Brief
Get SMEs to sign up to Google maps. Which meant develop the mother of all media strategies to drive new users to Local Business Centre in the US, UK and France . Not forgetting the client had identified 2% of SMEs as a minimum target.
Insight
White unicorns can be easier to find than SMEs online. Many SME owners don't spend a great deal of time online. To make life even harder, we were only after those that have a physical retail presence (after all, this is all about maps) and are not part of a larger chain or group. All in all, it was clear to us that this niche audience would be impossible to reach cost-effectively through run-of-the-mail display. We'd have to start elsewhere.
Solutions
We began by identifying the verticals first. Sites offering business advice.Wholesalers. Retail property websites. Job boards. Social and Professional networks. The kind of places that would have a lot of b2b traffic. Then we included those ad networks that had the technology to identify SMEs from among their traffic. Finally, we went old school with an email campaign. Email is still a powerful tool in b2b SME circles and we made full use of it in the US, UK and France.
Flexibility was built into all media plans, as testing was critical throughout the two and half months the campaign was active. Every week the results were analysed and the results optimised by aggressively adjusting the media plan away from those areas that were lagging behind in terms of CPA. We optimised further still around Christmas, changing our messaging to suit the season. It was a campaign both big and smart. And more effective than we could ever have imagined.
Results
CPA reached 30% below target after weeks of testing and optimisation. The client is hugely pleased. Not surprisingly, so are we.
