Markham creates a buzz with an innovative web marketing campaign

The campaign focused primarily around brand interaction and customer awareness rather than actual sales. The Markham Facebook page served as the platform to drive the campaign and the fans to the new-look website. Social networking sites such as Facebook provide an interactive way to engage with fans and drive the Markham brand message to the forefront. For Markham, the Facebook fan page doubled as a valuable information tool while also providing an interactive forum for fans to participate and provide feedback to the brand and comment on the campaign itself.

The campaign concept was a collaboration between Markham and Techsys Informatics, a web-based agency in Cape Town specialising in e-marketing and web development solutions. Techsys was awarded a digital marketing contract for Markham in 2009 and have since run a series of successful and energetic campaigns as well as having performed a redesign of the Markham website. Andrew Walmsley, Director Techsys Informatics, “The goal was to create a strong online presence for Markham. Current trends indicate that the online community is exponentially expanding, and with internet access being more widely available in the South African home and business users will start turning to the web as a primary means of communication.”

“The Face of Markham” competition was launched with a purpose driven website, which allows users to create an online profile where they can upload their pictures and invite their friends to provide a rating. A ten member shortlist of winners was selected based on the amount of highest ranking votes and the winner received R 10,000 in Markham vouchers.

Andrew Walmsley, Director Techsys Informatics: “We believe that our campaigns have a lot more impact on our target audience because instead of using a 'hard sell approach', we invite them to become ambassadors for the brand and reward them for their participation.”

The campaign received an outstanding response. The website racked up well over 700 000 interactions with many customers immersing themselves in the campaign for over six minutes per visit. The Facebook fan growth was also astounding with an increase of over 1000 new fans during the course of the campaign. This was an indication of the value a brand can gain from a well thought out, and properly executed social media campaign. We look forward to more exciting projects from Techsys Informatics in the near future.

View the website:

www.faceofmarkham.co.za

Join the Markham Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Markham/22570714394?ref=nf