Filling Rooms with Facebook Fans – Inbound Marketing Case Study
Andrew Gough, February 1, 2012 in Case studies, Facebook Articles, Featured
Before running its month-long Facebook campaign in November, Estonian hotelier Unique Hotels had around 400 fans. If it were to place one fan in every room in its portfolio, it would fill all four of its hotels twice over, not bad. However, by the end of the campaign, it had received more than 12,300 ‘likes’ – that’s enough social networking users to fill the same four hotels 60 times over. Much better
This is no fluke or once-only viral phenomenon. Just good, solid Inbound Marketing, and as with any winning formula, it can work for you too. Read on…
What you missed in Part 1
We covered a lot of ground in Part 1 and gave you some great figures for the campaign, so do check out Unique Hotels Case Study Part 1. However, here’s a quick recap of the first two weeks:
- Facebook ‘Likes’ rose from 414 to 7,199, exceeding the target of 5,000 in the first week and averaging 485 new fans a day.
- 1,552 new stories were created about the campaign on the first day. Two weeks later and the figure was 12,749.
- The campaign’s extended reach (friends of fans) went from 68,763 to 532,698.
- Sponsored Stories and Facebook Ads were registering 144,684 impressions at the beginning of the campaign. By Day 14, this figure was more than 10 million.
- By the end of the first two weeks, associated content had registered a total of 11 million impressions across Facebook.
The background again (in brief)
- Unique Hotels needed a way to increase its brand visibility while promoting its four properties (von Stackelberg Hotel Tallinn, Kreutzwald Hotel Tallinn, City Hotel Tallinn and Vihula Manor Country Club & Spa) and restaurants to both the Estonian and international markets.
- To do this in a way that would engage and encourage interaction with existing and potential customers, establish a large fan community and direct visitors to traditional online sales channels, we devised a month-long Facebook campaign with weekly prizes and a €2,000 Grand Prize package.
- To enter the prize draw, Facebook users had to ‘Like’ the Unique Hotels Estonia page and choose a character. Then, we offered increased chances of winning by sharing badges and signing up to a newsletter – giving us a mailing list for future campaigns.
Final figures
The figures below show Facebook metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the entire campaign, including the first two weeks. The campaign ran from November the 14th until December the 14th 2011.
Facebook Insights
- Over the duration of the campaign, Unique Hotel’s fan base went from 414 to 12,349.
- User engagement (any clicks on any stories) went from 2,108 to 30,944, an increase of roughly 1,500%.
- By the end of the campaign, campaign related content had received a total of 22.5 million impressions, up from just 190,000 at the outset.
Referral traffic
- Traffic to all of Unique Hotels’ websites for November and December was 115% that of the previous two month’s figures (September and October).
- Uniquestay.com, Unique Hotel’s main website, saw a 40% increase in traffic in November compared to the previous month.
- Facebook referrals to all Unique Hotels websites for November/December (campaign months) jumped 207% compared to September/October.
Newsletter subscriptions
- The Unique Hotels mailing list went from 600 subscribers at the beginning of the campaign, to approximately 3,000 Estonian, English and Russian subscribers.
So what does it all mean for the future?
At the outset we had a target of 5,000 new Facebook fans for the whole month-long campaign, a figure that was surpassed in the first week. By this metric alone, the campaign was judged a success.
However, the true value for Unique Hotels is in the mailing list, and an enormous new fan base consisting of individuals who had expressed an interest in its hotels, products and services.
A mailing list 500 times larger than it was at the outset, gives Unique Hotels a powerful new marketing tool to use for email marketing and lead nurturing. The most obvious practical application is to send out news of special offers and upcoming campaigns.
The newsletter list also shows important demographics, such as location and language, allowing Unique Hotels to send out targeted communications. This will prove invaluable when targeting customers from underperforming source markets.
Gimme gimme gimme!
Versio2 designed a custom-built Facebook App so that it could easily be adapted for other clients. So get in touch with Versio2 for a consultation and find out how we can run a successful Facebook campaign that will help you to increase your online brand visibility, get new leads and generate sales, just like Unique Hotels.
