Gone are the days when Snapchat was used for sharing photos between friends. Nowadays, most businesses use this platform for marketing.
According to a Bloomberg report published recently, a staggering 150 million people across the globe use Snapchat on a daily basis. Market My Business using Snapchat. The same report went on to state that at the present moment, Twitter has less than 140 daily users across the world. Clearly, Snapchat has overtaken Twitter as one of the most popular social media platforms. And even closer home, things aren’t much different; available data on the French Chamber Singapore website shows that 37% of social media users in Singapore prefer Snapchat, compared to other networking platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Which begs the question, why Snapchat? What’s special about it is that it has taken Singapore and the larger world by storm? To understand better, here are a few things to note;
- In the last two years, the number of people who use Snapchat and Instagram in Singapore has continued to rise drastically.
- Businesses, both local and foreign, have realized the tremendous opportunities that these two platforms offer, in terms of engaging with potential customers at a personal level. Forget about the good old Newspaper ads or TV commercials; brands are finding it easier to post the best photos or info about themselves on Snapchat and be sure that they’ll reach millions of users.
- An ordinary teen looking for the best Pizza inn in the heart of Singapore is unlikely to rely on traditional electronic media; it’s easy as Googling it on their Phones or asking a friend to recommend a place. Next, he or she will be sharing photos of the joint on Snapchat, and before you realize it, the dynamics of traditional marketing have shifted!
Welcome to the digital age, where Snapchat is eclipsing all the traditional forms of business marketing. All that you need is a well-thought-out strategy, to help you make the most out of Snapchat as a marketing tool. Snapchat marketing offers several perks, including promoting brand awareness, boosting engagement, and driving traffic to your website. In this article, you’ll find some effective tips to start you off and keep you going.
Regularly Post on Your Snapchat Stories
If you want your Snapchat marketing strategy to succeed, you need to post on your stories regularly. Remember, all the posts on your stories disappears after 24 hours. Therefore, you need to post fresh content daily.
Regularly posting on your stories will help you increase your followers and promote your brand awareness. It also helps in enhancing customer loyalty. Moreover, customers will trust the credibility of your business.
However, when posting stories, don’t go overboard. Posting too often can irritate your customers, and they may not concentrate on reading your posts. As a result, you should post about three times a day after every 4 to 5 hours.
Utilize Sponsored AR Lenses
Snapchat’s AR lenses help change how users view the world by adding digital effects or animations to real-world pictures. The lenses have a unique facial recognition technology that allows users to wear flower crowns, pretend to be Santa, or even change their voices.
More than 75% of Snapchat users use AR daily. Therefore, creating a sponsored lens that reflects your brand’s image can be a powerful method for marketing your business through Snapchat.
These filters help in entertaining your customers, making it a fun way to advertise your business. Your customers may also share the filters with their friends, thus promoting your brand awareness.
The only disadvantage of this strategy is that it is expensive. Therefore, it is not suitable for small or new businesses. However, investing in these AR lenses is worth it since the return on investments is huge.
L’Oreal is an example of a brand that uses Snapchat AR lenses. This is a company that is well known for its beauty products. In fact, it was among the first brands to utilize this strategy.
This filter makes people appear as though they have makeup on after taking a selfie. The campaign received coverage in virtually every fashion and makeup newspaper and also blogs on the internet.
Below is the image of the L’Oreal Snapchat filter.
Photo credits: loreal.com
Consider Using Snapchat Takeover
Snapchat Takeovers is a new marketing strategy that has gained massive traction among brands that are keen on capitalizing on social media platforms. It entails giving a third party control of the brand’s Snapchat account for a specified period. The third-party can be an influencer or celebrity who has a huge following on the platform. By giving him or her the privilege to run the account, he/she will connect your brand with his followers thereby expanding your clientele base and exposure. The target customers are more likely to engage and seek your services if they see one of their favorite celebrities try out the product.
Wet Seal, a popular women’s clothing retail store hired MsMeghanMakeup who has over 250,000 followers to run their account. Her influence helped the clothing store gain more than 9,000 new connections in a span of only two weeks!
Promote New Products and Upcoming Events
Average consumers don’t visit your website daily to check on the new products your business might have. If your potential consumers are not aware of the new products you are launching, you will miss out on the opportunity to make sales. Therefore, it is essential to use other avenues like Snapchat to reach out to your customers.
You can also use Snapchat to show your consumers how to use the new products. For example, if you are running a beauty business, you can create videos demonstrating how to apply the products. You can also educate them on the products that are suitable for each skin type.
Even though you have not yet launched the product, use Snapchat to create anticipation and excitement among your followers. As a result, your product will be in high demand when you finally release it.
