Hard lockdown vs social media relevance

When the pandemic hit our shores in March 2020, a lot of businesses, especially retail stores, struggled to reach their audiences during the hard lockdown. This led to an accelerated social media relevance and growth, and we leveraged this when Chamberlains – a leading hardware and retail store, approached us to create a digital online campaign.

How we laid the foundation

We were tasked with transforming the image of the hardware store, to gain brand awareness, growth on social media, increase website traffic, to become a well-known brand.

To create the right starting point for Chamberlains, we had to identify the key building blocks of the brand to create engaging campaigns. This was to make sure they effectively told their story to the right audience, through the right channels and at the right time.

The challenge was to position Chamberlains as the hardware, DIY and décor provider of choice in Gauteng, with a focus on Kyalami and Strubens Valley stores, using a paid and organic social media campaign.

The first step we took was to conduct an audit of the client’s social media pages which identified issues that would be stumbling blocks in our social media campaign. We also highlighted opportunities that were needed to take advantage of, for a successful campaign. From there we developed an integrated strategy that utilised social media content and various social ads to bring about brand awareness. We developed the copy, collateral and strategy which increased market share, drove traffic and leads to the website to attain sales on the Chamberlains e-commerce website.

We made use of the Facebook shop feature so people could purchase from Facebook, event ads to drive foot traffic to the store when in-store campaigns were held after lockdown and created a hashtag strategy to reach more people and increase impressions.

What did we accomplish with the campaign?

Our efforts were extremely successful as we managed to exceed our goals on social media. We witnessed significant growth with 79,33% increase in page impressions, 17,58% increase in link clicks, 107,71% increase in new fans and a 36,14% increase in reach - which is unprecedented.

Solidifying the foundation for Chamberlains cemented the hardware store’s brand identity through a well thought out social media strategy.

There is a captive audience online at this very moment, waiting on your brand to connect with them and we can do just that. For more information on Wetpaint, our integrated marketing and advertising services, contact us today!