Clairemont Communications has extensive experience in furniture public relations and building strategic PR plans for home decor brands, interior designers and furniture manufacturers. As our team celebrates our 5th anniversary, we are revisiting some of our most favorite projects since launching in 2010. Here’s one:

Client: Thomasville Furniture 

Background: Thomasville Furniture, established in 1904 and a leading name in home furnishings, was confronted by the challenges of economic downturn. Faced with a reduced marketing, advertising and media relations budget, Thomasville turned to Clairemont Communications for help. After evaluating social media networks and confirming Facebook’s significant potential as a customer engagement channel for the company, we assumed management of the company’s Facebook page in July 2010.

Objectives: Clairemont met the client’s request to build brand awareness during Thomasville’s annual Memorial Day Sale by conceptualizing the Ready to Refresh $10,000 Giveaway. Our objectives included the following:

• Leverage giveaway to build brand and sale awareness by increasing Facebook fan count by 10,000 likes during the promotional period.
• Spread the story of Thomasville Furniture and its Memorial Day Sale via Facebook, creating at least one million total daily impressions and a total daily reach of 300,000 users.
• Capture 75,000 giveaway entries as consumer leads for Memorial Day Sale and future sale marketing.

Method: Seeking a major fan increase as part of a larger strategy to build a younger customer base, this six-week-long promotion that was integrated with other online and offline tactics to maximize engagement. Clairemont built and managed a customer application to host the giveaway using the social engagement platform Shoutlet. Working with the Shoutlet team and a graphic designer, we conceptualized and directed the creation of a custom graphics for the giveaway, incorporating the designs into the application, optimized for desktop and mobile use. To facilitate our objective of leveraging the giveaway to increase page likes, impressions and reach, we built a sharing component into the giveaway application, so that fans could earn extra entries.

Creativity: To emphasize the affordability of Thomasville Furniture, Clairemont shared beautiful photography – which was also featured in the Memorial Day Sale catalog – showcasing rooms decorated with Thomasville Furniture for $10,000 or less. Additionally, we created and shared collage boards showing fans assortments of products totaling $10,000. With these two tactics, Clairemont sough to help fans visualize the amount of stylish furniture available at Thomasville within the $10,000 price range.

To engage users on the page, we also created ten word graphics, such as “Imagine what $10,000 will do to refresh your home,” and “Keep calm and redecorate,” which prompted conversation on the page. Custom-designed cover photos promoting the giveaway were updated bi-weekly to keep page content fresh. Lastly, coordinated marketing efforts separate from Facebook promoted the giveaway through regular email blasts, on Thomasville.com and in the Memorial Day catalog.

Evaluation:

1. Leverage giveaway to build brand and sale awareness by increasing Facebook fan count by 10,000 likes.

• During the duration of the giveaway, Thomasville’s Facebook fan count increased by nearly 11,000 likes, exceeding our original goal of 10,000.

2. Spread the story of Thomasville Furniture and its Memorial Day Sale via Facebook, creating at least one million total daily impressions and a total daily reach of 300,000 users.

• The giveaway successfully increased key metrics on Facebook, allowing us to exceed our original objectives with more than one million total daily impressions and a total daily reach of approximately 500,000. Strategic postings and captivating content successfully increased the page’s engagement, with nearly 25,000 more daily engaged users throughout the six-week-long promotion than the weeks prior to the giveaway.

3. Capture 75,000 giveaway entries as consumer leads for Memorial Day Sale and future sale marketing.

• Additionally, with more than 134,000 entries, the giveaway successfully captured more than 100,000 new consumer leads for Thomasville, surpassing our goal of 75,000 new leads.

As we look back at this work from just a few years ago, we realize how much has changed on how Facebook can be used for promotional purposes. Have you found the same to be true? Do you long for the old Facebook that had seemingly less rules?