The research plan is based on practical problem solving and systematizing that experience to research. Thus, the research method of the thesis is an Action Research as the main idea is to create promotional campaign, launch it to Facebook, wait for a result, analyze and compare with previous campaign launched in October 2017.
3.5 Data gathering and analysis process
Action research is considered as a systematic approach to a study which takes close relationship with a research object. The data could be obtained in different ways and there are a lot of instruments that can be used for data-collection. Methods and data utilized in action research has a wide range from surveys to observation and interviews (Kovalainen & Erikkson 2016)
Authors of the book Qualitative methods in business research Kovalainen and Eriksson (2016), consider six main steps for action research in data gathering and analyzing processes stage that were used in order to implement this study. The steps are following: data gathering, data feedback, data analysis, action planning, implementation and evaluation.
The firsts step of gathering data shows that there a various ways and opportunities to obtain the data. In order to get correctly needed information the maximum attention has to be paid on the research interest. In the study, the promotional campaign was used in order to collect the data. This step primarily means all background information of the study and theories which can be implied into the research.
The next step is a data feedback for the analysis, which serves in some cases as one of the most crucial steps for the action research study. The data has to be gathered and reported by the
researcher or research group. In other words, data feedback means allowing the research group to be involved into the analysis and participate on the next steps of the research process. In the thesis the data were collected and analyzed by the one person.
The third step is a data analysis which strives to achieve meaningful explanations and materials from the data by various connected with each other activities (O’Connor 2003). Uwe F.
determined “data analysis “as the “classification and interpretation” of visual or linguistic information in order to create logical statements and structures about the meaning of materials and what are presented there. (2013). The main idea behind the analysis is to provide seeds for development and own expertise in the study. However, more profound results would be obtained if the process will be done collectively, in research group (Kovalainen & Erikkson 2016). On this step all previous observations and results made in previous steps were observed to provide with reliable outcome and strong theoretical background.
The next step is an action planning, which means a detailed plan and includes various actions aimed to achieve objectives. It is a special business tool which prioritize tasks and determines clear purposes in an effective way. The plan usually includes several stages such as identification of the situation, progress and implementation of self-assessment; setting objectives, creating the strategy, take an action and evaluation of results (Sniehotta, Schwarzer, Scholz & Schuz 2005). On this stage all actions of the study were identified with consideration of previous steps and the plan of how to create and launch the campaign was created.
The fifth step is an implementation which implies that a practical plan will be transformed into action. The implementation plan can be complex and detailed (Kovalainen & Erikkson 2016).
The main example of the implementation plan is a retraining program which takes a time.
However, the research was made in accordance on already existing campaign (which was launched 27 October 2017 and did not require complex plan to implement it).
The final step is an evaluation, which focuses on action taken and implemented trough the research process. Final outcomes and consequences made within the organization have to be considered and analyzed by researcher (researches). Evaluation is considered as a key element for the learning process and successful action research in general. (Kovalainen & Erikkson 2016). The evaluation of the study and research provided is presented further.
The scheme of data gathering and analyzing process was utilized in the project. For example, the first step is data gathering, where background data for the project was collected through statistics, insights, ads manager presented in Facebook and manually. For example, statistics represents performance on the post such as people reached, reactions, comments, shares, post clicks, post engagements, demographics and so on. While manual analysis includes the number of permanent customers, which left comments under the post, number of customers requested an appointment during the post launching and page likes. The data feedback in the current case was reported by one researcher without a research group and the third step of data analysis is review by one person as well. The analysis of materials was made carefully in order to identify the most appropriate for the research. The action planning stage is one of the most difficult, as in accordance to previous steps the plan of how to launch and evaluate the promotional campaign was created. On the implementation and evaluation stage all necessary information was utilized into the action in accordance to the theoretical and practical backgrounds;
promotional campaign was launched and evaluated in accordance to the presented theoretical foundations, guides and concepts.
3.5.1 Promotional campaign, general overview
In order to test if there is any effect of online activity, promotional campaign was launched on Silver BeautyStudio’s page on Facebook in 2017 year. Promotional campaign serves as an advertising tool for product or service promotion. This type of advertising could be aimed at a specific target group, while television, social media, print media or radio advertising can be used in order to launch the campaign there. (Sissors & Baron 2010).
The company is existing on the market in Finland during two years. The first year was difficult as it is time of getting customers and first feedbacks. During the first year company had two employees (one of them also served as an owner of the firm). After one year beauty salon had Facebook page with 500 followers and 5000 followers on Instagram, which was gained through word-of-month and posting photos of the work daily. As the timetable was fully booked, 27 October 2017 owner has decided to develop firm further and tried to find new employees and has launched campaign to attract new customers for brand awareness.
The campaign stated that the chosen winner of the promotional campaign gets services for about 400 euro such as color and haircut, pedicure, gel polish, volume eyelashes, makeup, photos
before and after. To participate in the competition customer has to like the promotion and write two friends in the comment under the promotion. The winner was chosen by online video conference and then, video was uploaded to the Silver page. The time of the campaign
27.10.2017-20.11.2017, 25 days.
