Get Your Priorities Straight!

An Online Marketing Case Study for Big Skinny Wallets

The Skinny:

Big Skinny solves the worlds top 5 wallet problems and so far, people have taken to the idea of a thinner, lighter, versatile, and non-slip wallets with wide card-holders. However, if you struggle through their 3 minute demonstration video, it becomes easy to see this is an awesome product. In 2010, Big Skinny CEO needed guidance to find out what to do next to bring their product online. Nowadays, you can see their products are prevalent on Amazon, but their own audience is meager with a following just over 230 on their Facebook and Instagram profiles COMBINED. Here, I take a stab at building their social media case and recommend they build their audience with great content and smart digital promotion strategies.

The Fat:

Big Skinny should focus their digital strategy on a fun, video content strategy that caters to their core audience and that drives traffic to their website. By choosing this strategy, Big Skinny will develop a loyal following that loves the customer experience of being a Big Skinny wallet owner and stimulate sales in the process. Though Big Skinny must make sure they nail down a content strategy, the company will benefit from a higher return on investment from creating a dedicated tribe of Big Skinny faithful who can purchase the wallets on their website, Amazon, or Ebay.

Big Skinny’s biggest asset when selling the wallets is the opportunity to show the functionality and differences of the products in person and give the pitch with them. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all provide opportunities to give the pitch of the product while still leaving a channel to have a conversation about the product in the comments. Additionally, Big Skinny can easily scale their reach when they produce content that their audience finds valuable enough to share themselves. Therefore, the content strategy would be best if it honed in on their major buyers; the ones who loved the wallets and gave testimonials and who are more likely to make multiple purchases and recommend to friends. The video content from those interactions are short and provide more personalized advertising than any Adwords campaigns could ever offer.

Social media is not only where many people’s attention is turning toward, but it is also one of the few places companies like Big Skinny can reach their fans without having to travel from fair to fair or pay a ton of money to be seen on television. It’s a place that builds brand loyalty, use word of mouth marketing, and offers a platform for Big Skinny to drive demand for their products without being concerned with their native website sales. Most importantly, social media spreads awareness of the Big Skinny products with a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) of around $2.50, when radio averages a CPM of $10, and Broadcast TV averages $28. That awareness will drive sales wherever Big Skinny can be found.

The Takeaway

The facts of pointed out in this case are applicable to nearly any product-oriented business wanted to make the move online. Build an audience using great content and social media marketing strategies, and you will set the business up to have a great tribe following your company and wanting your products.