{"id":39363,"date":"2016-09-30T05:47:31","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T09:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwschaefer.wpengine.com\/?page_id=39363"},"modified":"2016-09-30T06:04:54","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T10:04:54","slug":"case-study-finding-leverage-crowded-market","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/marketing-consulting\/case-study-finding-leverage-crowded-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Case study: Finding leverage in a crowded market"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;The work with retail influencers created extraordinary new demand for the product. Retail partnerships increased 180 percent in 12 months.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Business situation<\/h2>\n<p>The client was a global retailer who was a late entry into the extreme sports marketplace. The company had strong brand recognition but no social media presence among the young sports enthusiasts it needed to attract to build sales in a new niche. Competitors had an overwhelming head start and a completely dominant social media market presence.<\/p>\n<h2>Approach<\/h2>\n<p>Mark Schaefer brought in category specialists in word-of-mouth, sports marketing, and SEO to help craft a strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Working closely with the client, the team immersed themselves in the marketplace, conducting original research and efficiently assembling available data to assess possible market strategies. They also conducted interviews with athletes, store owners, and others who were influential in the category.<\/p>\n<p>This was an urgent client project and total elapsed time to create and present the strategy was just six weeks.<\/p>\n<h2>Strategy<\/h2>\n<p>Through their research, the team made a discovery that the competitors truly had a dominant position on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter but was seemingly ignoring the youth-oriented channels of Instagram and Snapchat. Further research proved that the competitor customers were aging, and the companies were not connecting to the youth market. This became the space where we could \u201cmaneuver\u201d to create competitive advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Our discovery suggested the types of content, brand voice, and even product adjustments that could be made to conquer this niche. We supported the brand by connecting with the right resources that could scale and execute on a strategy very quickly.<\/p>\n<p>We also developed a strategy aimed at influence marketing. While the company had started to contract with extreme sports athletes, we showed how these influencers were largely ineffective and needed more comprehensive social media training. We also created a plan to involve influential shop owners, sporting guides and even high school coaches and teams.<\/p>\n<h2>Results<\/h2>\n<p>The key to success was to scale very quickly. By utilizing expert partners and extreme sports influencers were able to build a large and highly-engaged audience with a few months.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s research showed that brand awareness increased dramatically during this period, although it was impossible to attribute a specific contribution from social media due to other advertising activities occurring at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>The work with retail influencers created extraordinary new demand for the product. Retail partnerships increased 180 percent in 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>Using an objective measure, we could show that social media effectiveness of the contracted athletes improved an average of 70 percent just weeks after the social media training.<\/p>\n<p>The company continues to use out techniques and resources to keep a sizable lead on youth-oriented channels in terms of both audience size and level of engagement.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The work with retail influencers created extraordinary new demand for the product. Retail partnerships increased 180 percent in 12 months.&#8221; Business situation The client was a global retailer who was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":39294,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-39363","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Case study: Finding leverage in a crowded market - Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;The work with retail influencers created extraordinary new demand for the product. Retail partnerships increased 180 percent in 12 months.&quot; Business\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/marketing-consulting\/case-study-finding-leverage-crowded-market\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Case study: Finding leverage in a crowded market - Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;The work with retail influencers created extraordinary new demand for the product. 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After two years of operation, the company had a great product but needed marketing support to stand\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36649,"url":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/client-list\/","url_meta":{"origin":39363,"position":1},"title":"Client List","author":"Mark Schaefer","date":"February 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Client List \u201cI find that fundamental marketing practices and insight is transferrable across many businesses and industries. I\u2019ve had rave reviews from both start-ups and important multi-nationals. Here is a partial list of some of the great companies I\u2019ve worked with over the last few years. I hope to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36652,"url":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/social-media-marketing-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":39363,"position":2},"title":"Marketing Strategy","author":"Mark Schaefer","date":"February 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Marketing Strategy Mark Schaefer literally wrote the book on social media marketing strategy. He has developed social media marketing strategies for some of the world's best-known brands including Adidas, Merck, and the U.S. Air Force. 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Even a 1 percent\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42848,"url":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/executive-branding-teams\/","url_meta":{"origin":39363,"position":4},"title":"Executive Branding For Teams","author":"Mark Schaefer","date":"September 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Executive Branding For Teams Ad views are down. Internet noise is up. How can a company cut through the clutter and be heard? Prospective customers and employees may not pay attention to ads or company messaging any more, but they do listen to trusted friends and online influencers. 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Keynote Speaking The Uprising Retreat Books Consulting and Advisory Teaching,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Mark Schaefer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GPEC-7.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GPEC-7.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GPEC-7.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GPEC-7.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GPEC-7.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39363\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}