The FIGURE 9 represents the total amount of active users worldwide from 2013 to 2017, through which we can observe significant growth from the beginning. Thus, the amount of users in January 2013 was 90 million users, in December 2014 the amount was grown up more than by 3 times and the final amount that was identified is September 1017, where the amount of users is 800 million. The table shows that the amount of users worldwide is rapidly growing.
Therefore, the platform become day by day more popular and can be used in terms of advertisement due to high people involvement.
FIGURE 9. Number of monthly active Instagram users from January 2013 to September 2017 (in millions) (Statista 2018).
Thus, the total amount of reached people is 54929. Reactions, comments and shares is 3949 (1760 likes, 1680 comments, 188 shares). Also the promotion was boosted one time 28.10.2017 and the spent amount is 17 euros for seven days. From the total amount, boosting has reached 2100 people, 408 post engagements (8 photo clicks, 25 page likes, 122 comments, 14 shares,)
There are 1680 comments below the photo, and people, who wrote under the photo are considered as highly interested in the service (as they follow two rules of the competition).
Thus, the campaign is considered as very effective, because in accordance to comments presented under the promotion there are 567 people who were or are using our services.
Moreover, Facebook page likes from 641 to 1393, and followers from 655 to 1393 and in Instagram the amount is increased by 2000 followers. After launching the campaign customer base was growing faster, the number of followers gradually increased as new followers’ friends also have mentioned in news that his or her friend follows or likes page of salon, what brought additional followers and likes. During the time of launching campaign 25 customers have requested an appointment and became our customers.
Thus, at the end of November nail technician has joined the team. In August 2018, one new lash maker came to the salon as well. Prices of the service are gradually increasing as the timetable is fully booked and new luxury level of beauty industry has to be obtained. The total spent amount is 417 euro (the service amount of 400 can be excluded from the calculations and only money spent on material can be included there, it is 117 euro with boosting button), while the average sum of service is 85 euro and the number of incoming customers 25, which means that 2125 euro in terms of service were gained through the campaign. The campaign absolutely worth it, because earned amount of money has compensated spent amount for promotion, salon got new customers, followers, likes, local popularity among other salons as obtained a lot of followers and opportunity for development as through followers and likes other their friends get information about the salon through news and history (for example, when person checks which new pages liked or followed by friend).
IMAGE 4. Promotional campaign 27 October 2017 (Facebook, 2018).
Theoretical background and company’ experiences were considered as well to identify if there is a need to correct and change existing campaign. Finally, minimum changes were made in the old campaign and the new promotional campaign were launched on Facebook 10 October 2018.
The campaign has ended 30 October; the total amount of promotional days is 21.
The promotional campaign was published in Finnish language as the general language of the page is Finnish. The title of the promotion includes city “KUOPIO” and the world
“ARVONTA”, which means promotional campaign in Finnish, these world are written in capital letters in order to attract more people. The next information in the campaign represents what is included in the winner’s prize. The main winner prize are services provided by the salon Silver BeautyStudio, which cover 400 euro such as treatment and cut for hair, 2D volume lashes,
gel nail extension with decoration, pedicure with nail polish, eyebrows’ modelling, photoshoot before and after the service. There are presented several conditions for participation such as like the release, mark two friends in the comments and like the page of the salon. The third condition was not necessary, but mentioned in order to get more likes on the page “like the page if you want to get news and promotional campaigns”. It was also underlined that if the winner does not comply all conditions the second winner will be selected. The day when the prize will be awarded and how it will be selected is presented as well “30 October 2018, the winner is selected on the video”. In accordance to Facebook rights of promotional campaigns there should be written that Facebook is not involved in the campaign. In addition, hashtags such as “Kuopio, silver_beautystuido and arvonta” were presented in the campaign. To attract people, participate in the competition the picture was added as well, where several words in different colors were written such as Kuopio, Arvonta and 400 euro.
IMAGE 5. Promotional campaign 10 October 2018 (Facebook 2018).
4 EMPIRICAL RESULTS, COMPARISON AND DISCUSSION
The main research questions in the projects were about creating and launching effective promotional campaign and identify which elements have to be considered during the process.
Therefore, to start the thesis it was necessary to consider the term Social Media, its type, useful platform for promotional and other information which help to create and launch effective promotional campaign.
Social Media has different definitions made by various of scientists, which are presented in the thesis. Generally, social media term was determined as one of the most effective and fast tool for promoting goods and services, through which people can increase brand awareness, share news with customers, find a new audience and achieve customer’s loyalty. There are a great amount of social media platforms exiting on the internet and each type of social media has own specifications. The type “social networking sites” was chosen to conduct the work as it allows people to connect with large amount of friends, companies and family members by creating own profile, send messages, audio files, video, documents as well as e-books. (Kaplan &
Haenlein 2010).
