Recognizing the opportunity that Facebook offers to reach out and engage with potential customers in a competitive prepaid market, Telstra decided to harness the social network in cultivating its client base.
Telstra did this with a two-pronged goal -- to acquire new customers as well as retain the current existing market base, and to increase advocacy from fans via Facebook.
In August 2012, the Australian carrier ran an integrated marketing campaign that included six weeks of paid Facebook activity that aimed to increase sales of pre-paid cards and top-up.
To drive awareness and reach, Telstra pushed the prepaid offer “Free Talk & Text” on its Pre-Paid Cap Encore, including paid media units on Facebook.
To maximize reach, Telstra opted for page post ads which showed on user’s news feeds on both desktop and mobile platforms. A video was featured on Facebook’s log-out screen to reach more than 2 million Australians who logged off daily.
As for increasing advocacy, Telstra used its official, 24x7 Facebook page to deliver targeted prepaid messaging to a young audience.
Telstra opted to use ads which featured content that elicited fan action -- such as links, photos and questions -- in order to drive engagement among users.
During the campaign, the Telstra Facebook page saw more than 130,000 engagements to support advocacy for Telstra. These include more than 10,000 page likes and the generation of over 29,000 viral stories.
“We recognize Facebook is a key vehicle for engaging our target market, and is an important part of our integrated marketing campaigns,” said Andrew Brooks, general manager for mobility marketing at Telstra.
Following the campaign, the company found that 16% more people switched carriers to Telstra among those exposed to Telstra’s advertisements compared to those who were not exposed.
Also, 27% of the operator’s target audiences were more likely to visit any Telstra website after being exposed to Facebook advertising.