Transactional connection

 

Cover Image (https://www.briscoes.co.nz/)

Transactional Links

The buyer persona is a 32 year old female, ‘Hayley’. She is creative and artistic, likes to keep up with the trends and be seen as an expert on looking good. She is a mobile and laptop user predominately, with a medium to high use of social media accounts. Keeping these attributes in mind, we should consider where she will spend her time online and choose digital platforms to suit. Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest have been chosen over other platforms as these three have the highest users in Hayley’s demographic group.

Instagram

Instagram’s largest viewing audience as at October 2020 is in the 25-34 years old age group, with 33.1% of its audience in this age range. Statistics also show that 60% of this audience also log into their Instagram account more than once a day on average.(Sehl, 2021) Instagram offers, along with static image and video posts:

• a ‘Stories’ feature – where posts are shown for 24 hours
• ITV -Instagram TV & ‘Reels’ for video content
• Shopping services where business can list products. 

Instagram also provides advertising services across the platform for businesses to target specific or general audiences.

Facebook

Facebook is still one of the largest and most used social media platforms with 2.7 billion active monthly users. Of these, the largest age group using the platform is from 25-34 years of age with 13.1% of the Facebook audience 25-34 year old females. (Barnhart, 2021) (Figure 1) Content on Facebook can not only be shared via the users profile posts, but using other internal applications such as:

• ‘Stories’  -a visual post live for 24 hours
• Facebook ‘Live’ – a real time video stream with the ability to answer questions from viewers
• ‘Store’ services, where users and businesses can create Facebook Shops to promote products and services 
• ‘Facebook Ads’ – where content can be targeted to an audience at a cost.

Figure 1 - Facebooks Share of active users

Pinterest

With a smaller user base of only 400+ million users, Pinterest has an audience of 78% Females with it’s largest age group being 30-49 years old. (Barnhart, 2021) Pinterest also has the benefit that users can curate their own content for future reference as well as having some attributes of social media. Ror example, messaging, creating groups and a paid content feature to promote products and services.

Persona / Content / Buyers journey

At the awareness stage of the buyer journey, Hayley’s interest could be enticed with images of rooms showcasing products and trend ideas. (Figure 2) This would satisfy her goals and needs for ideas, searching for current trends and the ability to browse online. Content can be created and posted to both Instagram and Facebook, and also shared from a sources such as Pinterest. Showing images of rooms staged with Briscoes-like products would support the first marketing objective of increasing soft furnishing sales through a brand awareness social media campaign.

Figure 2 - Briscoes product on Pinterest

Moving through the funnel to the consideration stage, content on all three platforms can be used to highlight Briscoes products. Images, articles, videos can all be used to compare products, give the persona information about features and benefits, pros and cons of products or competitors' products. Customer reviews and endorsements can be shared, questions answered via FAQ information or for Facebook and Instagram ‘Live’ sessions. These types of posts will meet Hayley’s goals around buying from a trusted brand and transparent information. 

Pinterest would be a great space for Hayley to browse trends, get ideas, compare products or create a wish list to save for future reference. Marketing objective three focuses on increasing the Social media following via a story telling campaign, which links into building relationships and brand trust. These will support and encourage consumers who are at the consideration stage in the buyers funnel.

To encourage Hayley to make a decision, the aim will be to create or share content that highlights the ease of purchasing, with clear delivery timeframes and costs along with discounts and offers. Tying  in with the second marketing objective of increasing the consumer spend per shopping transaction, offers such as buy one get one half price, or 'other customers have also purchased XXX with this item' to incentivise an increased spend. Content could also include earned media in the form of customer feedback shared on Facebook or a Successful ‘tried this pin’ from Pinterest to help convert a sale.

Second hand research of competitors

Further to the buyer persona investigation of the Briscoes audiences on their Facebook and Instagram accounts, research and analysis of The Warehouse, Adairs NZ and Farmers NZ, returned similar demographic information.

All four companies had large female audiences in the 25-44 age range. (See Figures 3,4,5) Searches were conducted on the competitors' companies and also generically on Homeware / Home décor / Home improvement (Figure 6) and returned similar results.  The research only shows broad and limited information and so assumptions must be made about target audiences.

Figure 3 - Adairs NZ Audience research Facebook & Instagram

Figure 4 - Farmers Trading Co Audience research Facebook & Instagram

Figure 5 - The Warehouse Audience research Facebook & Instagram

Figure 6 - Homeware / Home décor / Home improvement Audience research Facebook & Instagram 

Individual investigation of the users and engaged audiences of each competitor’s social media accounts for the demographic group also return similar results to those investigated in the ‘Decision Stage’ blog.

(See Figures 7,8)

Figure 7 - Competitor Instagram profiles

Figure 8 - Competitor Facebook Profiles

References

Barnhart, B. (2021, March 9). Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2021. 

Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/

Sehl, K. (2021, January 27). Instagram Demographics in 2021: Important User Stats for Marketers. 

Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-        demographics/

Sehl, K. (2021, March 25). 23 Pinterest Statistics That Matter to Marketers in 2021. Social Media     Marketing & Management Dashboard. https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/

Images

Figure 1 – Facebooks share of active users (Barnhart, 2021)

Figure 2 – Briscoes product on Pinterest (Pinterest, 2021)

Figure 3 Adairs NZ  Audience Research (Facebook Business, 2021)

Figure 4 – Farmers Trading Co audience research (Facebook Business, 2021)

Figure 5 The Warehouse audience research (Facebook Business, 2021)

Figure 6 - Homeware / Home décor / Home improvement Audience (Facebook Business, 2021)

Figure 7 – Competitor Instagram profiles (Instagram, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c)

Figure 8 – Competitor Facebook profiles (Facebook, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c)

 

Image references

Barnhart, B. (2021, March 9). Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2021.     Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/

Facebook. (2021a). Adairs NZ | Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/adairsnz

Facebook. (2021b). Farmers | Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/FarmersNZ

Facebook. (2021c). The Warehouse | Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/TheWarehouseNZ

Facebook Business. (2021). Facebook Business Suite.     https://business.facebook.com/latest/insights/people?    asset_id=572866482773358&business_id=249724716296393

Instagram. (2021a). Adairs (@adairs) • Instagram photos and videos.     https://www.instagram.com/adairs/

Instagram. (2021b). Farmers (@farmersnz) • Instagram photos and videos.     https://www.instagram.com/farmersnz/

Instagram. (2021c). The Warehouse (@thewarehousenz) • Instagram photos and videos.     https://www.instagram.com/thewarehousenz/

Pinterest. (2021). Pinterest—Brsicoes Product search. Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.nz/