When using Snapchat to promote your products, add your brand personality to make it more exciting.
Also, if your company is hosting or attending any event, you need to inform your target audience. You can create small videos to persuade your consumers to come and support you. According to a study, 67% of consumers will buy tickets to an event after seeing live videos of similar events.
Come up With a Marketing Campaign Based on a Major Event
Using trending cultural events to come up with a marketing campaign is another powerful way of promoting your company and increasing followers on Snapchat. Ideally, you will be aligning the target customers to the event and using its exclusivity, popularity, and hype to scale up your brand interest and awareness in the market.
Respond to Your Customers
Apart from posting engaging content, you need to respond to your customers’ positive or negative comments. Responding to your customer’s questions and comments shows that you are interested in satisfying their needs and not just making sales.
Snapchat comments are private messages, unlike other social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, if a company doesn’t mind the welfare of their customers, it is easy for them to ignore the comments since no one is seeing them.
However, responding to customers is essential since it enhances brand loyalty. According to a recent study, 68% of customers said they would stop buying from a business if they ignored their messages.
Give Followers Exclusive Reviews
Acura, a renowned automobile manufacturing company, created a huge buzz online and offline by providing its 100 new followers with a Six-second long video of their newest speed luxury car. As a result, the company was named a finalist in the 6th Annual Shorty Awards for its successful incorporation of Snapchat into its campaign. The company crowned it all by applying the same strategy to increase its popularity on other social media platforms such as Vine, Twitter, and Instagram.
Offer Coupons, and Rewards
Just like consumers from other parts of the world, we Singaporeans love doing business that rewards loyal or repeat customers with coupons and rewards. Thus, you can boost your social media marketing campaigns by using Snapchat’s inherent ephemeral nature; by offering temporary contests and deals to the existing and new customers. This strategy not only spurs engagement by creating urgency, but also gives the target audiences a reason to continuously engage with your brand and stay updated with your content to ensure they don’t miss out on any offers.
Frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles was one of the first brands to use Snapchat to offer coupons to its customers. As a reward for its effort, this brand gained new clients by promoting stores in particular locations and times. Customers were required to take photos of themselves or colleagues enjoying the delicious and healthy 16 Handles yogurt in any of its outlets to qualify for a 16%-100% coupon code. They also had to show the cashier the photo within 10 seconds after taking it. You too can think of coming up with a unique Snapchat promos and coupon codes.
Create Unboxing Videos and Informative Product Reviews
With more and more consumers opting to purchase their goods or services online, it is imperative for brands to provide them with firsthand information about their products and services. Help them make a quick decision by creating entertaining videos and posting them on your Snapchat. You can also hire one of the many social media influencers in the country to write a product review and share it on their account.
Amazon used Snapchat to explain how one of their new products, Amazon Echo, works. As a result, this reputed e-commerce company garnered more than 6,000 mentions in four hours! The takeaway is that you can use this social media platform to explain how a new product works. While there, request interested customers to ask questions and be sure to respond to them quickly and politely.
Treat Customers to Behind-The-Scenes Footages
In the past, photos from international fashion events such as the Singapore Fashion Week would take weeks to trickle from photographers to the fashion magazines and finally to the newsstands and consumers. Thanks to Snapchat’s innovative live features, you can give your followers a rare view of the fashion products as they unfold instantly. You can use this strategy to launch a new product into the market by holding a live video on Snapchat.
Recognize your Followers
GrubHub, a well-known online and mobile food ordering company, came up with its first Snapchat marketing campaign back in 2013. They were named the finalist in the 7th Annual Shorty Awards by posting user-generated content, promotions, and giveaways on their account. All these efforts helped the brand to increase its number of followers by 20%.
Use The Latest Snapchat Features
If you want your Snapchat marketing strategy to be effective and relevant, try using the latest Snapchat features.
Snapchat has recently added several new features which are unique and inventive. However, not all of them may match your business. Therefore, you need to study and experiment with them until you find one that suits your business.
3D Snaps
Photo credits: snapchat.com
It is a feature used to add depth to your snaps, and it is only available to specific users. Users can experience this 3D effect by wriggling their phones.
This feature is valuable for companies launching new products to show all the aspects of the product clearly.
Bitmoji TV
Photo credits: snapchat.com
Snapchat is the only social media platform that contains this feature. It is simply an animated program that stars Snapchat users’ avatars.
Snapchat Cameos
Photo credits: snapchat.com
Snapchat Cameos is a function that incorporates the account user’s face into a variety of animations and visuals.
Use Your Other Social Media Platforms to Promote Your Snapchat Account
Using your other social media channels to promote your Snapchat account is another strategy that can make your Snapchat marketing effective. It includes creating promotional videos on your YouTube channel and sending emails to your subscribers.
