68% Increase in Bookings for Rum Razor Barbershop with a Black Friday Digital & Brand Marketing Campaign
We’d never thought about doing a Black Friday sale before, but it will be a regular feature for Rum Razor going forwards. It’s helped to make sure December will be a strong month and guarantee some bookings for January. I think for 2020, a voucher for a haircut or a beard tidy-up is clearly the push some of our customers needed to get back into the habit. Brand Ambition has turned a terrible year into a hopeful one.
The Goal
With the first UK lockdown severely impacting the Hair and Beauty Industry, many local businesses looked to pivot their services online to ensure an alternative revenue stream ahead of a second lockdown in November.
Barbers were particularly hard hit by the closures as Brits looked to maintain their haircuts at home – in fact, searches for ‘mens hair clippers’ on Google increased by 12,400% in April, while queries for ‘barber’ have seen an 18% decrease this year. .
Both full lockdown closures and Covid restrictions left local barber shops struggling to recoup costs when they were able to open.
At Brand Ambition, we saw an opportunity to help businesses raise their profile and re-engage customers through free marketing assistance. Durham-based Rum Razor Barbershop took us up on our offer to boost their online offerings around Black Friday and provide a much needed increase in revenue.
Our Strategy
After the first lockdown, Rum Razor revealed they had lost 53% of their clientele according to their online booking portal, and were looking to attract new customers and reconnect with their previous patrons during the second lockdown. As this fell over Black Friday, we realised it was the perfect time to create a campaign based on saving money and limited-time deals.
Barbershop Takings in 2020 with December Increases
The campaign involved creating bespoke gift boxes and vouchers of various sizes that were packed with discounts, key styling products and branded merchandise to entice customers over Black Friday.
The boxes were offered at different price points to appeal to all budgets and were promoted on the Rum Razor site, shared across their social media, and advertised on Facebook and Instagram.
The Results
In the week of Black Friday (23-29 November) the campaign led to a 305% increase in website visits and an 830% uplift in social media visits. This also represented a 57% increase in visits compared to those seen in the first lockdown.
Bookings for December rose by 68% during that week despite none of the offers being specifically tailored to December, By the time December came around, bookings were up 345%, while the boxes and vouchers generated revenue. This was all during a month that the barbers were unable to earn anything from their shop due to the lockdown closures.
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Website Visits
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Social Visits Increase
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Increase in Bookings
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Increase in December Revenue
Services Used in this Campaign
Marketing Strategy, Research & Analysis
To create the campaign, we first looked at the market, reviewed competitor research to understand what products might appeal to the target market and researched the customer base at Rum Razor to gain a strong understanding of his most loyal customer base.
Product Design & Development
When we understood the products that would appeal most and defined a number of price points that would benefit both customer and Rum Razor, we mocked up product images we could use on the website.
This allowed us to sell the products, without having a physical product shoot. The quality suffered a little bit, but the essence of the campaign remained.
Content Writing
We used content filled with humour for the product pages, emails and social media advertising.
this allowed us to capture the essence of Rum Razor and obtain max appeal to the local customer base, whilst also helping improve conversion rates and give us the possibility of obtaining additional social shares.
Customers commented on the amusing content within social media and even sent direct messages to express their approval.
Paid Advertising
We used a mixture of Facebook and Instagram advertising to get the campaign out quickly, within the specific local area.
We set a small budget of £100. This drove the majority of the 68% increase in bookings.
Social Media Consultancy
Rum Razor already has a strong & loyal social media following, so we simply advised on content and messaging to support the campaign.
We pretty much left Rum Razor to it as they are the experts on their customers, so the effort was collaborative and as a result, the Organic Social Media Engagement increased by 830% week on week.
Technical SEO
As well as supporting the creation of the products, we also set them up within the CMS, wrote the content and provided technical consultancy to make sure the payments were working.
As well as this, we reviewed the site for any Local SEO improvements and requested some small changes to the CMS that would help improve rankings in the future.
Can we make your next campaign a success?
If you’re a local business wondering how you can pivot your services online to boost revenue, increase brand awareness and diversify your product offerings, get in touch with our expert marketers at Brand Ambition.
