The ultimate marketing success indicator for hot tub clients relies on one metric: leads.
This is the name of the game for these companies. No one buys hot tubs like you buy a loaf of bread — it’s all about getting people in the door so that they can see the products in person and work directly with salespeople. Putting interested prospects with intent to buy inside the store is your best bet for promoting sales and increasing your topline revenue.
However, driving people into the doors isn’t as simple as telling them we’re open. At Snapshot, we push our hot tub clients’ brand messages through multiple channels that guide prospects to the point where they’re ready to make a purchase.
Putting a prospective customer into a mindset where they’re ready to decide takes nurturing — hitting them in different areas, planting seeds, and generating interest over time. After showing them the message, encouraging them to do research, and letting them ruminate about buying the product, we aim to get them in the door and see the hot tub for themselves.
The main way we create awareness: Paid Social Media.
Social Media’s Role in the Hot Tub Marketing Funnel
Snapshot Interactive uses digital tactics in the first two stages of the marketing funnel to turn prospective customers into leads and get them on the floor of a store showroom.
Paid social is our main driver in the Awareness phase. Using Facebook, Instagram, along with traditional digital display, we serve ads with two main tactics:
- By going after in-market shoppers
- Geo-targeting people within 50 miles of the company showrooms
In-market shoppers are defined as anyone that has previously shopped for a hot tub or investigated them online. By serving them creative, we’re hoping to re-plant a seed in their mind that stirs up interest and gets them to start thinking about buying a hot tub again. We continue to retarget and engage with prospective customers throughout their buying cycle.
Even if they haven’t previously shown signs of purchasing a hot tub or sauna, we geo-target anyone in our target demographic within five miles of a showroom. This might help them recall seeing the store in the past, get them thinking about owning a hot tub, and creating general interest, making them more receptive and open to making a purchase when they see ads in the Consideration stage.
Working in Tandem: Using Google
Pay-Per-Click Ads to Finish the Job
After using Paid Social through Facebook and Instagram to create awareness and get potential customers thinking about hot tubs, we use Google Pay-Per-Click ads (PPC) to move them down the funnel from broad awareness to more focused consideration.
At this point, after seeing our initial round of awareness creative, hopefully they’ve already been thinking about what it’s like to own a hot tub — where it could go, what it would be like for their families and backyards, and developed a desire for one, even if they haven’t tangibly looked at options yet. The goal is to now get them thinking seriously about making an actual purchase.
That’s where Google PPC comes in. Now that they have soaking in a hot tub on their mind by seeing our Awareness Social and display ads a few times, we want to catch them when they start considering what they exactly want.
If someone searches “hot tubs,” we’ll have our ads right there waiting for them. It’s designed to work so that they recall the brand name and are enticed to click on the ad and view the website. From the website, they can start getting an understanding of what they want to buy, compare different products, and think seriously about what they can afford. The website language encourages them to visit a showroom or enter their information so they can talk or meet directly with a salesperson, putting them on the path to buying.
Viewing our awareness ads on Instagram and Facebook puts them in this mindset where they’re decidedly looking for a hot tub and ready to get one. However, that alone isn’t enough to get them straight into the door. The ads we make work in tandem with their website to create a smooth experience for the customer, making it easier for them to find a salesperson.
Teamwork: How the Advertisements We Create Pair with Our Clients’ Websites
Since the name of the game for hot tub companies is to generate leads, it’s our job to pique prospective customers’ interest and ensure that they’re receptive to the message once they’re on the website so that they’re willing to buy. After they’ve clicked through one of our consideration ads through Google PPC, our clients’ ads make it easy for them to get the relevant info they’re looking for quickly.
Step 1: Making Customers Aware
Prospective customers, either through geo-targeting or because they’ve shown prior interest in buying a hot tub, are served an ad while scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. This starts to put them into the mindset of what a hot tub might look like in their backyard, how they could use it for parties, or anything that gets them excited about the possibility of owning one.
The messaging used could be about a sale, trade-in event, or use brand language to play up an emotion or offer a tangible benefit. Here are some examples:
Step 2: Getting Serious with Consideration
After getting served ads through social media and display and ruminating on what owning a hot tub will be like, some will move through the sales funnel, where they go from dreaming of hot tubs to actively researching them on their own. As they look to make an actual purchase, we’ll serve them additional ads through Google Search featuring sales/promos and general brand messaging with the idea that they’ll recall seeing them on social media and be inspired to click into the website.
While these do use the same creative customers already saw in the Awareness part of the funnel, the context they view them in creates a whole new meaning and added gravitas. Our goal is to maintain a connection with a customer as they move through the marketing funnel from Awareness to Research, to Consideration. We build our Google Search campaigns to find customers as they leave the research phase and start to seek out a place to buy a hot tub. This way, our clients’ ads will be one of the first search results they see and, combined with the impression made by our Paid Social campaigns, the last thing they click.
Because they’re actively seeking information on hot tubs this time, not just viewing it alongside content from Instagram or Facebook, the ads inspire action and generate more website visits, which ultimately creates more sales leads.
Step 3: Making The Website Experience Seamless
Once customers click on an ad, whether it be through social or Google PPC, it will drive them to the hot tub or pool landing page, where they use a variety of different tactics to pull in a lead.
Some will use quizzes, contact forms, or generated phone calls to see exactly what a customer is looking for in a hot tub. This will survey them about the number of people they want it to fit, their target price range, what time of year they’ll use it, and what features they’d like included. These quiz results go straight to a salesperson so they can get the customer into a showroom to make a purchase.
Making these lead forms readily available for the customer simplifies their website experience and makes them much more likely to enter their information, generating more leads and sales.
Why Paid Social is so Important
While the Google PPC ads and website experience lock prospective customers in, using paid social through Instagram and Facebook puts them into the proper mindset for receiving those ads.
In the second quarter of 2023, we launched a promo campaign for our hot tub client, Bachmann’s Pools, Spas & Saunas. In Q1, their Google PPC ads garnered 1.4 million impressions with 120 conversions, either by calling the store or getting a quote, good for a 1.49% conversion rate.
When we launched the promo campaign at the start of Q2, which used promotional/sales messaging to advertise a discount, we saw a sizeable jump in conversions to 281 with a conversion rate of 2.70%, gaining more than 2,000 more clicks quarter over quarter.
It’s possible that a prospective customer looking to buy a hot tub might have clicked on one of these Google PPC promo ads without first viewing our Facebook or Instagram messaging. However, if they can recall a piece of creative or brand name that they saw in the Awareness phase, it makes our Consideration messaging even stronger, generating more leads, and increasing the top line sales for our clients. Because people were familiar with the Bachmann’s name prior to seeing the promo deal, we can infer that the message held more weight with them as they looked to make a serious purchase inquiry. When they recognized the brand name and saw the promo, it became a much easier sell.
Using sales/promotional messaging in concert with our Awareness messaging led to a successful to a successful campaign that hit their goals and increased leads by 134%.
Interested? Let us know!
If you’re curious how paid social can help your business, we’re here to help! Contact us using the information below and we’ll set up a call to take you through our capabilities.
