Jay McKeever only started at Texas-based Seconds and Surplus as a graphic web designer a month ago, but he’s fairly confident that he started off on the right foot.
After all, he doubled the number of fans on the company’s Facebook Page in a week… and happened to earn the store $33,000 in the process.
“Yeah, I’ve looked pretty good so far,” he laughs.
His secret?
It all started with a webinar.
From 150,000 fans to 150
Jay helped manage the Facebook Page for his previous employer, too, but that happened to be a little easier. Anything is easier on Facebook when you have 150,000 fans to spread the word.
“It was a bit of a transition, to come to Seconds And Surplus, since we had about 150 fans,” he says.
Jay knew that he wanted to rethink the Facebook Page, but wasn’t sure how. That’s when he heard about a webinar that covered both Facebook Ads and Social Campaigns. After watching the webinar live, he decided to try the tools out himself.
Jay launched a free trial of Social Campaigns and then spent around $50 on Facebook Ads to get Seconds And Surplus on people’s radars.
Quality over quantity
Very quickly, Jay realized that the company’s relatively small number of Facebook fans was secondary to what those fans thought of the stores.
“The thing about having fewer fans is that more people actually shop and live in the area,” he says. “What my campaign taught me was that it doesn’t matter how many fans you have, it’s what kind of fans you have.”
The Reveal Page of the Seconds & Surplus Social Campaign.
But what about ROI?
When it comes to return on investment, it’s notoriously difficult to get any concrete statistics from Facebook.
That’s why Jay and the team at Seconds And Surplus made sure that every coupon from Social Campaigns was marked with a special code. Every time one was redeemed in a store, they added it to a single list and, in the first week, came up with this sheet:
The campaign, which was launched on Friday, May 4th, performed the strongest over the initial weekend – earning nearly $7,000 – and then fans continued to show up at different stores throughout the week.
Measuring it all out
In addition to the $12,000 in revenue in about one week, Seconds and Surplus now has around 400 fans. Overall, Jay estimates that the first week’s revenue was about equal to the amount that the stores receive when a newspaper ad goes out into the local newspapers, like The Dallas Morning News or Fortworth Star Telegram.
“The real difference is that this cost $50 and those print ads cost a lot more than that,” he says. “Fifty bucks for $12,000 isn’t a bad deal.”
There were other things working in Jay’s favor, too.
“Seconds and Surplus already had a super good contact list, because most of our customers know that we have high-end stuff and good prices. An email I sent out about the campaign really helped.”
Wholesale supplies help, too. “Customers can come in and spend about $1,000 here,” Jay explains. That’s in part why the Facebook coupon was so popular: if you went to Seconds and Surplus to buy $1,000 worth of building supplies, the coupon saved you $100.
He adds that Seconds and Surplus is already looking into other possibilities for future social campaigns. It may not be a surprise, but Jay says that he’s got a bit more of a budget for social media now.
In fact, Jay followed up with me at the end of the campaign, too. Seconds And Surplus hosted the offer from May 4th to May 20th and sales didn’t slow down.
By the end of the campaign, 37 coupons had been redeemed for almost $33,000 in total revenue:
Another social campaign makes a five-figure profit?
Seconds and Surplus is the fourth business to make $10,000 or more through Social Campaigns in a very brief amount of time.
- In Las Vegas… Italian pottery importer BellaSoleil.com made $10,000
- In New York… BookBinders Workshop made $15,000
- In Minneapolis… manufacturer Torpedo Bags made over $10,000
These are impressive numbers, especially given that all of these businesses had 100 or fewer fans when they initially launched their campaigns.
What they all have in common
The thing that I’ve noticed about these four businesses is that all of them had existing email lists that greatly helped spread the word about the deal on their Facebook Page.
Three offered a coupon in their Social Campaigns. Bookbinders Workshop offered a free hardcover book about bookbinding to any customer who spent $300 or more.
The real reason behind these sums is that most of these stores’ customers spend at least a few hundred dollars. So, if ten Facebook fans decide to redeem a coupon, that’s enough to put profit past the five-figure mark.
What any business can learn is that it’s critical to notify an email list that there’s a great deal waiting for them on your Facebook Page.
If you don’t have a big list – or don’t have a list at all – it may be time to think about Facebook Ads. As the webinar Jay saw explains, Facebook Ads get the word out about your Page and Social Campaigns drives that revenue.
We’re not guaranteeing $10,000, but we wouldn’t be that surprised, either. After all, you wouldn’t be the first!
Want to try Social Campaigns for your own Facebook Page? Get started here!
