Social media test

"You've got to have it, or people don't think you're real!"

"Your website hasn't been updated in the past 3mths - you may as well be dead!"

"How many likes have you got? Do you boost your facebook posts? Are you tweeting hourly or daily?

Email & Facebook are just sooo like yesterday!

I remember the Moran management meetings where the print marketing budget was always in the cross hairs of the Finance team. "Why can't you correlate that expenditure to sales revenue?" It cannot be proven therefore it is a waste of money was the all too frequent argument.

But at least there were beautifully shot, glossy magazines strewn across the

When we started destination3000 5yrs ago, I thought that by emulating the presence of my key competitors it would more speedily anchor our credibility and drive sales through the door. Get into their space, even though I'd taken a completely opposite approach when selecting physical location. And this wasn't done by half measure : we hemorrhaged money.

Print advertisements in Belle, ABC Delicious, Inside Out,Qantas in flight mag, The Age, Melbourne Weekly, Luxury Homes, Gourmet Traveler, House & Garden, Financial Review &Real Living. Then month long radio ads on Gold 104, 3AW. Then more secular focused in Jewish News, MCV (gay press), Chinese Daily, Teachers Union & Police Union. Oh, and don't forget our venture into the dark arts of website SEO and adwords. And a stand at DesignEx. All in 18mths!

Did the nearest Ferrari dealership have a standing appointment to see me following this campaign, given all of the amazing sales our ads were going to generate? Well, no. Our ads were predominantly brand building, awareness oriented; for dealing with a new business and unknown brands 'call to action' simply doesn't work. Hindsight, just amazing ;)

Am I saying the advertising was a failure? No, it put the business and it's brands into the 'ether'. Got us 'out there'. Nothing more, nothing less. Is this measurable? Yes in terms of readership circulation and radio listeners?

Ok, that is wonderful but how does being 'in the ether' pay the bills?

How many readers/listeners actual paid attention, were the right target market and the timing was right for them to grab the car keys and come into the store?

The honest answer, having spent in excess of AUD$300,000 on the combined campaigns, we only found six groups came into the store and of that only two converted to sales of roughly $10,000.

Not a great ROI.

So what now for our advertising focus? Well, apart from our 58m of shopfront facing an estimated 150,000 passing cars each day, plus trams, trains and foot traffic, we've decided focus on our social media. End consumers are looking for something different and loads of ideas, be it for Christmas gifts, handbags or sofas are inspired by images found online.

84% of our website traffic is from an i-Phone. Our online store has had more 1.2million views in 6mths.

Destination3000's Harry Strouzas has created, from scratch, a social media presence which is extraordinary. His design skills coupled with a powerful intellect have delivered an outcome which puts us in the social media ether we believe prospect customers will be searching.

Will this energy, passion, skill and cost correlate to measurable sales returns?

Probably not.

But do the world's biggest advertisers have the capacity to pinpoint exactly the specific brand building/awareness spend that resulted in that specific $2 cold can or $5 burger being purchased? I don't think so.

Philosophically yours on a Saturday afternoon in sunny Melbourne

Andrew

PS - check out our website (www.destination3000.com.au) and click thru to our social media platforms to see just what Harry has achieved; clearly I think pretty amazing!