Going Deep with your Marketing to Engage Consumers: Mobile, A/B testing, and PR case studies

This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.

“Beware of going wide with your marketing before you go deep with your thinking,” Flint McGlaughlin, CEO, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute, advises in What is the most important question to ask before creating a high-converting landing page?

In today’s article, we bring you three case studies of marketers that went deeper with their thinking.

First, Shake Shack dives deeper into mobile marketing. Then, FreeConferenceCall.com deepens its understanding of its customers with A/B testing. And finally, a retailer deepens its use of PR to include both brand research and product PR with affiliate links.

Quick Case Study #1: Shake Shack grows subscribers by 184% with mobile marketing campaigns

In recent years, Shake Shack has invested heavily in its web and mobile experience, which became even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the second fiscal quarter of 2021, digital orders from its app, website, and third-party delivery platforms made up 47 percent of its total sales.

The fast casual restaurant chain needed its digital presence to hold up to its in-person experience. As the company made plans to roll out mobile order delivery, the team knew they needed a more direct way to communicate with customers to provide a seamless, omnichannel experience for its large, global customer base.

So the team started to deepen its use of mobile marketing.

For example, the team sent a push notification and an in-app message to subscribers for its Super Bowl promotion. The promotion earned 37,000 impressions and had a 20 percent click-through rate.

Creative Sample #1: Shake Shack’s promotion to app users who have opted in for push notifications

They used push notifications and in-app messages to tease the release of two limited-time milkshakes produced in collaboration with the popular New York bakery, Milk Bar. This was their most effective mobile promotion, with 55,000 impressions and a 52 percent click-through rate.

Creative Sample #2: Shake Shack’s in-app message tease of a limited-edition collaboration with Milk Bar

Shake Shack also offered exclusive regional items in addition to its menu staples. To alert customers, the team used geolocation data around its locations to segment subscribers and send them regional campaigns. So, a customer visiting San Francisco on vacation would get an in-app message for the Golden State Double Burger while a push notification teaser for a Mardi Gras King Cake Concrete dessert would be sent to opted-in app users within a 15-mile radius of a New Orleans location.

Creative Sample #3: Shake Shack’s geo-located mobile push notification teaser

“We’re able to be more timely and targeted with mobile channels than we can be with email. Being able to geolocate subscribers in real-time and build a radius around a specific store is one feature I really love,” said Shannon Reilly, CRM Manager, Shake Shack.

In addition to using geolocation data to target users, the team also uses app engagement to personalize customers’ experience. “If someone hasn’t used the app in a long time, we can send them a message to bring them back. If someone is loyal, we might send them a promotion to reward their loyalty. We’re really trying to focus on offer management, loyalty, and marketing automation,” Reilly said.

Overall, the targeted campaigns delivered a 53% increase in year-over-year (YoY) customer retention and 184% mobile app push notification subscriber growth that resulted in a 53% sales increase.

“Retaining consumers is essential to building a sustainable business. Use all channels to engage your customers and improve the connection to your business. Shake Shack combined push notifications and in-app messaging to improve their customer food ordering experience,” said Josh Wetzel, Chief Marketing Officer, OneSignal (Shake Shack’s customer engagement and messaging platform).

Quick Case Study #2: FreeConferenceCall.com discovers how to get 14%+ more account creates with A/B testing

FreeConferenceCall.com conducted A/B testing to determine which messaging would work best in its paid search ads – a focus on the product features of its conference call service or a focus on its positive impact.

“Our tests were rooted in the belief people care. We tested our traditional messaging, where we focused on features and what people would get when they signed up for our service, against messaging that highlighted how choosing our service and deciding to pay what you can helps us help millions of people around the world,” said Bill Swain, Head of Marketing, FreeConferenceCall.com.

“We conducted rigid A/B tests both pre- and post-click with our measurement focused on impressions and new account creates,” he said. Creative Samples #4 and #5 show the control and treatment for one of those tests.

Creative Sample #4: Control (original) paid search ad for conference call service

 

FreeConferenceCall.com | Official Site| Free Conferencing For All

The only conferencing service that is truly 100% free and not just a free trial. No credit card required. FreeConferenceCall.com has been totally free for 20 years.

