Summary: Throughout I will be explaining how A/B split testing is implemented on social media, its importance, and its role in increasing conversation.
Social Media Marketers Are Scientists!
It’s true social media marketers are constantly running different experiments to find the best way of converting consumers into customers and one of the most productive ways of doing this is by performing A/B split testing.
A/B Split Testing; What It Is And How It Works
Split testing is an experimental process that trials different variations against each other in order to find out what will make your audience react the way you want them to. In regards to social media, the winning combination will display:
The right image with the best copy, aimed at a specific target audience, at the perfect time.
It’s this combination that will prompt your audience to click, purchase and visit your webpage more than they did before.
In order to find that winning combination the idea is to keep one variable consistent while changing others. For example; to find the image that is most engaging for your consumers you would continually change this aspect of your campaign while keeping the copy and layout the same. Here is one example:
After discovering the image that generates the most conversation, the next step is to test varying copy while consistently using the most successful image throughout.
Once gaining an understanding of the visual combination that best appeals to consumers, it’s important to discover what target audiences are most responsive to the overall campaign. Then with that data you can test which day of the week and at what times your target audience best engage in conversation.
This is something worth experimenting with when posting daily quotes, as there might be a larger response when posting on #MotivationMonday:
As opposed to posting on #WisdomWednesday:
The Importance And Advantages Of Split Testing
• A/B split testing is an important, straightforward process that allows you to validate business ideas before fully deploying them, ultimately saving a company from making expensive, and difficult to change, technical investments.
• It allows you to determine your most profitable market and the best way of engaging them in conversation.
• Defining what elements within you campaign your target markets respond to most positively, providing an insight as to what will work best in the future, saving marketers both time and money.
• It is useful in low-data rate test, if your landing page has only a few conversations per day; it’s an advanced tuning method.
• Ease of test design variations could create new and unexpected vision paths.
• Ease of analysis means you only have to compare the baseline version of each challenger to see if you’ve reached your desired statistical confidence level.
Remember
With new markets occurring all the time A/B testing becomes a never-ending experiment as it is a marketer’s job to continually improve and look for the best way of communicating the brand message and encourage conversation.
Summary: Throughout this blog I will be delving into GoPro’s most successful social media campaign. Explaining the original goals and targets, the strategies and tactics employed and the financial and non financial impact the campaign generated all in order to determine the likely ROI.
GoPro – The Original Goal
GoPro has officially become the maker of the world’s most versatile camera, generating some of today’s most engaging viral content.
According to the Shorty Awards, “GoPro’s marketing vision has grown into empowering a generation of consumers and professional producers alike to capture, create and share their unique perspectives with the world”. Prompting individuals to upload their content to the GoPro website, the team are entertained by hours of footage on a daily basis, selecting there favourites and sharing them with the brands online community. A campaign both rewarding for the participants and the brand, with both name attached to hours of entertainment that generates free publicity for all involved.
However this wasn’t always the initial game plan; GoPro launched a campaign by hiring professional stuntmen and extreme athletes to showcase the capability of their small yet high performance cameras. They were unaware at the time that producing footage in this way would become such a phenomenon for so many, a trend that on estimation generates 6,000 videos shot with the camera everyday by consumers. With such a powerful recourse at hand, naturally GoPro created an ongoing campaign powered by its customer’s content.
Targets
The campaign was designed to drive and engage brand awareness, intent and growth of product sales through integrated online platforms, meanwhile developing a social community.
Strategy And Tactics
GoPro’s main aim was to build an ‘always-on’ shareable content distribution network. In effect a social ecosystem that would become the hub for the brands viral content, they achieved this by performing the following strategies:
‘Word of Mouth’ via an integrated marketing platform
Each video shared showcases every existing customers enthusiasm for the product, acting like a product review page, this strategy entices new customers by using social proof as a technique of persuasion, increasing both sales and brand visibility.
Gamification ‘Contest and Promotion’ strategy
In order to keep consumers engaged and participating in sharing their content, GoPro created an incentive; the opportunity for consumer’s footage to win exposure across the brands multiple platforms. Also giving the brand free publicity as it’s their consumers doing all the advertising for them.
To bring this strategy to life, GoPro’s founder & CEO, Nicholas Woodman, designed several simple campaign competition platforms that entice both new and existing customers to share their content. The campaigns are as follows:
Everything We Make: For people who did not yet own a GoPro but wanted a chance to win one.
Photo And Video of the Day: For customers, who regularly shared their best photos and videos with GoPro in social media. The brand rewards the top producers by showcasing their work through each of their online marketing channel: Facebook.com/GoPro, Twitter.com/GoPro, Instagram.com/GoPro,com, GoPro App. These entrants also qualify for selection to be featured in other GoPro marketing assets such as general online ‘share programming’, print ads, billboards, and product packaging.
Video Distribution And TV – for customers who capture mind-blowing moments with their GoPro’s, the brand offers the opportunity to be featured in video distribution through their Youtube channel, TV advertising, & other video distribution channels such as Virgin America and Xbox.
The core aspects of the brands strategy on a whole are; customer content distribution, customer recognition, to be ‘always-on’ and connected, supporting shareable engagement and win opportunities.
What’s The Impact?
“By involving its fans in content creation, GoPro has built a loyal and engaged audience,” YouTube states in its report, as “The authenticity of the channels content helps viewers feel connected to the brand”. With the enthusiasm of their audience and new subscribers growing by the thousands each day, a cycle of content sharing is pushing sales continually. The brand is now seen as one of the most admired consumer brands due to its social media strategy and audience engagement.
Everything We Make Entries = 40K+ / day
GoPro.com Visits = 300K+ / day
GoPro.com Customer Photo & Video Submissions = 150+ / day
Facebook Fans =7M+, and growing by 2000 / day
Youtube Subscribers = 1.6M+, and growing by 2000 / day
Youtube Views = 400M+, and growing by 500K+ / day
Instagram Followers = 1.6M+, and growing by 25K / day
Within GoPro’s recent quarterly report Nicholas Woodman stated, “We are seeing a tremendous volume of quality content generated by our users and a 200% year over year increase in video views on YouTube, which is fuelling our virtuous cycle whereby viewership of GoPro content drives sales. In our 2014 second quarter performance it demonstrates our users’ continued passion for GoPro’s products, content and brand.”
Likely ROI
Looking back at GoPro’s sales and marketing expenses beside their revenue and net income it’s clear to see that GoPro has the ability to get a satisfying return on investment.
The company managed to triple its revenue in 2011 and more than doubled sales in 2012. In 2013 again their revenue almost doubled again, surging 87% higher to $985.7 million and looking at the first quarter of 2014, the brand has already beaten its total revenue for all of 2011.
In 2011 GoPro’s net income reached $24.6 million, up 112% over the $11.6 million that was received in 2010, yet the brand only had to spend $50,515 more in marketing costs to achieve this. Spending $50,515 and getting $13 million more in return. In 2013 GoPro did even better, raising its marketing costs by $41,000 and making $28 million more in bottom line income than it did in 2012.
Looking at GoPro’s quarterly results; revenue in the second quarter of 2014 was $244.6 million, up 38.1% compared to the $177.1 million reported in the second quarter of 2013. Second quarter 2014 revenue increased 3.8% compared to $235.7 million reported in the first quarter of 2014.
Looking Back Trough The Lense
It’s obvious that GoPro are pioneers when it comes to engaging their target audience. Creating a brand ecosystem that drives a sense of community, brand awareness and most importantly product sales. Relying on their consumers to spread word-of-mouth and then rewarding them with win opportunities. A simplistic campaign idea that has seen to be extremely beneficial both non-financially and financially.
Summary: What is Gamification? What are the pros and cons of using this strategy in marketing? How is it being implemented by brands today?
What Is Gamification?
Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game context to engage people and to impact their behaviour. It’s a strategy that delivers by engaging consumers in a fun way, allowing them to interact with their desired brand through quizzes, treasure hunts, photo sharing, competitions and more, while giving recognition and rewards to participants in the process. Rewards can be anything from discounts in store, loyalty points, freebees, competition entries and level ups within a game process.
According to Gartner, 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application by 2014.
Why Gamification Works
The pros:
It can present immediate feedback for brands – game scores can translate to business goals if implemented in the right way.
It creates in-depth engagement – Game mechanics provide more in-depth engagement over other forms of digital advertising due to its addictive nature for users.
Inherent motivation to return to the source of interaction – Achieving a certain level of status motivates consumers to frequently engage with the brand.
Uses fun to embed the brand into a consumer’s life.
It creates healthy competition and word-of-mouth between consumers – generating brand awareness by normal people acting as influencers.
Brands can drive desired user behaviour.
It’s Not All Fun And Games
The Cons:
No long term value for users – Without a competitive ‘me to’ aspect, minimal levels of engagement could result in virtual ghost towns.
Disruption with traditional loyalty programs – Game based marketing has the potential to discard traditional loyalty programs, disrupting existing customers; they might find starting the process again un-worthwhile.
Investing a substantial amount of time and money – If a brand doesn’t understand what it is about video games that engage their market is a recipe for disaster and a loss of time and money.
Invitation for consumers to try and cheat the system.
Novelty wears off – Brands can overlook the importance of creating meaning and fun behind the program.
Who’s Using Gamification Successfully
Nike ‘Angry Winter’ Campaign
In 2011 Nike started their use of gamification in which players had to help athletes stay warm while they trained outside in the cold.
Participants did have an incentive to play; a leader board of the highest scores were created and those at the peak would win a trip to meet one of the athletes featured within the game.
Obviously this wasn’t all for fun. The game also advertised Nike’s new rage of winter clothing worn by each athlete, directing and prompting users to purchase from their website.
Nike produced a typical competition that highlights how a brand can use gamification to drive awareness of its new product range.
Another Example From Nike + And The Running Experience Community Project
Nike + is one of the most famous examples of gamification as it locks a high amount of potential customers into staying connected with each other and the brand.
This platform collects personal data from participants; keeping them updated on their running activities, displaying their latest achievements and overall evolution. Meanwhile this type of gamification allowed users to compare and compete with people from all over the world, including direct friends when connected to social media.
For Nike this viral game boosted exposure along with customer loyalty.
The highly developed gaming system also allowed them to collect information about their consumers over a substantial period of time, after which they could segment and market their products and services to directly benefit those interacting with the brand in the hopes to increase sales. All the information collected also allowed an increase in productivity of the R&D and Online Marketing departments.
US ARMY – Recruitment
Another great example of gamification is being implemented by the US Army. They have developed a free downloadable game which has become their number one recruitment tool.
The game allows potential recruits to partake in a virtual army experience in order to see if they have what it takes to become a battle fighter. When participants show signs of promise they are rewarded with badges of honor, the same badges you would earn if you were to join the American forces for real.
The game was developed with a clear business goal; increasing recruits numbers in reality. Before playing the game everyone is recommended to create an account to join the ‘online army’ where a hub of information and data can be found about the real job role.
Success Is In The Game
Although there are a few cons when using gamification as a marketing strategy, I believe if your brand can deliver a strong concept it’s an asset worth nurturing.
Gamification works because today’s consumers are looking for a more rewarding and engaging relationship with their favourite brands, and traditional marketing is failing this.
“Gamification aims to inspire deeper, more engaged relationships and to change behaviours, but it needs to be implemented thoughtfully, most attempts at gamification currently miss the mark, but successful and sustainable gamification can convert customers into fans, turn work into fun, or make learning a joy. The potential is enormous.”
According to Burk three key ingredients must be implemented and correctly positioned for a gamified application to truly engage its audience: motivation, momentum and meaning!
amygovan 