveaways, and competitions…the majority of which would be led through their Instagram page.
Their main goal?
On top of building a community with their customers, they wanted to drive fresh sales and expand their audience.
But there was more to it than regular organic social media management…I took on the role of a social media marketer, with paid ads and brand collaborations combining with my typical duties.
Planning the social media campaign
Step one
As a multifaceted campaign that spanned across 10 days and various marketing channels, I started with a blueprint.
This blueprint was a detailed day by day plan for the campaign and included daily goals, content structures, scripts, and deadlines. This blueprint ensured that everyone involved in the campaign, had a clear directive on how we would execute every part of it.
Step two
During the course of the campaign, we had planned four social media brand collaborations. Each brand received the section of the blueprint that was relevant to them, so that they knew exactly what we were aiming for.
From the blueprint, these brands knew the special offers we had on their products, content creation deadlines, posting times/dates, and what promotion we expected of them in return.
Step three
Given the breadth of this campaign, I was put in contact with the company’s internal team. This allowed me to collaborate on other marketing avenues (such as email marketing) and direct the native content that was required.
To ensure everything was organised, I developed a campaign spreadsheet that included every task required, the name of the person behind the task, and a colour coded drop down menu that allowed us to track the progress.
Brand partnerships & collaborations
This campaign began by collaborating with some of the most popular brands that my client stocks. While each collaboration looked different, they included exclusive sales and free gifts in specific orders. Logistically, this meant that we had to wait until all additional stock arrived before we were able to launch the campaign.
Once we had confirmed all of the delivery dates, I worked with the brands to create social media content that would
Stop the scroll
Present the brand alongside my clients company
Highlight the parameters of the sale and the free gifts for purchasers
As many of these brands are based in other countries (primarily the US), a lot of the collaborative elements were done through email. Each brand had different messages and aesthetics that they required, so I was in constant contact with design and caption adjustments to ensure that every piece was approved by them and by the client.
As brand continuity is important from social media to the website, I made sure that the fonts that were used on these collaborative pieces were aligned with the clients own branding. With each piece containing the same font, viewers that were previously familiar with my client could easily identify them. To further the brand recognition, I added a subtle twist by creating a special 10th anniversary logo in a golden hue. All lettering and logos were highlighted with an echo shadow that made it stand them against the background.
With a strong sales copy caption that detailed the special offers in full, each brand had a collaborative piece that was a perfect blend of themselves and my client, which they shared with their own Instagram audiences. Additionally, I created stories that matched the aesthetic of each brand piece, reiterated the special offers, and included direct links to the brand’s page on my clients website.
Organic content creation & video production
When planning the campaign content directly, I wanted to be certain that we had a steady content mix that grabbed audience attention, so I planned a range of carousels, single images and reels.
Every carousel and single image used brand imagery (with their permission) which I combined with my client’s branding to make sure the entire campaign was cohesive. The most impactful static content was the story content, mostly because I used the opportunity to really chat with the viewer through the content. They were able to share their opinions through polls and questions, before being presented with a call to action and a sales link - it was here that most of our direct traffic came from throughout the anniversary event.
Meanwhile the reels were fully scripted and directed in such a way that we would present all information in a clear and concise way.
Two of the reels were designed to present different giveaways, so to separate them from one another, each giveaway was presented in a different way. The first giveaway reel was highly editorial, showing the products being arranged close up and with simple text providing all the relevant information. Our second giveaway showed the products arranged on a table in front of the founders, while they verbally detailed the giveaway - here the founders became the focus, but the audience still found out everything they needed to know.
With daily discounts, multiple giveaways and free gifts for customers, the scope of content creation was incredibly large.
Instead of diving in at the deep end, I started this campaign with content that warmed up the audience. This included :
Short form video content where the founders answered audience questions and hinted at an upcoming event
Be on the look out stories that directed people to keep an eye on the feed
Nostalgic content that showed the progress of the company over the past 10 years
By presenting the content in this way, I was able to increase profile views ahead of time and ensure that the audience knew we were going to be doing something big.
Paid Meta advertising & audience A/B testing
The majority of our organic content was sales based, so I knew that we needed something that would build trust. I decided that the paid ad was the perfect place to do this, as my sole aim with this was to reach beyond our existing following, and direct them to my clients website.
My plan for this was simple: address a pain point, position my client, give them a catchy phrase that they’ll remember. This led to a simple script (which includes my own voiceover) with relevant clips that kept the short story progressing throughout the ad.
Considering our aim was to reach accounts outside of our existing following, I decided to test this ad against different audiences.
Audience 1: Accounts that follow our followers and similar accounts. This audience set led to a reasonable amount of views, but the cost per click remained higher than the average.
Audience 2: Age and location based. The engagement here showed that we weren’t necessarily reaching our target audience - in fact, we were put in front of a couple of bald men which really missed the mark.
Audience 3: Accounts based in the UK with specified interests in curly hair, beauty, and hair care. This was our optimum target audience, as is evidenced in the way that the engagement, profile views, follows and link clicks all went up significantly. By running with this audience set for the majority of the campaign (over Audience 1), we were able to make the most out of our ad budget.
Meta ad results
The average click through rate (CTR) in this industry is 1.16% to 1.59%, costing £0.71 to £1.06 per click.
Despite a modest budget, the CTR is much higher at 2% with a low cost per click (CPC) of just 36p. This indicates that the trust building aspect worked well with new ad viewers.
The simplicity of this ad is why it was so effective.
Omnichannel Engagement
Given that this campaign had such a broad scope, my planning extended past the realm of organic and paid social media management. Here’s a quick description of how I collaborated with the email marketing team to support the social campaign, and engaged with the audience to build a broader audience.
Email marketing copy
With daily promotions, short life giveaways, and competitions that could easily get lost in the din of social media, I decided that this campaign required an additional voice with email marketing.
Collaborating with the in house marketing team, I ensured that every email contained the same messaging and tone that I was using throughout social media. With similar imagery being used across various channels, and emails arriving straight into customer inboxes, we made sure that nothing fell through the cracks.
Community management
My clients social media audience is made up of every day customers, hair care brands and influencers. As we wanted to get the audience involved in the celebration, I developed two mini strategies.
The first challenged the audience to share their wash days in the name of curl confidence, which helped viewers find community.
The second other encouraged affiliates to share their favourite products available in my clients store, which provided an additional sales channel.
10 year anniversary campaign results
During the course of this campaign, my client received a significant increase in their reach, engagement and through traffic, as well as unseen engagement such as tags and DM’s.
The chart below details my clients metrics from the week leading up to this campaign, and the organic metrics from the campaign itself, where the insights more than doubled on various fronts.
Featured service
This campaign was performed under the Full Freelance Social Media Management service, through which I provide:
Social media audit
Competitor analysis
Actionable social media strategy
Monthly content and story plan
Campaign assistance
Community management
Outbound engagement
Minor influence outreach/UGC sourcing
Native content editing
Content creation
SEO caption & alt text writing
Monthly data analysis
If you want your social media to become a valuable marketing asset that actually works, this is the perfect service for you.
