Transparency vs. Results

As entrepreneurs, our life is a continuous roller coaster, through which we develop teams, learn new things every day, meet quality people and focus on getting as many results as possible. Thus, the people we work with are essential to our success. But what do we do when we do not communicate effectively with them?

Through today's study, we will see how the lack of transparent communication can lead to undesirable results with the help of our client: a brand in the field of HoreCa, initially started by a partnership that, under certain circumstances, broke: the online visual representation of the brand on one side, and the production team, location and logistics, on the other side (our customer).

Together, our client and their partner, they made an average monthly income of 120,000 euros over the past year, a budget that covered their expenses and brought them a profit that would help them grow further. 

Because of the separation, our client needed a large part of the above amount to continue his business, but nevertheless, he started from 0 in the online environment. Thus, we met and started a collaboration with a business already tested in the market, but with a completely new identity. We started to build the ecosystem, from logos, banners, photo sessions, to organic posts, a new website, Business Ads account creation- as we usually start any collaboration. In addition to our ecosystem, we have created 2 weekly newsletters to generate retention for existing customers. Later, after the first 2 weeks of organic activity, we started the paid campaigns, because we already know that, in order to give credibility to the platform, any new business in the online environment needs this period of activity in order to be validated by the algorithm. Everything was going well, the results started to come after a short time, the ecosystem was well developed, and in the first month we generated sales of 105,000 RON with a budget of 6,000 RON, i.e. 1.75 x of the invested budget. 

This type of results makes us so happy, because it shows us once again that our ecosystem brings results regardless of the nature of the business or the period of growth in which it is, but for our client they were not enough.

Thus, he began to disregard the strategy we initially set and at the same time, pestered the consumer with offers on all the channels we had in the ecosystem. An offer through newsletters, another offer on the site, different offers through organic posts, so that the consumer did not know what to choose. 

Discounts only work for the recurring customer, the customer who has already bought and is waiting for an urge to return. If you make discounts for new customers, this is not a strong enough hook to keep them close to you. The hook for them is different: the most appetizing pictures, testimonials from existing customers, product descriptions and the storytelling we constantly offer.

You have to build customer loyalty constantly, you can not do Social Media only in places, sporadically, for it is necessary to have a complete ecosystem, both to bring new customers and for recurring ones, and to know how to create retention for new customers.

Although our initial proposal was to create a completely different identity, our client wanted to replicate the visual identity originally created in the partnership, considering that it has generated results in the past and does so now, even if it is in a different form. Thus, the common customers noticed and did not know who is who. Later, through a lawyer, our client had to give up the idea and align with us to create content and creative offerings. The competitor, being outraged by the initial move, entered a discount competition, always having an identical offer one hour after posting an offer of ours, but much more advantageous for customers. Thus, the two entered a competition of discounts, both to each other and to the existing market. 

After the first month of collaboration, the results made our client want to grow, to multiply them and they decided to triple the budgets in the campaigns, without taking into account our warnings: bigger budget does not equal more results , the ecosystem must develop harmoniously on its own, in order to get to the point where you can increase budgets. Our client also started to add new products to the site, without notifying us or changing its structure, upsetting the events set in motion and thus complicating the results for future campaigns. 

Right when the business started to bring results, our client went on vacation and we paused the ads, and the results decreased, because it is important that, when you start the campaigns, to have continuity, both organic, as well as paid. So, when our client returned from vacation, he started looking for ways to maximize his earnings. Thus, he was offered a management shortcut from a competitor, which later proved to be unsuccessful, and our client's desperate response was to restart our campaigns. 

This is a short-term patch, because this optimization on Facebook is not like it used to be with Google, when you optimized your campaigns and then you could sit with a cocktail in the sun, for it is very important to make creative and strategy adjustments constantly, so they are refreshing and always have results in the market. 

The rest of the time, they do their job and let the company do its best. The results could have been better if they had left our structure from the beginning, because out of 4 months, in only a month and a half we fully used our system. At first, the Pixel didn't work because of the theme, and sales were very low, but by optimizing the Pixel on the site, we unlocked the results in the campaigns and were able to complete the structure we have set in the campaigns.

Let us show you what the results were during this period: