Brand Awareness & Business Growth: A Case Study

Smitty’s Fine Furniture first came to us in 2016. A family-operated business, rich in history, Smitty’s opened their first store in Hanover in 1963, and a second location many years later in Kitchener.

The Challenge

The challenge Smitty’s faced was regarding the perception of their brand. They believed that they were perceived as being expensive and offering products that were geared towards older consumers.

Smitty’s came to us with a goal of adjusting and elevating their brand presence. They wanted to showcase themselves as offering high-quality contemporary and modern products in a wide variety styles to suit a wide range of customers. Smitty’s also wanted to create brand consistency across all of their marketing streams.

Smitty’s Unique Approach

Smitty’s business approach is to build relationships with their customers. Their interior decorating team spends time asking customers key questions to better understand their living situation and needs in order to provide them with the best furniture solutions. Smitty’s is also largely focused on offering Canadian-made, quality furniture — and this sets them apart from much of their competition.

Brand Awareness Campaign

To meet Smitty’s goals, Intrigue developed and implemented a holistic brand awareness and lead generation campaign.

This was a specially-crafted, comprehensive campaign which included:

• Strategic Messaging
• Blogging
• Email Marketing
• Facebook Ads & Organic
• Google Ads
• Graphic Design
• Video Production
• Video Advertising

The Plan

Intrigue worked closely with the Smitty’s team to develop key messaging and a strategic approach to create engaging, contemporary, and relevant content. We made sure to incorporate both value-based content and promotional material.

Key Messaging

Intrigue developed key messages that were consistently used across Smitty’s online marketing platforms and in their radio and print ads. Unified messaging helped to support their business model and brand.

Video Advertising

Intrigue filmed a series of short, informational tip videos that were used in their monthly email newsletters, in Youtube Ads, and in Facebook Ads. We built custom audiences in Google Ads and Facebook Ads which allowed us to get the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Blogs

Intrigue wrote five original blogs each month with engaging and helpful interior-decorating content that contained relevant SEO keywords.

Year over year their blog page views have grown by 67% going from an average of 26,000 readers to over 43,000 readers.

Email Newsletters

Intrigue developed a two-part email strategy, and sent two emails each month. The first was focused on a specific promotion and the second on value-based content, featuring the blogs.

Smitty’s email list grew from under 3,920 subscribers to over 5,300 in just 12 months and had an open rate that significantly surpassed the industry average.

Repurposing the tip videos and blogs in their newsletter while showcasing Smitty’s expertise in their industry was successful in engaging their audience and growing their email list.

Facebook

Intrigue featured a variety of content on Facebook to engage and grow Smitty’s social audience. We developed a custom, organic campaign featuring Smitty’s blogs, industry design highlights, photos of Smitty’s showroom, and client home makeovers. 

We also ran a variety of different Facebook Ads, including a coupon download and a contest to win a $1,000 gift card.

In 2018, the Facebook campaign produced 29,635 sessions, 364 contact form submissions, and grew in page likes by 2,582.

The December 2018 Coupon Download campaign generated ~300 downloads and generated over $20,000 in sales.

Do you want to grow your business?

Tricia has had the pleasure of working closely with the Smitty’s team over the last two years and helping them understand the world of digital marketing. As an Account Manager at Intrigue, Tricia is passionate about building relationships and working with clients to create strategies to grow their businesses with digital marketing.

If you have a business that you would like to see grow, contact the team at Intrigue and let’s discuss how we can help.

Tricia wants to ensure your experience with Intrigue is awesome! She helps non-profits, businesses, and communities grow together. Tricia assists the sales team in business development. Outside of work she is an avid tea drinker, world traveller and loves getting active and cooking healthy.