Boosting Sales with Local Advertising - A Case Study with an Irish Convenience Store Brand

We wanted to prove how powerful social media advertising is for a convenience store’s sales… And we did! 

If you have read any of our previous blogs, you will know that we talk about the effectiveness of local social media in growing brand awareness for franchises. We also talk about connecting with their local audiences. We’ve worked with lots of multi-location brands (MLBs) and franchises and the proof is in the pudding! For more on this, check out our blog about how Heavenly Desserts Empowered their local users and increased brand reach, or how Daybreak Dungarvan increased their Reach by 125% by including local posts in their content plan.
We also talk about the power of advertising on direct sales for MLBs and while we see proof of this daily with our customers, we wanted to create a case study on this topic to show you how powerful it is. 

This case study not only highlights the tangible benefits of local social media marketing but also provides a detailed roadmap for other retailers looking to replicate this convenience franchise’s success.
(⚠️ Spoiler alert ⚠️ Sales surged by 60% for stores that advertised on social media!)

Who?

Our customer is a prominent grocery brand in Ireland that launched the SocioLocal platform to its retailers in Q2 2023. Their initial objectives were: 

1. Enable Local Stores to Start Social Media:  
2. Increase Posting Frequency: Stores using SocioLocal post 22-30 times per month, ensuring consistent engagement with their local communities.
3. Enhance Reach and Engagement: Stores experience a 3.5x increase in reach and a 2.5x boost in engagement (comments, shares, likes).
4. Centralise Content Management: The brand team create content that garners 40% more views, allowing stores to focus on local-specific content.

While each of these objectives is really important, the ultimate goal for any retailer is to confirm whether social media marketing increases sales. So, together, we ran a case study to investigate the effects of both organic posting and social media advertising on store sales.

For this case study, we chose a sub-section of the brand’s stores (some of which were not using SocioLocal) to explore the effects of social media posts and social media advertising via SocioLocal on the sales of their stores. This case study explores the significant impact of localized social media marketing on store performance and demonstrates the effectiveness of both organic and paid social media strategies.

This customer faced a common challenge: how to increase the social media activity of its stores, enhance brand reach at a local level, and ultimately drive sales. With a network of stores varying in their engagement levels, a unified yet localized approach was essential.

How?

In order to monitor the effects of not only advertising but social media posts on the sales of these stores, we created 3 groups of stores. 

1. Control Group: Stores with no social media activity.
2. Organic Group: Stores with organic social media posts.
3. Paid Advertising Group: Stores with €10 behind each local post.

We then decided what promotions we would track the sales of over the 3 month case study period. Three promotions would be launched over 3 Bank Holiday weekends (from Thursday to Monday) that advertised specific products on offer across the entire brand. For each Bank Holiday, we would track the sales of the products in the promotion the week before the Bank Holiday weekend and the week of the Bank Holiday weekend.
This would allow us to investigate if sales of the promoted products increased or decreased for the stores that promoted the offers;

1. without any social media (through national print advertising and in-store promotional content)
2. with social media posts 
3. and with advertised social media posts.

What?

The promotions created for the campaign were three 20-second videos. They posted these videos for both the organic group and the advertising group. We promoted these posts on the social media pages of five stores for five days at just €10 per store.

We received initial sales data for promoted products only for the duration of the campaign and the previous Thursday to Monday. This allowed us to compare the sales data for each group, before and during the promotion, and therefore, determine the effect of organic social media and advertising on store sales.

And the results…

The analysis revealed a direct correlation between social media activity and sales performance:

1. Organic Social Media Impact:some text
   • Sales increased by 33% compared to the control group.
   • Week-over-week (WoW) sales rose by 27% within the organic group.
2. Paid Social Media Impact:some text
   • Sales surged by 60% compared to the control group.
   • WoW sales climbed by 54%.
   • Paid posts demonstrated a 12x return on investment (ROI), with €150 in ad spend generating a whopping €1800 in sales!
3. The average sales at stores that did not post on social media decreased by -5%

Check it out! 👇

Lessons Learned

1. Social media posts increase sales: Stores using SocioLocal for social media marketing saw a significant uplift in sales, particularly during promotional periods.
2. Advertising increases sales even more: The average sales per store that advertised on Facebook was nearly double that of stores that did not.
3. A little goes a long way: These results were achieved by adding just €10 per store for these promotions and had a 12x ROI. A small amount of spend can achieve staggering results on social media!

The implementation of SocioLocal at local stores demonstrated the powerful impact of localized social media marketing on increasing store engagement and driving sales. By combining consistent, high-quality posting with targeted advertising, our customer successfully amplified their local presence and achieved significant ROI. This case study underscores the value of strategic social media management in the retail sector, providing a roadmap for other businesses aiming to enhance their local marketing efforts.

The future of social media marketing looks promising for this brand, with plans to continue leveraging SocioLocal’s features to maintain and grow its local customer base, ensuring sustained sales growth and community engagement.

Thank You

Connecting you to your customers, one post at a time.

This case study not only highlights the tangible benefits of localized social media marketing but also provides a detailed roadmap for other retailers looking to replicate this convenience store’s success. By showcasing real data and results, it effectively communicates the value of strategic social media management.

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