A case study on how effective a strong social media strategy has worked for Castle Minibus Ltd.
The initial social media proposal:
Social media management
Optimisation of current social media platforms
Research and implementation of social media content
Blog content
Set up and management of new social media platforms for a company app, The School Transport Manager (STM)
Background ‘profile’ for assumed character to front the campaign – Stan the Man
Creation and optimisation of social media platforms
Research and implementation of social media content
Blog content
Set up and management of new social media platforms for the Cars for Teachers service
A purely promotional Facebook page, supported by Twitter to push car deals on offer and existing content, relevant to teachers.
Adapting strategies
Social media adapts to the changing needs of the business and the key messages. It is therefore pivotal to be able to identify those changes and react accordingly.
Alongside the main company social media platforms, Push Start Marketing created accounts to share updates regarding a mobile app that simplifies the management of school transport and improves compliance to regulations.
Despite the popularity of the app, regular reporting and analyses identified that this specific social content failed to gain traction and so the dedicated social media accounts were closed, and the content was shared on the main accounts when appropriate.
Targeted Facebook advertising
Our next adaptation to the social strategy was to instigate a campaign directed at teachers on social media… However, teachers don’t often reveal their occupation or even names on social media to protect their profession, so we had to find them:
We created highly valuable video content that only a teacher would be interested in viewing for more than a few seconds
Use of existing company social media platforms to share the videos
Targeted Facebook advertising, directed at those who viewed the video, with a sales message focussed on teacher specific minibus training
Re-focussed the company PPC strategies in line with the marketing goal.
Analysing effectiveness
Social media engagement rose in line with the advertising campaign, as expected. Our client was also able to confirm that they had an increased interest in their teacher specific training. The website data backs this up.
This capture compares website search data from 2016 to the same period 2019, following the implementation of our strategy.
Compared to the previous year, Push Start Marketing’s strategies produced an increase in:
Organic search
Paid for searches
Direct search
Social media referrals
Average time spent on a website page.
You will also notice the reduction in the number of pages visited per session, which is indicative of our visitors being directed to the right place, with a clear intention.
Overall, the re-focus of PPC actually saved the client money whilst providing valuable prospects, and the social media positioned the company as champions of safety for school minibus drivers, and specialists in minibus driver training.
Social media is a generally free-to-use marketing tool, advertising is relatively inexpensive, but with strong strategies and a clear focus, can produce strong leads.
Chris Maynard, MD of Castle Minibus said, ‘The team at Push Start Marketing are stars! I love the way they think around problems like not being able to identify teachers on social media, and the content they create and share on social is highly valuable to us and useful to our customers.’