BSH Home Appliances supports retailers with socialPALS campaigns

The BSH Home Appliances Group consists of numerous well-known brands. This time, we had the pleasure of talking to three representatives from the home appliances division - and they were all enthusiastic about the functionality and effectiveness of the socialPALS retail marketing platform!

February 16, 2022

BSH Home Appliances supports retailers with socialPALS campaigns

February 16, 2022

Two years of pandemic restrictions were a veritable challenge for all stationery retailers. Meanwhile, virtually all have recognized how important it is to be visible online and generally be more “digital”. We were able to find out from Jehane el Hachimi el Idrissi, Marianne Kobriger, and Lars Lehmann how the BSH Group is tackling this issue together with its retail partners with support from socialPALS!

Jehane, Marianne & Lars | BSH Group

Please tell us and our readers briefly about your role at BSH Home Appliances!

Jehane: I joined BSH Home Appliances in 2021 and am responsible for D2C Performance and Media Marketing.

Marianne: I am responsible for the Brand Communication of Siemens fully automatic coffee machines in the DACH region.

You have been using socialPALS since the middle of last year to provide your retail partners with high-quality campaign content. Why did you decide to integrate this form of automated retail marketing into your communications concept?

Marianne: socialPALS is a great addition to our campaign activities. As a brand, we get a much wider reach and can target end customers with the help of our retail partners.

Jehane: socialPALS allows us to share our marketing calendar with our distributors in a very simple way. It is a very convenient solution for both sides. It provides total transparency, as we can share all recorded KPIs with our partners as well.

What challenges do you currently see for the BSH Home Appliances Group and/or for your retail partners? Were you able to solve them with the help of socialPALS?

Jehane: I think the last two years with all the lockdowns and restrictions have been a real challenge for all stationary retailers. Everyone realized during the pandemic how important it is to be more online and more digital. socialPALS allowed us to help our retailers increase their online visibility and reach more customers.

What was the objective of the "Bosch Cookit" campaigns and how much internal effort did you put into launching the first campaign and the others?

Jehane: We had our first campaigns with socialPALS in July 2021, focused on getting as many sales as possible and giving maximum visibility to our sales campaigns. This allowed us to push our summer campaigns in particular. The effort was manageable from my perspective. We got great support – socialPALS even organized a training session for our sales team to introduce the tool and its possibilities for retailers. The whole onboarding process was also easy and fast.

How difficult was it to motivate your retail partners to participate? Is the "online marketing" module accepted as an integration into the sales concept?

Jehane: I believe all our retailers have recognized the opportunities that socialPALS offers them. Some of them are already advanced in online marketing and have their own marketing team. Other retailers had no contact with online marketing before. Especially for the latter, the tool has helped tremendously in running marketing campaigns efficiently – without having expertise in this area.

With the content calendar, each post can be quickly customized as required.

socialPALS offers retailers a turnkey campaign solution.

With professional, digital advertisements, the retailer draws attention to its on-site offerings.

An individualized landing page shows product info and retailer logo (optional: Google Maps excerpt, lead form, appointment tool, etc.)

Participation in a socialPALS campaign and thus the playout of the turnkey content calendar is confirmed by each retail partner after one-time registration via 1-Click. Were there also retailers who took a closer look at the platform and e.g. planned (additional) postings or advertising budget themselves?

Marianne: Yes, there were quite a few. However, a small survey we conducted among our retail partners showed that they agreed with both the campaign content and the timing of the posts and ads. So we hit the nail on the head!

Jehane: Some of our retail partners have their own marketing teams or agency. These retailers have tried more options on the platform and have scheduled some additional postings. However, this represents only a minority, as most of the retailers have followed our content calendar.

Were the campaigns successful? Were you able to draw helpful insights from them - for example, which ad formats are best suited for the advertised product?

Marianne: In the B2B business, we rely on qualitative feedback from our retail partners, and most of it was positive. As far as ad formats are concerned, it has once again been shown that users particularly well receive moving image assets.

Jehane: Previously, we had only used Facebook and Instagram for our campaigns. Thanks to the dashboards and all available KPIs, we were able to measure the performance of our campaigns and thus constantly improve them.

In the socialPALS dashboard, brands and retailers will find clear reporting for each ad placed.

Has the "Corona crisis" had a (lasting) impact on the industry, e.g. as shopping at retailers was temporarily restricted by lockdown & co. or because customers postponed major purchases such as household appliances indefinitely? Has this also changed the requirements for local marketing?

Marianne: Corona has proven to be an accelerator in many home appliance sectors. Many people are based working from home and are making themselves comfortable. The real issue, which also trickles down to local marketing, is a shortage of goods. This presented us with unique challenges to which we had to and still have to find answers.

How do you see the future of stationary retail in the context of the market power of the big online players, price search engines, etc.? Does the "household appliance retailer around the corner" still have a chance if it invests in digital measures early enough?

Marianne: Yes, definitely. We’re seeing a sustainable ROPO effect: customers get information at home and then go to the stores to get final advice again and also buy there. Retail partners can reinforce this effect by using digital advertising!

Are you already planning campaigns for other brands or product categories to support your retail partners?

Jehane: Yes, we have already run four campaigns with socialPALS so far and are planning a rollout in more categories.

That' s great to hear - thank you very much for the interview round!

Here's what our retailers have to say:

Thanks to the help of socialPALS and Bosch, we were given an excellent opportunity for posting professional promotional posts – which guaranteed us a few more clicks and sales of the “Cookit”. When setting up and creating the first post, I was assisted by a socialPALS support team member – who was very friendly and helpful.

Siemers Deutschmann, Mölln
Pascal Stiewig

Setting social media content in cooperation with our long-standing and reliable business partner Bosch Siemens Home Appliances has led to a remarkable increase in reach since the first campaign. This is statistically evident in our Social Media Insights. Although we as tele-electric operate our own website and always fill it with new and exciting content, there is a lot of work behind every post in photo shooting and editing, tagging, and text content – if you assume a qualitatively appealing website. So it is, of course, very convenient if socialPALS take over this work, at least for BSH. Furthermore, it remains essential that we customize the predefined advertising text under the campaigns (as before) to add our own “regional touch”. Otherwise, the resourceful Internet community will surely recognize a “robot text”. For companies that cannot sustainably take care of their social media presence due to staff or time constraints, socialPALS is a super solution. Easy to use, plan and design campaigns. The companies or accounts concerned are indeed very grateful here.

tele electric, Schwäbisch Gmünd
Patrick Stark

Act today and use your MDF more effectively!

socialPALS brings brands and retail partners together and creates a win-win situation that unleashes previously untapped potential. The innovative software solution simplifies complex processes through automated retail marketing and strengthens stationary retail through regional brand campaigns. Get your obligation-free platform demo today and become part of the socialPALS success story.