Catsfield Christmas Tree Farm: Christmas 2015, 1

Credits & Description:

Category: Retail
Media: TV, Print, Online, OOH, Email
Agency: Blueberry Public Relations
Client: Catsfield Christmas Tree Farm
Brand: Catsfield Christmas Tree Farm
Company: Blueberry Public Relations, Heathfield
Target: UK · Europe, Middle East & Africa
Managing Director: Suzi Christie, Blueberry PR
Features: Pages, App Ads, Boosted Posts, Desktop News Feed, Local Awareness
Language: English (UK)
Objectives: Awareness, Offline Traffic, Sales, Recommendation
Tags: Retail, Europe, Middle East & Africa, English (UK), Pages, App Ads, Boosted Posts, Desktop News Feed, Local Awareness, Awareness, Offline Traffic, Sales, Recommendation, TV, Print, Online, OOH, Email  
Campaign Description
Catsfield Christmas Tree Farm is a family business that operates during November and December, selling Christmas Trees directly to the general public. Due to the size of the business, the marketing budget for each campaign is limited and requires a focused strategy in terms of geographic and demographic reach.
The Christmas 2015 campaign had three main objectives. Firstly, the campaign needed to consolidate the growth experienced in 2014. Secondly, the campaign needed to increase sales of trees and decorations. Thirdly, the campaign needed to was designed to expand the number of followers on Facebook, in order to allow consolidation for the 2016 campaign.
The challenge of the campaign was to focus attention on areas local enough to the farm to make buying a tree a reasonable proposition. In addition, these areas have been marketed to on a number of previous occasions and so the potential for expansion is limited.
With a limited budget, Blueberry PR sought to reach as much of the available audience as was possible. In this respect, previous campaigns have shown us that households with children are a key demographic. Close relationship with local schools are therefore a major contributing factor to the success of the campaign. However, in terms of social media, we needed to carefully monitor posts in order to accord with children protection rules.
The campaign was split into three sections: the first focussed on increasing awareness of the farm and its seasonal opening day; secondly, there was interaction with local organisations and customers in order to emphasise the local, family nature of the business; finally, the campaign needed to highlight the products on sale. The whole campaign needed to be carefully created so that Facebook followers would not feel the need to stop following, and would we available to interact with during campaign 2016.
Campaign Goals
Facebook proved to be a useful component of the first section of our campaign – consolidation and recognition of the re-opening of the farm shop. Facebook was used to post information about the upcoming re-opening and this included references to our email campaign. Interacting with customers through Facebook allowed us to update our email database and thus we were able to reach many of our previous customers and encourage them to return using a limited period 10%-Off voucher.
In addition, a short advertisement campaign was run through Facebook, promoting local business. This ran from 18th – 26th November – the re-opening took place on the 21st November.
With the farm shop open, the campaign emphasised the local nature of the business. Several competitions were held, including a primary school 500-word writing competition judged by local author Maggie Alderson. Facebook allowed us to reach and interact with a local audience and this helped us organically grow our followers.
Facebook was also used to promote a number of events at the farm, including: carol services; the film shoot for a Godiva Chocolate advert; and the appearance on the CBeebies show, Down on the Farm. Interacting with our followers in this way, created a ‘conversation’. Down on the Farm was broadcast on 18th December as our season ended and we used it as the centrepiece of a short run of adverts to promote the programme and the shop.
The real strength of Facebook for our campaign is its ability to directly interact with our customer-base without the heavy sell. We used Facebook as a platform for our customers to send in pictures of their decorated Christmas trees. These are then reposted on Facebook – allowing us to fill our newsfeed with interesting local images, which do not displease our followers. This allowed us to reinforce our local credentials, expand our followership organically, and it is all done without a significant loss of followers, ready for our 2016 campaign.
Campaign Performance
The customer considered the Christmas 2015 campaign to be a real success.
In relation to the first objective, the short advertising campaign run through Facebook and the general awareness created through local press and social media, meant that the opening weekend for the farm shop far exceeded any previous opening weekend. In addition, while it is difficult to quantify exact numbers of returning customers, we did find a number of familiar faces returning during the Christmas period. It is also interesting to note, we did not see a significant decrease in Facebook followers when the account became active again.
Our second objective was to increase sales for the business and this needed to be seen against a 29.4% upturn in business in the Christmas 2014 campaign. Again, the target was achieved with a 5% increase in sales incorporating existing customers and new customers. This must be considered against the fact the weather was unusually warm and not particularly 'Christmassy'.
Finally, we sought to increase the number of people following the Facebook page, in order to provide the farm with a consolidated audience for Christmas Campaign 2016. With regard to this objective, the number of followers on 1st November was 888, but by 31st December this number had risen to 1,268. The represents as significant increase in audience for the company and gives an opportunity for continued growth in 2016.