Moreover, the Theory of Media Richness (MRT) created by Richard Daft and Robert Lengel in 1986 has presented the theory, which indicates “the richer the media is (more interactive - better) the richer the communication and better results in consumer-company relations” (Daft, Lengel & Trevino 1987). The element of the Media Richness model is varying depending on the data richness. The lower level has the variable the poorer richness of information and media it has, the table is made in ascending order: unaddressed documents, addressed document, telephone and face-to-face. As the term Social Media is new and has extremely great amount of data and media content – the table were supplemented with the top level called “online interaction (social media)”. Generally, the theory proves that Social Media and online interaction has the highest level of complexity and richness of media and information, which definitely has to be used in the project.
Additionally, there are different sources of information proves that companies use social media platforms and why they use it. For example, social media has millions users and it makes possible for companies not only increase their sales, but also promote the business as a whole (VseproIp, 2018). Also it is a cost-effective marketing tool, which can be used for free
(Levinson & Gibson 2010) and has unlimited opportunities in searching for partners, advertisement and promotion of the company’s service or product, provides online payments with customers 24 hours per day including weekends and holidays. (Kordish 2017).
To implement the research, social media platform was taken in accordance to worldwide statistics, where the first place was placed by Facebook (more than 2.1 billion users). In addition, research conducted in Finland has identified that 44% of 1005 interviewed people has answered that use Facebook several times per day, that means Facebook plays an important role in people’s life and bring success to organizations, which use this platform.
Furthermore, to create an effective promotional campaign AIDA marketing model, Promotional campaign scope by Sissors J. and Baron R. (2010) and successful promotional campaign examples were considered. First of all, AIDA model of communication has shown that any promotional campaign should attract the attention of the potential consumer, then cause the interest, which will pass into the desire to possess the goods and, finally, to induce to actionpurchase and end with satisfaction of the purchase. In the project the attention to the promotional campaign were made by a picture, where in capital words were written general words such as: Kuopio, ARVONTA (promotional campaign) and the sum of service, which will get the winner. These tools were utilized in order to attract people into the activity. The next step of the model is the interest, which was used as an explanation of services, which the winner will get and requirements to participate. The model also includes the consequences of the process as the desire, action and satisfaction, which are not included into key elements of creating the campaign. Campaign scope made by Sissors and Baron (2019) has generally represented steps for creating successful promotional campaign which were utilized in the project as well. Examples of successful promotional campaign has presented the information of how firms got a success through creating campaigns in Facebook and several templates were used as a basis and example of the promotional campaign.
Therefore, next paragraphs provide general results and discussion of campaigns launched in 2017 and 2018 years and based on the theoretical information presented in “Analyzing the effect of promotional campaign”. For example, the theory written by provided by Blanchard in 2011 tells that the measurement is complex and is not accurate, but there are some possibilities which identify effectiveness of promotional campaign by eight steps. These steps include establishing
baseline and creating activity timelines of organization, as for the thesis, the information about research planning and other information were presented in previous chapters.
The volume of mentions also was monitored in next paragraphs., which identifies the interest of the customers in campaign or brand. The step called “measure transactional precursors” tells to analyze all non-financial results obtained by the company such as number of fans, followers, shares, recommendations, RSS subscriptions, content downloads, which are presented in tables below. In addition, to look at transaction data and their financial changes, in the thesis the attention was focused on customers requested an appointments and paid for that (transactions in terms of became customers). The other step considers different patterns, where the major pattern which serves as a goal for the project is that social media performance will be increased after campaign was launched. Finally, the step of prove or disapprove relationships by considering visitors of the page, likes and followers which are considered in the project further.
Moreover, publication made by American Express (2018) provides companies with different useful questions, which can help in understanding whether the promotional campaign causes the effect or not and the issue is covered in conclusion as a general result of the project.
The period of the first 27.10.2017-20.11.2017. At the beginning of launching the promotional campaign 27 of October general page Silver BeautyStudio has 655 followers and 641 likes, while in the end of promotional campaign their amount is significantly increased: 1393 followers and 1364 page likes. Therefore, the amount of followers and likes became higher by 738 followers and 723 likes, which means that page engagement raised by 52,9% followers and 53% page likes during the time of the launching promotion campaign.
IMAGE 6. Total page likes and followers 27.10.2017-20.11.2017 (Facebook 2018).
The period of second promotion campaign is 10.10.2018-30.10.2018. At the beginning of launching the promotional campaign 10 of October general page Silver BeautyStudio has 1737 followers and 1696 likes, while in the end of promotional campaign their amount is significantly increased: 2081 followers and 2040 page likes. Therefore, the amount of followers and likes became higher by 344 people in both cases, which means that page engagement raised by 16,5%
followers and 16,9% page likes during the time of the launching promotion campaign.
IMAGE 7. Total page likes and followers 10.10.2018-30.10.2018 (Facebook 2018).
The results of the previous period is visible and the next graphs represent the large difference between people involvement into the page activities during the time before the launching
The results of the previous period is visible and the next graphs represent the large difference between people involvement into the page activities during the time before the launching