 

Creative Sample #5: Treatment (new) paid search ad for conference call service

 

FreeConferenceCall.com | Official Site| Do Good With Your Calls

The only conferencing service that is truly 100% free and not just a free trial. No credit card required. Help nonprofits, students & local businesses access free conferencing by choosing us.

 

“We were very pleased with the outcomes. In search we saw 14 to 36 percent more account creates when using ‘do some good’ copy. In conversion funnel testing, we saw a seven percent increase when we focused copy on how our site visitors could help others. To us it shows that people want to do good, people want to help, and testing that message has helped us bring many more people into the FreeConferenceCall.com community,” Swain said.

Quick Case Study #3: Retailer’s public relations campaign increases affiliate revenue 483%

The team at MenKind wanted to come up with a topical Father’s Day campaign that would raise awareness of the brand as being close to dads and generate organic visibility to improve organic keyword rankings around its Father’s Day product range.

“Father’s Day is a key event for us at MenKind, and last year, like many e-commerce retailers, we were faced with increased competition in the midst of the pandemic, especially as physical shops were closed. We wanted to launch a seasonal PR (public relations) campaign but knew that simply raising awareness of the brand wouldn’t cut it for us, and we needed to boost online sales in the short term to justify our investment,” said Fred Prego, Director of Marketing, MenKind.

To focus on connecting with the target audience rather than simply push products, the team devised a content marketing campaign about the “Lockdown Dad.” A survey of 2,000+ fathers was carried out to reveal what they had been up to in the weeks since the United Kingdom (UK) was placed under lockdown – including home-schooling kids and bonding over activities like gardening, do-it-yourself (DIY), cooking, gaming, etc. The goal was to surface behaviors in line with product categories to create relevancy.

The result was a data-led blog post illustrating behavior, learnings, joys, and difficulties of father-child relationships in lockdown. The blog post was sent to press and relevant websites with a news release and additional assets such as images, data, visualizations of the data, and quotes.

Creative Sample #6: Data visualization from the results of retailer survey of lockdown behavior by fathers

Part two of the overall campaign used PR not only to generate mentions and links (impacting organic rankings, traffic, and ultimately, revenue) but also to target top-tier publications that were driving affiliate traffic (and revenue) to the retailer’s website to boost immediate revenue.

The idea was that instead of focusing on links and organic rankings alone (which drive an incremental revenue increase over time), the second part of the campaign would focus on top-tier product placement that would immediately generate revenue in time for that year’s Father’s Day shopping period.

Within the second part of the campaign, the team targeted national, regional, magazine, and other relevant outlets that took part in affiliate programs with information about Father’s Day products (product info, images, price points, etc.). “PR was product led and targeted at media outlets that were part of the AWIN [affiliate] network, so the traffic conversion drove direct sales for the client,” said Bogdan Marinescu, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Digital Trails (MenKind’s agency).

The aim was to be included in as many gift guides and product roundups as possible ahead of Father’s Day, knowing that these outlets would have affiliation agreements with MenKind, therefore sending referral traffic to the ecommerce pages.

“We had done traditional PR before and we were already running an affiliate program, so we were happy to test this approach, which practically blended the two,” Prego said.

Focusing efforts on product PR generated brand mentions that automatically include affiliate links, with a positive impact on immediate revenue generation. “We landed over 163 links as a result of media coverage, we were featured across all of the top media in the UK, and saw an immediate bump in affiliate revenue, within the space of four weeks – 483.05% from campaign placements alone, compared to the previous year,” Prego said.

Related Resources

Live Streaming Session: The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer – Join Flint McGlaughlin, CEO, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute on Thursday, November 18th at 1 p.m. EDT (replay is available immediately after the live session at the same link).

A Deep Elemental Force: What (truly) is marketing?

Marketing Campaigns: Dig deep to replicate your successes (and learn from your failures) with marketing and sales enablement case studies

Become a master at creating and optimizing high-converting web pages – The course is fully underwritten by MECLABS Institute, with no monetary cost to participants