In recent years, social media has become an elementary component of marketing activities and is an integral part of the marketing mix. If you want to score twice as a brand, you don’t just play out your communication centrally but also through the channels of your retail partners. These act as authentic mouthpieces in the respective environment and transport the brand message to the end customer in a targeted manner. Dirk Schmidinger from Samsonite also knows this. Here is his account on his successful socialPALS test!
Dirk Schmidinger
General Manager | Samsonite Germany
Samsonite is brand new to socialPals! Since July of this year, you have been utilizing socialPALS to provide your retail partners with high-quality campaign content. What made you decide to try out this form of automated retail marketing?
It was a case of classic word-of-mouth! We had heard very positive feedback from some retailers who were already using socialPALS, and we asked ourselves whether Samsonite might not also have a presence there. We then decided to test it first as part of our Proxis campaign, which yielded good results – and now we will be working together on a longer-term basis.
What was the goal of the "PROXIS" campaign, and how much internal effort did you need to invest in marketing to get it off the ground? Did the platform save you time and reduce your workload compared to "classic" retail marketing?
For us, it’s not about replacing “classic” retail marketing but instead expanding it and developing new components. We already work a lot with social media at the central brand level, but a connection to retailers and their own social media activities has not existed until now.
We always have quite a lot of marketing material, great videos, and motifs. The trick is to use them correctly and make them available to retailers so they can work well with them. For this, we are happy to accept a little extra effort, for example, to create the landing page or the campaign information.
How difficult was it to motivate your retail partners to participate? Is the "online marketing" module accepted as an integration into the sales concept?
As a matter of fact, we were very positively surprised that we managed to attract so many retail partners to participate so quickly. 53 got onboard within a very short time!
Participation in a socialPALS campaign and thus the playout of the turnkey content calendar is confirmed by each retail partner after one-time registration via 1-Click. Were there also retailers: inside who took a closer look at the platform and, for example, planned (additional) postings or advertising budget themselves?
Yes, and that made us very happy! Many dealers have set a small budget in addition to our provided budget. Many had adopted the proposed content calendar from us as it was, but almost half also planned manually. That shows individual commitment, and that’s great!
Was the campaign successful? What factors do you use to measure success? Were there any valuable takeaways from this test run - for example, which channels or formats are best suited to the advertised product?
We (the Samsonite brand and all retailers) could play out 2.6 million impressions with the test project and reach over 1.7 million people. We thought that was quite remarkable for a launch!
How can socialPALS as a retail marketing platform support you in achieving (even better) digitalization in retail marketing?
We are digitizing our communication channels and services to retailers in various ways – from our “support & go” service portal to the online ordering system. Of course, this also affects the marketing area. Social media has become an elementary part of our activities in recent years. Of course, it’s exciting to play this out not only through the brand but also together with retailers.
Are you already planning more campaigns to support your retail partners?
Yes! Our business campaign, “Expect one for you”, will be launched in the next few days via socialPALS. We have prepared a lot of fantastic motifs and videos with different styles for both men and women. This way, retailers can select their own preferred focus. Autumn and the pre-Christmas period are classically Robust months for the business range, and we definitely have something for every taste and style on offer!
From the mouths of retailers:
For me, the platform’s advantages lie in the simple and targeted planning of social media campaigns and the uncomplicated provision of the (right) content for the respective products. For the suppliers, this brings a high reach and consolidated approach to the dealers – and thus to the end customers. I particularly liked the PROXIS campaign’s excellent variety of individual videos and contributions. They set unique impulses and gave SAMSONITE’s suitcase series a super online presence. In addition, socialPAL’s support with quick feedback on questions is to be praised.
Lederwaren Ludwig GmbH, Trier
Dominik Niedenführ
Act today and use your MDF more effectively!
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