No matter what you’re selling or what age group you’re targeting, your brand success ultimately depends upon a strong and engaging digital profile. But it’s worth pointing out that not all social media platforms are created equal.
At this point, it goes without saying that your business needs to have some sort of presence on Facebook or Twitter. Other sites like LinkedIn and Instagram are being pushed further and further into the mainstream every single day. But sometimes it pays to swim against the tide in order to reach more customers – and right now, Snapchat is one of the best places to do it.
Snapchat might not boast the colossal following Facebook has got, but it’s a hugely popular mobile app that sees over a billion messages, photos and videos shared every day. The primary appeal of Snapchat is that messages are designed to disappear permanently a few seconds after they’ve been read. Teens and early twenty-somethings love the sense of privacy and playfulness that comes hand-in-hand with that design – which is why it’s built a huge following over the last couple of years.
And while that might not sound like an app that would be able to help fuel your marketing efforts, you’d be surprised how many different ways you can utilise Snapchat in order to expand your brand profile.
Not only will your company appear more culturally relevant by hopping on the Snapchat bandwagon and embracing this young app, but the extremely limited shelf-life of each marketable message ensures that your calls to action are filled with plenty of organic urgency and excitement.
To help get you started, here are three ways your company can generate new sales leads through Snapchat:
1. Dish out coupons
Every business is familiar with the ages-old tradition of encouraging sales through loss leaders. Two-for-one offers or special discounts are a fantastic way to drive sales figures; however, one of the biggest hurdles small business face when attempting to implement a successful loss leader strategy is distribution. Using Snapchat, your brand can deliver limited-edition offers of discounts to millions of users in just a few seconds. But how?
For guidance, look to frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles. Repeat custom at the chain has skyrocketed ever since it started rewarding Snapchat users for eating their frozen yogurt. Any Snapchat user that sends a photo to the company of their friends enjoying 16 Handles is then sent a special discount coupon code they can redeem at any 16 Handles location. Within days of launching the offer, the chain had been inundated with 1,400 user images. Not only did the exercise help to bring a lot of users and their friends into 16 Handles, but it also provided the company with invaluable marketing leads.
2. Give something away
If there’s anything young people love more than a special discount, it’s a free giveaway. Consequently, advertising giveaways through Snapchat is a brilliant way to increase your brand profile and generate new leads. It could be something as simple as a free product sample – or something highly coveted like free concert tickets. Either way, you can’t lose.
Contests are also a great way to consolidate your following on other social media sites. For example, if you plan to run a giveaway contest on Snapchat, be sure to mention it to your Facebook and Twitter followers. That way, they’ll be forced to connect with you on Snapchat, too – and you’ll now be able to reach them through multiple social media platforms.
3. Hand out exclusive access
Most of your customers will never get a chance to see how your products are made – but there are probably quite a few who would actually be extremely interested to get a behind the scenes look. And while it wouldn’t be practical to give every other customer a grand tour of your workshop, Snapchat enables you to provide that exclusive access to millions of users from across the globe.
Thanks to Snapchat’s new Stories feature, you’re able to post a collage of images that will instil users with a sense of private knowledge. Stories also enables you to post short videos, which are far more effective than still images in capturing user attention. That gift of knowledge, however quaint, will go a long way towards establishing genuine connections of brand loyalty.
Just like any other aesthetically-based social media platform, building up an engaging Snapchat presence will take a lot of time and energy. You won’t be able to generate a huge ROI overnight, and you’ve always got to come up with new and interesting ways to attract and retain followers. But do yourself a favour, and stick with it. Snapchat is one of the easiest ways to market your products to young people – and if you want your brand to maintain any cultural relevance whatsoever, that should be priority number one.
