Snapchat is an american messaging app with its main feature being that pictures disappear after being available to recipients for a short period of time. People who ‘snap’ each other frequently create a ‘streak’ with them that they have to maintain in order to save the streak – this is a clever strategy as it makes the user use the app at least once every day!
The first thing to know about snapchat is that it’s not for every business. So before you go ahead and make an account and start marketing left, right and centre, first ensure that your brand or business coincides with the following pointers:
● A young demographic: 82% of Snapchat users are 34 years old or younger. This means that teenagers, young adults and adults will be the main audience market. If your brand is focussed on such an audience, or wants to interact with such an audience, then snapchat marketing is the way to go.
● Interaction: there is a 60% more chance of users making an impulsive purchase on Snapchat than on any other social media platform. Under the Discover section, users find new brands and content creators that they can easily interact with.
● Stand out and show the playful side: as this platform is mostly used by a younger demographic, it also means that you need to appeal to a very volatile set of people. Younger generations like to do things the fun and casual way – so if your brand has a fun side, then this is where you show it and impress your audience.
To market on Snapchat, follow these steps:
First thing to do is to create a business account – doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, a business account is what you should have. With a business account, you’ll have:
- Advertising through Snapchat’s Ads Manager – here you can create, manage and view how your campaigns have done on Snapchat.
There are a few assets that Snapchat provides with its Ads Manager:
● Snap Pixel – this is a Javascript code. It helps measure the cross-device impact of campaigns. Basically you’ll be able to tell how many people took an action and what action after clicking on your campaign.
● Custom audiences – you have Customs, Lookalike and Saved audiences. You can segment them into any category of your own liking and creation. Segmenting helps in deciding which campaign should be targeted at which group.
● Verify your app with your Snap app ID.
● Catalogs – these are ads for that content which has information on product features. So whatever products are sold on your site will come under the product catalogue (features, varieties etc) and you can market them on Snapchat using Product Catalogue Ads or Dynamic ads.
- Age targeting – here you can customize the age group that your ad has to reach.
- Location targeting – here you can customize the geographical location that your ad has to reach.
Once you create the business account, you can go to the ads manager and start snapping and launching campaigns.
To make people more aware of you on Snapchat, the easiest way to start is by cross-promoting. This means that you can upload your snapchat scan code on Instagram, and your Instagram followers who are on Snapchat, can then follow you!
Why is advertising on snapchat a good idea?
● There is less competition – Every brand that has existed seems to have a presence on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. But not all of them are on Snapchat. In fact, get onto Snapchat way before your competitors can so that you have an advantage over them in this platform. This way, the consumers see only you and how well you’re doing instead of getting distracted by competitors.
● It’s different – consumers are bored of seeing the same type of ads. So snapchat gives you the opportunity to be something completely different and appeal to a huge audience.
● Free and new audience markets – snapchat users are new generation users. They may be most active on snapchat and may not even use FB or instagram. So this way, you are covering the users that you can’t on other platforms.
● Localize – promote to nearby or local audiences using Snapchat Geofilters. Advertisers can create filters that are available to the audience within a certain geography only. When the locals use this filter, they inadvertently spread the word to their friends and colleagues who may not have heard of you till then!
● Non-profit. Most of the users want to do good in the world and it would be especially convenient for them if they could do it through social media – even snapchat! Your brand could stand for something and this will tell the consumers that you are not just in for selling your products but are also helping the earth/society/underprivileged etc. Use snapchat stories to leverage this. Start by introducing the non profit and their mission but make sure to promote it in such a way that it touches the emotions of the audience. Instead of formal emails or YouTube ads, Snapchat stories seem more personal and are seen by a younger, more active generation of users.
● Not just non-profits. You can promote any account or brand and make fun and interactive engagements for the users which will give you the opportunity to be seen by perspectives.
To be successful on snapchat, you need to keep one thing in mind – build curiosity. Snaps are barely seen for a few seconds, less than Instagram stories, so the more curiosity you build using these, the more likely you are to get more people to your account.
● Offer coupon codes – people will definitely play back your story or snap when they see a coupon code.
● Connect with influencers – this is a given for all social media apps because influencers are like the new mass media. You need them if you want your product to grow and reach new potential consumers.
The brilliance of Snap codes:
Snapchat has a unique feature called a snap coe for every user.
People just have to take a picture of your snapcode and click on it within the camera roll of the app to follow you. Share your snap code everywhere, so people can follow you with ease!
Three important advertising benefits of using Snap codes.
- Popularity – According to Business Insider, users make about 8 million snap code scans in a day. Now that’s a lot, which means it’s a popular feature among users. Most of these 8 million users are active users and so when you launch a snap code campaign, it won’t seem like you’re pushing it to them because they already use it most of the time in a day.
- Data collection – Snap codes are a brilliant way to access consumer data and most importantly consumer behaviour. After consumers scan your code, you can ask people to leave their names and email IDs and they are more likely to do it than if you ask them directly without them scanning the code first.
- Free advertising – Yes, yes, yes! Snapchat doesn’t charge marketers for generating snap codes. Since it draws users to you and your brand, it can be seen as a form of free advertisement.
Measuring how well you’ve done on Snapchat:
A simple way to do this is by dividing the number of snaps opened by the number of snaps you sent out. This will give you the Snap Opening Rate. higher the rate, the better you are doing on the app.
Snapchat metrics teLl you
● How many people viewed your story
● How many people screenshotted a story or snap
● How many people shared it
Using these metrics, track your progress over the weeks and make sure to keep an eye on your snap opening rate. This is best used if you are running a campaign and you can use the results of these on improving this campaign or implementing what you learnt into the next campaign.
Got all that? Then get snapping, we don’t want to lose those streaks!
