Katharina Narr
PR & Social Media Managerin| HYMER
Katharina, please tell us a bit about yourself and your role at HYMER!
I have been part of the marketing team at HYMER and ERIBA since July 2021 and am mainly responsible for social media. Before joining HYMER, I worked in marketing for a HYMER retail partner, which allowed me to familiarise myself with the manufacturer’s perspective as well as that of the retailer.
You have been using socialPALS since June 2020 to provide your retailers with high-quality campaign content. Why did you decide to integrate this form of automated retail marketing into your communication concept?
Since June 2020, the integration of socialPALS into our communication concept has been driven by the goal of providing optimal support to our retail partners in social media marketing. By offering high-quality content, we seek to support our retail partners in enhancing their presence and reach on social platforms. The automated distribution of social media campaigns through socialPALS provides the ideal solution for helping our dealers boost sales of our products. This efficient and focused support also helps to increase the visibility of our brand.
You've now implemented more than 40 campaigns with socialPALS. What were their objectives, and how much internal effort did it take to get them off the ground?
The campaigns were aimed at increasing the visibility of our brand at the POS and amplifying our communication messages through our dealers to boost the sales of our products. Thanks to socialPALS, we were able to implement campaigns efficiently and with precise targeting.
Were the campaigns successful? Were you able to access new target audiences and/or increase your customer base through socialPALS? Has the platform helped to reinforce your brand image and/or improve your standing in the market?
Through the use of socialPALS, we successfully strengthened our brand image at the POS and improved our brand positioning. Notably, our dealers were able to acquire new customers and deepen their connections with existing customers through the campaigns.
How has the automation of campaigns through socialPALS impacted the efficiency and scalability of your marketing efforts? Has the platform helped you to use your budgets more effectively?
The automation of our campaigns has significantly improved efficiency, allowing brand content to be spread across our dealers’ social media platforms with minimal effort, which in turn increases the reach of our brand message.
Did socialPALS provide you with new insights into your brand or products? Were there any learnings from the platform—for example, identifying which channels or formats are best suited for specific objectives? Were there any unexpected findings?
With each campaign we run using socialPALS, we gather valuable insights that help shape future campaigns. The results confirm what we’ve learned from our own channels: Proven assets like photos and videos perform well. However, it is currently not possible to publish Reels through the platform, even though this content format has proven to be extremely successful on social media platforms based on our experience.
How important are KPI analyses in assessing the effectiveness of your campaigns? Were you able to derive insights for your marketing strategy from the data provided by our platform?
KPI analyses play a crucial role in evaluating campaign performance, as they provide us with valuable insights into our customers’ behavior and needs. In particular, KPI analysis helps our dealers allocate their budgets efficiently by giving them clear information on how to distribute their resources most effectively.
How challenging was it to encourage your dealers to get involved? Has the "online marketing" element been accepted as an integral part of the sales strategy?
Our dealers were highly motivated to participate. The straightforward access to social media marketing through socialPALS allowed us to quickly spark excitement among the dealers for the platform.
How has the use of socialPALS impacted the collaboration between your marketing team and your dealers? Were there improvements, for instance, in the exchange of information? Has the perception of your brand among the dealers changed due to the digital support? Has there been an increase in satisfaction?
Using socialPALS has improved our cooperation with dealers by enabling us to consistently offer them high-quality content and campaigns.
Participation in a socialPALS campaign and the distribution of the ready-to-use content calendar is confirmed by each dealer with a single click after a one-time registration. Were there also dealers who took a closer look at the platform and, for example, scheduled (additional) posts or advertising budgets on their own?
Some of our dealers initially use the pre-set content calendar to gain their first experiences with the platform. However, we are noticing that more and more dealers are actively working with the content and adapting it to their marketing plans. Occasionally, they also allocate additional advertising budgets.
What challenges do you currently see for HYMER as a brand and for your retail partners? Have various global crises, such as the pandemic or supply chain issues, had a lasting impact on the industry? Consequently, have the requirements for local marketing fundamentally changed as well?
Purchase decisions are made well in advance today. Therefore, it is crucial to create buying incentives early on through direct customer engagement and to effectively market products already in the dealer’s inventory to the end customer. This requires close information exchange between dealer and customer. Flexible media, such as social media, offer an excellent opportunity for this.
How has socialPALS helped you keep up with current trends in retail marketing? Have you been able to benefit from the platform's features to address changing customer needs?
We primarily use socialPALS as a branding and reach tool to strengthen our brand presence through our dealers’ social media channels.
How would you rate the customer support from socialPALS? Were there times when you had questions or encountered issues—and if so, how were you helped?
Both from the manufacturer’s and the dealer’s perspective, we rate the customer support from socialPALS very positively. We especially appreciate the detailed and multilingual onboarding, which allowed us to have a smooth start. Whenever we had questions or issues, we were always supported professionally and promptly, which contributed to a positive customer service experience.
Do you have any suggestions? How can socialPALS, as a trade marketing platform, further support you in overcoming current challenges (even better)?
One potential area for the development of socialPALS is the integration of the Reels feature for our posts. We have observed that Reels are extremely successful on social media platforms. Introducing this feature could help make our content even more engaging and further increase our reach.
Voices from the Trade:
“With the socialPALS platform, we can easily participate in social media campaigns from Hymer and other manufacturers, manage them via the content calendar, and customize them individually. The platform is intuitive to use, and the support is always helpful and friendly. The pre-made content offers a variety of options and continually inspires us to create our own sales-promoting activities, which can be seamlessly integrated.”
ERWIN HYMER CENTER | Bad Waldsee
Vivian Tschugreff
Act today and use your MDF more effectively!
socialPALS brings brands and retail partners together, creating 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.
