In the following interview, Frank Heinrichsen reports on the use of the socialPALS platform and the associated opportunities for his dealers.
Frank Heinrichsen
Head of Marketing | HYMER
Interview with Frank Heinrichsen from HYMER
Frank, please tell us briefly about your trade marketing goals. What were these specifically for the new model campaign?
As a premium brand, we support our dealers in all ways and on all channels when it comes to communication. We maintain a close relationship with our partners and keep up to date with what’s going on at the POS. We also ensure that our brand is presented and communicated adequately and consistently. In this way, we not only want to present our new models to a broad target group, but also ensure that our brand and products are presented in an appealing and high-quality manner.
Do you already use tools to support retailers in their digital communication – if so, which ones?
We already use platforms and offers to provide relevant materials. The socialPALS offer perfectly expands our service for the trade in the area of social media.
Why is the use of the socialPALS platform additionally interesting for you?
Our goal is to make end-customer communication as simple and efficient as possible for our retail partners. This creates space for their core task: sales and competent consulting. The intuitive and easy handling of the platform as well as the excellent support of socialPALS helps us enormously to achieve this goal.
What factors do you use to measure the success of a campaign?
We believe that the interaction of several factors makes sense. In addition to quantitative figures such as reach or link clicks, these also include qualitative aspects such as feedback from our retail partners and the external impact of the posts. The campaign with the widest reach is of no use if it is not well received by retailers and customers. Of course, this applies just as well the other way around.
Did the “corona crisis” negatively impact the performance or execution of the campaign?
The original start of the campaign coincided with the Corona-related closure of the trading floors. As a result, we had to reschedule at short notice and postpone the campaign by almost six weeks. The socialPALS team was very flexible and the postponement was not a problem. The campaign itself was not negatively affected by the Corona crisis, it was quite the opposite. Because large trade fairs and events could not take place, it was important for us to nevertheless bring customers and retailers into direct contact.
How much time did it take you internally to set up and implement the campaign?
As this was the initial campaign, of course we had to invest a lot of time and effort in the team. However, in retrospect, our cost-benefit analysis is very positive and the step was definitely worth it from our point of view. In addition, the socialPALS team takes care of many of the time-intensive issues directly, such as merchant onboarding. For follow-up campaigns, we expect even greater efficiency based on the experience gained.
How difficult was it to motivate the dealers to participate?
Our first campaign was limited in terms of the number of participants. We first wanted to test acceptance and the general campaign process. Spots for participants were advertised and interested retail partners were found quickly.
What’s next for HYMER and socialPALS? Are there already plans for further campaigns?
We are in the starting blocks again. This time with no limit on participants and with new exciting content on our HYMER motorhomes, camper vans and ERIBA caravans. The journey can continue.
What did your retailers think of the campaign and socialPALS?
The feedback from retailers was very positive across the board. Topics that are important to us, such as ease of use, the high-quality external impact of the posts, and high regional reach, were mentioned with particular praise.
Thank you Frank for the interview!
This is what our dealers say
Through our vehicle supplier HYMER we got the opportunity to work with socialPals for the first time. The handling in the backend was simple and very intuitive. We were able to integrate the campaigns into our existing content plan very easily. Texts and visuals were professional, high quality and very appealing – in some cases we still made individual additions, thus making even better use of the options available to us. Our regional visibility was significantly increased. Our Questions were answered extremely quickly and at any time in a very friendly and competent manner! We are looking forward to further cooperation with socialPals!
Wohnwagen Becker
Sarah Becker / Management
