Snapchat has launched around 10 years ago and has seen fast-paced growth ever since. Many social media apps suffer from either slow growth or painful death. But Snapchat not only stood the test of time but also became more and more popular as years went by.
When it was launched, nobody imagined that it would be used so extensively by businesses for marketing their brand and products. Today, numerous companies commonly use it as a marketing platform and compete with TikTok in the realm.
In 2011, Snapchat had only 127 users. It was called Picaboo at that time. Today it is a go-to app for famous brands and their marketing strategies. It is mainly used by businesses that are targeting millennials. The app is famous for its photo editing features and picture filters millennials use in their day-to-day lives. When you use Snapchat for business, you need to cash on this particular strength of this app.
Using Facebook and Instagram for business is something that almost all of us are familiar with. But some of you might not be familiar with using Snapchat for business. In this post, we will discuss how to use Snapchat for business. We will explain Snapchat marketing and guide you on building Snapchat marketing strategies.
Image taken from Strikingly
Brands that do successful Snapchat marketing can stand out in the competition and penetrate the minds and sentiments of their target audience more accurately and effectively than others.
8 Benefits of Using Snapchat for Business
Here are eight advantages your business will have if you implement Snapchat marketing.
1. Drive Traffic
Snapchat posts, or ‘snaps’ as they are called, are short-lived. When you receive a snap from someone, it disappears after a few seconds of viewing it. This may sound counterproductive, but it is an excellent strategy to drive traffic. That’s because their quickly disappearing nature builds a sense of curiosity and urgency among the app users. If you receive a snap from someone, you would want to open it immediately and give it your full attention before it’s gone. You wouldn’t delay viewing someone’s snap because you’ll be worried that it will soon disappear. The thrill of fully viewing a snap before it’s gone is what drives traffic to the app.
If these snaps are personalized, they have more potential to attract traffic to them. When businesses do Snapchat marketing, they make use of this thrill. They often advertise their special offers in their snaps for the audience to capture quickly. You can also showcase your brand events in snaps to get people excited about them.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
2. Boost Engagement
Snapchat marketing is very effective for brands that are hosting events. The platform and its snaps are suitable for showcasing the company culture or promoting an integrated campaign. Using the advanced geofilters of the app, you can create custom images and filters for your audience. If you create a new filter, your target audience can even use it and post it anywhere they like. This boosts the engagement of your audience with your brand.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
The more your customers engage with you, the better the results of your Snapchat marketing strategies will be. As a marketer, all you want is to get your message across to your target audience. Successful Snapchat marketing helps you achieve that and trigger a sense of urgency among your audience to engage with your snaps.
3. Build Brand Awareness
Many well-known brands use Snapchat marketing to promote their campaigns. They believe it’s a marketing method guaranteed to bring good results. Some brands make humorous ads, while others create unmissable filters. Some companies even create engaging stories to snap to their target customers. All these Snapchat marketing strategies can help you reach a vast audience.
The app has more than 265 million active users who use it daily. By snapping the right kinds of messages, you can make a lot of difference in your reach and engagement, ultimately building great brand awareness quickly.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
4. Attract New Followers
Depending on the niche you are targeting, you can attract new followers for your brand through Snapchat marketing. Once you map out your ideal customer and build your buyer persona, you can connect with the right people via this app in a matter of seconds.
Snapchat users are believed to spend about 30 minutes on the app every day. Therefore, it is easy to reach out to these people to promote your brand. Those who like your marketing messages might start following you and eventually convert into your customers.
Messages received on social media are seen as unbiased, friendly, and reliable. Like other social media marketing tactics, using Snapchat for business can get you higher returns on your marketing campaigns.
5. Influence Purchases
Once someone becomes your follower, it is easier to convert them into customers and further enhance their loyalty towards your brand. Snapchat users have plenty of time to discover new businesses on the app. As they scroll through the app and send selfies to their peers, they might encounter an interesting filter you created. If they like the filter, they will instantly share it with their friends.
If you continuously develop filters that attract engagement, these users will begin to follow you on Snapchat on the lookout for more. Once they become your followers, they’ll have access to every snap that you make to promote your products. Gradually you will influence them to take more desired actions until they finally purchase from you.
This is how Snapchat marketing influences purchases. Users can also use the ‘Discover’ icon to search for brands selling the kinds of products they want to buy. If you are not using Snapchat for business, you will miss out on this giant-sized population that might be eagerly looking for the products you sell.
6. Create Engaging Content
There are tons of blogs, YouTube videos, LinkedIn posts, tweets, and eBooks scattered across the internet. Thus there is already a lot of variety for internet users to consume content. Snapchat marketing allows you to create content that’s absolutely unique from all these other platforms.
By using Snapchat features like adding music, drawing over snaps, and creating polls, you can make your marketing content stand out among that created by other brands. You can even create stories by combining different snaps. If you are creative in developing Snapchat marketing strategies, you can get people to click through to your brand website to find out more about your business.
7. Personalize Your Marketing Message
Snapchat marketing makes your audience feel that you are a human. Consumers often get annoyed by automated messages or auto-responses to their email inquiries. But when you interact with them using Snapchat for business, they feel comfortable engaging with you. They can see that your messages or snaps are personalized for them.
Businesses that use the traditional forms of marketing do not get the same response. Their marketing messages are seen as biased, aggressive, and often unwelcome. With Snapchat marketing, you can show your followers that you are not just a business - you are people. This builds a favorable brand identity for your business and encourages users to share your snaps.
8. Appear Cool
The last on our list of benefits of using Snapchat for business is that it makes you and your business appear cool. This means you will be able to resonate with your target audience, especially if your niche comprises millennials. Millennials like to be approached through platforms that they admire the most. Snapchat is like a permanent property on their mobile phones and cannot ignore or get annoyed with.
When you promote your business to them through Snapchat marketing, you can build a friendly and long-lasting relationship with them because they find you to be ‘cool’, just like them. It also sends a message to them that you are not one of those people or businesses left behind in this digital realm. You are well aware of the demand and can use the most modern platforms to send your messages across.
Snapchat marketing is good, but you need a professional website to represent your brand first for implementing any kind of digital marketing. If you have an attractive website where people can get detailed information about your products and services, you can use your Snapchat marketing strategies to drive traffic from the app to your website. This way it will be easier for you to convert your followers into your customers.
When you do not have a website, your followers might feel a bit lost regarding the next steps they must take if they are interested in your products. By building a website on Strikingly, which would neither cost you much time nor money, you can simplify the process for your followers to buy your products.
Many individuals and organizations have created a full-fledged website on Strikingly without any problems. You don’t need to have any coding skills to build a website on our platform. All you need to do is sign up for a free account, select one of the ready-to-use templates, and start keying in any content that you want to showcase on your site.
