January 28, 2008
Social Media Marketing
Client: The world’s premier source for women’s designer shoes, Heels.com )www.heels.com), is a new e-commerce company that provides handpicked selections of the finest designer brands and top fashion styles including high heel shoes from Anne Klein New York, Jessica Simpson, BCBGirls, Nine West, and Steve Madden.
In addition to top name brands and sexy styles offered by Heels.com, the retail Web site also features innovative technology advancements that make online shopping experiences comfortable, easy, and secure. These advancements include their revolutionary onsite
navigation system, detailed “help” pages, an advanced footwear glossary, intuitive shoe-fitting guides, and clearly defined returns and exchange policy.
Campaign Objective:
Heels.com approached EngineWorks in September 2007 for the purpose of implementing a highly focused Social Media Marketing )SMM) campaign designed to dramatically increase the total number of relevant daily visitors arriving at their newly launched Web site. In addition, the client desired to have the campaign increase the overall brand awareness of the new designer shoe site to its targeted audience )i.e., online purchasers of high fashion shoes).
From these specific client objectives, EngineWorks established strategic campaign objectives, which included discovering the following important information pertaining to Heels.com: 1. who are the end-users of their products, 2. where do these end-users get their buying-decision information, 3. which sources influences the buying-decisions of these end-users, and 4. how can we reach the greatest number of these end-users.
Course of Action:
In October 2007, EngineWorks implemented a highly focused Social Media Marketing campaign designed to achieve the established client objectives stated above. These Social Media Marketing services featured in-depth research into the client’s target audience, and the identification of online sources of authority accessed by this target audience. In addition, through working closely with the marketing professionals at Heels.com, EngineWorks fully immersed ourselves into their marketing message and compelling value proposition.
Our strategy for Heels.com has been to achieve the greatest amount of marketing exposure, and generate substantial marketing ‘buzz’, throughout Social Media networks and Internet sites that are frequented by the purchasers of high fashion designer footwear Actions Employed EngineWorks implemented the following concerted three-pronged Social Media campaign, beginning October 30, 2007, to rapidly achieve the goals of dramatically increasing qualified visits to Heels.com, and increasing brand awareness of the new designer shoe Web site:
Social Media Content:
In-depth research to identify target audience and end users.
- Identified ‘trusted’ online sources that influence that buying decisions.
- Sources included blogs, shopping review sites, and other social media sites.
- Established strategic relationships with these trusted sources.
Participated in ‘community conversations’ on blogs, forums, and other SMM sites.
Implemented SMM content onto Heels.com.
- Content featured the four critical components for social media success:
- 1. Relevant, 2. Entertaining, 3. Timely, and 4. Exclusive,
- Content: Hollywood celebrities in designer shoes available from Heels.com.
Published content to Social Media networks such as Digg, FaceBook, and StyleHive.
Optimized Press Release:
Generated optimized press release announcing the launch of Heels.com.
Applicable anchor text added to keywords linked within the press release.
- Posted optimized press release to client site.
Submitted optimized press release to multiple syndicated news wires.
Domain Name Content:
Promoted the purchasing of the ‘Heels.com’ domain name for designer shoe site.
- The domain name was previously owned by a patent attorney, Erik J. Heels.
- EngineWorks perceived that a lot of ‘buzz’ could be generated from this story.
Announced the purchase of this URL on blogs, forums, and other domain name sites.
Participated in domain name ‘community conversations’ on blogs and forums.
Gained a substantial number of relevant in-bound links from domain name sites.
Results:
Upon the implementation of the EngineWorks Social Media Marketing campaign, Heels.com experienced an initial increase of more than seven times the average level of daily visits arriving at their site. During the following two months after this initial spike that was created by our SMM actions listed above, the average daily visits settled at an impressive level of more than four times the prior average daily number of visits.
The following graph )featuring a simple scale to prevent disclosure of the actual number of daily visits arriving at our client’s site) depicts these impressive results achieve through the implementation of EngineWorks professional Social Media Marketing strategies.
Note that on October 30, 2007, we initiated the first phase of our campaign which included the creation and publishing of Social Media Content across targeted Social Media Networks.
This was immediately followed on October 31, 2007 by the generation and submission of a highly Optimized Press Release across the major newswires.
Finally, on November 6, 2007, content pertaining to the purchasing of the ‘Heels.com’ domain name was created and submitted to domain name Social Media sites.
As noted, this EngineWorks Social Media Marketing campaign has resulted in an increase of more than FOUR TIMES the average daily number of visitors arriving at the Heels.com site.
