Snapchat for the businesses – A marketers guide
If you are not very familiar with what Snapchat is – it is a social network which has more than a 150 million subscribed users – here is what you definitely need to understand: a brand or a person can send videos or photos that are called snaps, to their followers and friends. These snaps are then available for viewing for just for a mere 10 seconds and then they will just disappear. The snap is never saved.
The filters are very colorful, effects such as dace swapping, messaging and other playful features have led to this app being wildly popular among people of all ages. With the success of Snapchat, brands have also tuned in to reap the benefits from Snapchat giving it a business twist.
Take Starbucks, for instance. The much loved coffee company created a chill campaign on Snapchat for its summer drinks. This campaign encased on the famous Frappuccino and its popularity. The promotion gave Starbucks consumers an opportunity of superimposing a festive kind of lens over the picture of the icy beverage they are having and send it out to their followers.
The people on Snapchat that see their friends are snapping photos using the lenses may then be inspired enough to go to the closest Starbucks to purchase a chilling cold drink. They may also go further and add Starbucks as a followed brand on their list in Snapchat, which will increase the odds of them being inclined to go to Starbucks again for a drink in the future.
Why does your business need to be a part of Snapchat?
Snapchat has more than 173 million active users who are on daily and they see 10 billion videos views on a daily basis. These astronomical numbers suggest that there are big opportunities when it comes to marketers and brands.
Also, if you happen to have a budget for advertising on social media, Snapchat brings on a very impressive audience targeting and a wide variety of formats for ads that you can choose from. Plus, Snapchat ads are very effective.
Snapchat partnered up with the Media Science group to survey 320 customers within the ages of 16 through 56, who compares, over 552 sessions, video ads on Snapchat to those that they saw on TV, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. The study undertook testing for eye-tracking, exit surveys and emotional responses.
Snapchat claims that its ads earned twice the amount of visual attention when compared to Facebook and also 1.5 times over Instagram. Also, they were 1.3 times more effective when compared to YouTube. When these were compared to these other platforms, including TV, Snapchat lays the claim that its ads had generated a higher emotional response plus twice the intent to make a purchase.
How can you get Snapchat to work for your business?
Snapchat has on offer various different marketing options that are paid in order to meet your specific goals when it comes to your business. You can create a Snap Ad that is clever, build a Sponsored Geofilter that is funny, or allow your potential consumers the opportunity for interacting with some Sponsored Lens.
Let us now get a feel of the various marketing options that Snapchat provides you with to help you in achieving your business goals.
Create brand awareness with the use of Snap Ads
Snap Ads happen to be a wonderful way of catching the eye of your target audience. Snap ad happens to be a 10 second long, full screen and a vertically oriented video ad which appears in between the stories. Advertisers have the option of offering the people on Snapchat a choice so that they can swipe up in order to see the content more in detail like a longer form of the video, an ad installed on the app, an article or a mobile website.
As per Snapchat claims, the rate of swipe-up on Spa Ads happens to be five times more than the average rate of click through on the other platforms for social media.
Promoting engagement with Geofilters of Snapchat
Snapchat offers two kinds of custom made Geofilters that organizations can pick from: the Geofilters that are on demand, which begin at 5 dollars, and then the much more expensive option of using Geofilters which are sponsored, and these can cost as much as hundreds and thousands of dollars.
Geofilters have been known to be a very effective way of gaining new business. These happen to be very smartly done art graphics that will show up above a Snap. When the Snapchatters are at a location that you like and they click a Snap, they will be allowed to use your Geofilter and make its use to explain why, where, and when they shot the Snap.
For instance, if the taco truck that you own is having some special event, the users can click Snaps of them eating your tacos and then add the fun Geofilter so that their friends can know what they are doing and where they are enjoying their tacos. In such a case, a Geofilter that is relatively cheaper will be sufficient.
However, if your campaign has less of a location specific attribute to it, for instance, you are selling staplers and you decide to begin a National Appreciation Day for Staplers, then all the Snapchat users across the country will be able to shoot Snaps of them while appreciating the staplers and be able to add your filters over it.
This can be a highly efficient strategy.
Drive increase of purchases using Sponsored Lens on Snapchat
Sponsored lenses give the users an opportunity to play with the advertisement which are interactive. As per what Snapchat say on their website, “To make a lens active, Snapchatters simply need to press and hold it on to their faces. Certain lenses come with prompts, for example: “raise the eyebrows” in order to trigger some animation, or adding some fun twist for the entire experience.
And when you are done playing, it is very easy to send these lenses to a follower or to post one of these to your story-line. On an average, Snapchatters spend 20 seconds playing with their sponsored lenses.