Challenge 2

Objectives:

For the second challenge, we aimed to increase awareness, posts, and sales through effective marketing. In order to achieve these goals, we implemented many of the lessons we learned in class pertaining to Buzz Marketing. Specifically, our goals were to increase Facebook likes to 100, to sell a total of 5 items, to reach a total of 10 seller submissions, get featured in a publication (Under the Button), and achieve the average click-through rate of 1.19% for our Facebook ads. In order to achieve these goals throughout the past week, we created a Facebook advertisement, created a Twitter account, and flyered throughout campus.

Metrics:

Goal	Results
1.19% Facebook click through rate (news-feed ads)*	1.846%, 1.657%, 1.463%
0.04% Facebook click through rate (sidebar ads)*	0%
100 Facebook likes	98 likes
10 item seller submissions	17 submissions
5 sales	5 sales
Feature in a publication	Under the Button article

*Facebook CTR Source articles:

• http://digiday.com/platforms/facebook-ads-are-killing-it-but-why/
• http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/10/17/facebook-ads-click-through-rates-soar-q3

In order to achieve our goal of getting more Facebook likes and increasing sales, we first put our money towards creating a Facebook Advertisement that will run until March 5th. This cost us $15 in total. After researching some information about facebook ads*, we discovered that the average clickthrough rate for news-feed ads were 1.19% and the clickthrough rate for sidebar ads is .04%. We decided to set these rates as the metrics we would benchmark ourselves against.

We used the same logo we had created during our first week and were able to run a campaign that read “Need to buy or sell your things quickly and efficiently? Check out Penn Marketplace!” We also created a slogan, “We’ll help you sell the things you don’t want and buy the things you need” for our company that was placed in the lower section of our advertisement in addition to a “Shop Now” call to action. We also used the class lessons to target our specific advertisement so that we would get the most effective results. We limited our ad to people who live within the 19104 area code, people between the ages of 18-24, people studying at UPenn, and people who speak English.

When we created the ads we wanted to test out different pictures to see which would get the most traction. On one ad, we used our logo and the clickthrough rate was 1.858%. We also created an ad with a picture of money to try out a different marketing tactic and that achieved a slightly lower clickthrough rate of 1.657%. The ad that garnered the least clickthroughs only contained our logo. This marketing experiment allowed us to realize the most effective way to attract potential customers.

Here are our results:

• Website clicks: 30
• Campaign reach: 1,936
• Click-Through Rate:1.846%, 1.657%, 1.463%
• Total cost: $5.84

In class, we also about the importance of reaching your user on multiple platforms. To achieve this goal, we created a Twitter account that we could use to provide our users with live updates of new items for sale. Professor Wry talked about the importance of consistency in our marketing message, so we linked our Twitter account to our Facebook page to avoid the risk of having contradicting posts between the two platforms.

To address our goal of being featured on Under the Button, we submitted a few tips with information about our company and what our goals are. We were featured in an article on February 20th entitled “Hey, They Invented Another Craigslist For Penn!” Although this wasn’t the most positive press, we were happy to garner people’s attention. The article accumulated 8 Facebook likes, and we believe that it definitely helped us gain more awareness for our company.

In addition to social media marketing, we wanted to ensure that we covered our basics as well and reverted  created a flyer that we spread throughout different buildings on campus as well as on locust walk. It was important to us to engage in both traditional and untraditional forms of marketing for this task.

We engaged in guerilla marketing where we wrote on as many GSR whiteboards as we could in Huntsman. We drew our logo, our twitter handle, as well as our website address in the hopes that people may see it while they’re studying and take a quick break to check it out.

Moving Forward:

We wanted to maximize our reach by being accessible to people using desktops, laptops, or mobile phones. As a response, we created a QR code that we unfortunately did not create in time for our flyering. In the coming week, we are planning to create new flyers this week with the code and plan to to spread them throughout campus. We also learned that our Facebook ad with our logo on it did the best, so will switch over our other ads so that they all show that picture (instead of the one with money on it). We will also continue to reach out to our different Penn networks in order to increase awareness through Word of Mouth. Specifically, we are planning to make short announcements in our other classes about our venture and to hand out our flyers. Additionally, after speaking with some of our customers, it was brought to our attention that people wanted to have a feature where they could suggest a price. As of now, our website only allows our seller to post set price, and it is non-negotiable. We believe that this will help us to increase sales in the future. Perhaps the most exciting part of our week was that we were contacted by two potential collaborators from outside the UPenn community who were interested in our company and wanted to learn more. We’re planning to maintain these relationships as we move forward in our venture.