SoleMate Shoes

Challenge

Solemate Shoes, a popular local shoe retailer, approached RSA in hopes of increasing traffic to their online store and promoting in-store visits, while expanding their presence on social media through targeted advertising. With many shoe retailers in the market place in SoleMate’s town of operation, Rapid City, the RSA team needed to identify a clever strategy to not only achieve SoleMate’s goals, but go a step further in solidifying brand affinity among their target demographic.

Analysis

In researching SoleMate’s past promotions, unique variety of shoe products, and the overall value they provide their customers with time and time again, the RSA team set several goals targeting the growth of the business’ social media audience, while also driving worthwhile traffic to the Solemate Shoes website, with the ultimate goal of increasing sales overall.

Working with the client to iron out any misinterpretations or stereotypes that exist surrounding SoleMate’s business, we came to the realization that many people within the business’ target audience were not aware that SoleMate Shoes offers a wide variety of mid-priced, stylish shoes. Many of whom believed Solemate Shoes’ selection of footwear primarily targeted nurses due to their connection to their sister business, the Uniform Center, while others associated SoleMate Shoes with footwear for older women. While SoleMate Shoes does offer products catering to nurses and older women, the majority of their products cater to stylish women looking for the perfect shoe to accent their outfit.

Harnessing this knowledge, we developed a dynamic strategy to showcase SoleMate Shoes’ value by identifying the business’ target demographic to be young, fashion-forward women in professional business roles who will go the extra mile to elevate their in-office fashion, day-to-day. Primarily falling under the 18-34 age demographic, we believed our efforts would best be geared toward individuals living within a 25-mile radius of Rapid City as they would be most apt to visit the brick-and-mortar store in downtown Rapid City.

Strategy

Noting the importance of pushing direct traffic to the store and to the website, we identified Facebook as the best place to direct our efforts. Utilizing a two-pronged strategy consisting of Facebook Like Ads and relevant Facebook reach ads, the RSA team went to work targeting tailored content to SoleMate Shoes’ target demographic.

Facebook Like Campaign

Using lush imagery designed with the help of the RSA Graphic Design team, we set up a like campaign targeting SoleMate Shoes’ target demographic, as well as visitors to their website thanks to a Facebook Pixel installed by our web developers. This campaign kicked off in early December 2020 and was already seeing phenomenal results by Christmas.

Facebook Ads

With a well-rounded lineup of products, promotions and sales throughout the year, SoleMate Shoes is the poster child for Facebook Ad campaigns. Utilizing more attractive imagery to highlight such promotions, the RSA team designed and set up Facebook Ad Campaigns in the month of December to feature SoleMate’s 50% off clearance sale, as well as their annual holiday gift card promotion. Recognizing a large chunk of the business’ demographic would be shopping for the perfect Christmas gifts, we ran these campaigns through Christmas! While these promotions didn’t drive users to SoleMate’s website, they directed traffic to the brick-and-mortar store in Rapid City. These ads targeted SoleMate’s target demographic, including their preexisting Facebook ‘Like’ audience.

Additionally, the RSA team strategically boosted a variety of posts throughout December and January as a means to highlight the versatility of SoleMate Shoes’ product selection, ranging from boots to socks! These boosts encouraged users to shop online or visit SoleMate Shoes’ physical location, targeting their target demographic.

Results

• Increased Facebook audience by 20%
• 10,000+ people reached

Within two months of RSA’s services to Solemate Shoes, the business grew its Facebook audience by over 235 page likes as a result of our ‘Like Campaign’. Seeing Solemate Shoes’ total page likes at the beginning of our work with them, our efforts helped grow the business’ Facebook audience by nearly 20% in just two months! Such success is majorly due in part to the RSA team’s awareness of Solemate Shoes’ target demographic. In tandem with this success, overall Facebook post engagement saw notable increases with the right people seeing content that was relevant to their interests.

Finally, RSA’s efforts to appropriately boost organic posts over a two-month period proved to be incredibly successful. Boosting only four posts during this period, Solemate Shoes reached over 10,800 unique people. Most importantly, these boosts saw 848 clicks to Solemate Shoes’ website.