Your followers on other social media accounts may not be aware of your Snapchat account, especially if the account is new. Therefore, informing them of the existence of this account is a great way to increase your following.
Utilize User-generated Content
User-generated content is an excellent way of using Snapchat to promote your business. It includes asking your loyal customers to send you images and videos of them using your products or engaging with your business. You should then share this content on your Snapchat stories.
Using user-generated content is crucial since it helps you create an emotional connection with your target audience. It also shows the authenticity of your business, thus enabling people to trust you. Additionally, user-generated content makes customers feel like part of your business.
However, some people may not be willing to share their experiences of their interaction with your brand. To encourage them to share, hold contests, and other similar promotions.
Measure Snapchat Engagement
To create an effective Snapchat marketing campaign, you need to monitor and analyze all strategies thoroughly.
The main advantage of analyzing your Snapchat marketing campaigns is that it helps you understand which aspect performed better. As a result, you will know what aspects your audience liked most so you can concentrate on improving them. It will also help you know the aspects that are no longer effective so you can get rid of them to avoid wasting resources.
Although manually tracking and measuring all this data is possible, it can be time-consuming and tiring. You may also not get accurate data. Therefore, it is advisable to use Snaplytics to monitor and analyze these Snapchat metrics.
The following are some of the important metrics you can track on Snapchat.
Views– Check out how many times people view your brand’s stories each week and month. You may also observe how long people spend browsing your tales.
Reach– Check the number of people your Snapchat content reaches. Swipe around the carousel to know the average time people took to view your story and the percentage of stories seen.
Demographic information– Ensure you understand your target audience’s age, where they live, and also information about their hobbies and lifestyle.
Photo credits: snapchat.com
Interact With Other Snapchat Users
When it comes to other social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, marketing posts usually mix with other posts from family and friends. However, on Snapchat, this is not the case. Marketing content and posts from your family and friends appear separately.
Because of this separation, you need to engage with other Snapchat users to promote your brand visibility. Here are some of the ways you can engage with other users on Snapchat.
Viewing other people’s stories– Ensure you view and reply to other people’s Snapchat stories. Snapchat will later notify them, and they will always be aware of your brand’s existence.
Instant messaging– You can talk privately with other Snapchat users using the instant messaging tool. When you respond to a user’s Snap or a part of their Snap story, they get the response immediately. Also, if you take a screenshot of an instant message, Snapchat will alert the sender.
Send snaps– Exchanging and receiving photos and videos with other users is the simplest way to engage with other Snapchat users. In fact, it is such interactions that led to the existence of this platform.
Adding users– You have to search for people’s usernames on Snapchat to add them to your friend list. You may also link the app to your contacts list to know who is on Snapchat and add them to your friend list. Moreover, you can also add users by scanning their QR codes.
Sending Snapcash– This feature lets you make payments on Snapchat and link it with your credit or debit card. This feature also enables you to check your transaction records and set a password that appears before each purchase.
To complete the transaction, you need to specify the amount of money you wish to give to a user via instant messaging.
Make It Simple for Customers to Get in Touch with You
According to a study, more than 60% of Snapchat users are likely to make impulsive purchases on this channel. Therefore, if you want to increase your sales, make it easier for customers to contact you.
Swipe Up to Call or Swipe Up to Text are examples of the features that can make customers contact you. Snapchat uses both these features, including swiping to download the app or visit the business’ website. Swiping to visit your business’ website is a great way to boost your website traffic and increase conversion rates.
Experiment With Different Formats and Subjects
The best thing about Snapchat marketing is that companies are still experimenting with it. Therefore, there is no standard way of carrying out your marketing strategies to get desired results.
You can experiment with different forms and topics for your Stories and see what works best. In the process, you can discover new approaches to interact with your audience and improve your sales.
For example, you may discover that giving a Snapchat-only discount code is the most successful method to promote your business with Snapchat. Providing your customers with practical tips on using your items for your fans could also be an effective strategy.
Since you now have a clear picture of what engages your target audience, use this information to enhance your Snapchat marketing efforts.
Final Words
Snapchat is increasingly becoming an effective marketing platform. It helps in creating brand awareness and increase your sales. Even as you focus on Snapchat, the first thing you must ensure is that your website is fully optimized and mobile-friendly.
Snapchat is a mere appetizer; once audiences have liked your brand and wish to learn more about it, purchase online, etc, they’ll have to visit your websites.
Get a professional SEO consultant to help fix and optimize your website so that it always ranks top on major search engines. In the same breath, consider incorporating SEM (search engine marketing) methods to supplement your Snapchat marketing efforts. Basically, SEM entails posting ads on search engines to increase your brand awareness and popularity online.
