Flagstaff Group up their Social Media

Small, affordable changes can make an impact

When the Flagstaff Group sought the expertise of Wingz Marketing to help them with a new approach to social media, they soon felt the uplift they were seeking.

The Flagstaff Group

The Flagstaff Group is a leading social enterprise based in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven. It makes a difference in the lives of people with a disability by creating meaningful employment in a commercial environment. It supports people with disabilities, enabling them to meet their potential through skills development and training programs. In 2016, it employed over 350 people, 275 of whom were people with disabilities. Flagstaff utilises a diverse range of business units, run by Flagstaff employees, to supply goods and services to the community.

The sales and marketing team at Flagstaff is dedicated, very busy and each member has a staggering daily to-do list.

Flagstaff’s Goals

When Wingz Marketing was invited to assist the in-house sales and marketing team at Flagstaff, they were using Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for social – but without a guiding market strategy in place. Flagstaff wanted more social engagement, including more social media ‘likes’, particularly on Facebook. They also wanted some guidance with their social media strategy.

“We’d only dabbled using Facebook as a marketing channel,” says Karen Burdett, the Group Sales and Marketing Communications Manager.

At the time the team was stretched to full capacity, and as it didn’t have a dedicated social media specialist, it made sense to get external help.

“We simply don’t have in-depth expertise in the digital marketing area, nor do we have the time required to handle it.”

Why Wingz?

Karen had worked with Wingz founder, Joan Martin, previously within a large marketing department for a health insurance company, and felt that her offerings through Wingz were the right choice.

“I knew Joan had the right knowledge of digital marketing and I can trust her.”

“Joan knows her stuff.”

“It is good to bring in someone who doesn’t know your business, for them to ask questions and help you articulate what you do, all of which is relevant to a media and digital marketing perspective”, she says

“It has been great working with Wingz.”

The consultancy began

The first stage of the process involved Wingz visiting Flagstaff’s head office and discussing possibilities with the team. They decided to develop a three-month social media strategy including, refining their platform use, creating a social media calendar and conducting a series of low-cost, high impact, paid Facebook advertising campaigns.

Stage One: Refining social media platforms

Due to time and resource constraints, Wingz Marketing recommended that Flagstaff focuses on using two platforms extremely well, rather than overstretching themselves by using three platforms. Facebook was selected as Flagstaff’s priority platform, with Instagram as a secondary one. Wingz recommended more videos in their FB posts.

Stage Two: Facebook Advertising Campaigns

Wingz designed and ran a Facebook ad for their Fine Foods division, on the theme ‘Buy Local’, which not only relates to the service but hooks into current market trends. The audience segmentation facility offered by Facebook gave scope for precise buyer persona targeting.

Flagstaff was pleased with the results and has brought Wingz in for several further campaigns since then.

Stage Three: The Social Media Calendar

Wingz identified and worked with five themes to create a social media calendar for Flagstaff, to enable a more strategic approach to the platform. These included a balance of posts about their news, industry matters, as well as some topical and fun posts – all for variety, relevancy and to boost engagement. Wingz also designed a series of branded templates for these posts with lively, timely text and compelling images.

Results

In Karen’s words, each step of the consultancy “improved things – immediately!”

“The utilisation of Wingz has been beneficial for us, we have seen the results!”

In response to the Facebook ads, Karen says:

“The marketing campaigns were successful for us. They increased direct-to-consumer enquiries, as well as website enquiries, exposing a part of our product and services that traditionally struggles to get in front of people’s eyeballs. All of this was done for a relatively low cost.”

“What we were looking for was an uplift, and we’ve got that,” she adds.

The social media calendar was equally as successful, with Flagstaff’s graphic designers using many of the branded posts created by Wingz as is.

Karen indicated that the team is using their social media more effectively “now that we have a structure around what we do”, thanks to Wingz Marketing’s help.

Happy with the spend

Finally, Karen says she is happy with the spend.

“In the not-for-profit space cost is a major concern, and having an adequate return on investment is a priority. You simply have to extract the most from what you spend.”

Karen feels the service Wingz offers has met that equation. Flagstaff intends to obtain consulting support from Wingz Marketing for the rest of their business divisions in future.

“I would absolutely pick Wingz again… They are very cost-effective.”

She has been recommending Wingz Marketing to organisations in her sector, saying that if all they can afford is the initial consultation, it is worth it to discuss with Wingz what they can do for their budget.

Karen concludes, “It is great to talk and think about ways to improve what you might be already doing. It’s beneficial and valuable”.