The case of Hawkers Co.
Hawkers: A Smart Online Advertising Strategy
The Spanish sunglasses brand “Hawkers” as an example of how a start-up can succeed being smart on the online advertising strategy.
Hawkers Co. is a Spanish company built up by four young entrepreneurs in 2013. They discovered an opportunity in the eyewear market and they made a revolution. They put emphasis on the optimization and intelligent use of online advertising strategy using tools such as Facebook Ads and Google AdWords. These individuals understood exactly how and whom to focus on the value proposition.
The current high-quality eyewear industry charges high prices that not everyone can afford. Under this “unfair” market, where Luxxotica was the undoubtable leader, these young entrepreneurs identified an opportunity. A niche for low priced sunglasses that they would be able to reach with only one model of sunglasses.
Does not every startup need to enter a market with an innovative, new or completely different product to be successful? It seems it was not the case for these youth. They focused on two broad objectives: create brand awareness and drive online sales. The result: a profit gain of 15 million euros in their first year.
Our business idea was not new, innovation lay in the business format: buying glasses and selling them through social networks and digital marketing
So, what did Hawkers do?
- To promote the new brand, they used a famous Spanish MotoGP rider: Jorge Lorenzo. His face appeared in a Facebook Ad campaign targeting 18-35 year old Spaniards and Italians: huge fans of MotoGP. Now, more celebrities such as Paula Echevarría share pictures with the glasses both in Instagram and Twitter.
- By attracting more followers to their Facebook Page, they could be able to reach more people. They created an ad offering a discount “only for those who liked the Hawkers Co. Facebook page“. Today, they have 4.5K followers, so words speak for themselves.
- The profit was reinvested in daily low-budget campaigns to promote to potential customers. Their success using Facebook Ads resulted in a trip to Silicon Valley to explain to 300 Facebook engineers how they manage it.
- Hawkers did not want to rely solely on Facebook for advertisements for fear. It could be too risky if the social network were to become unstable or close. They decided to expand advertising online including publicity in more channels such as “WeTransfer” and gaming webpages.
- They used retargeting with Google AdWords. This allowed them to not only reach their existing customers but also those with similar behaviour patterns. How? They chose to create new clusters basing on the existing customers’ behaviour. By doing so, they would achieve growth at a faster rate.
- As a manager, you have to understand changes in the market and consistently do research to improve. As every digital marketing strategy, it can be measured to be improved. Using click-commands in all of their actions, they monitor user behaviour while observing failures and successes. Then, they are ready to improve it.
We have a turnover of €40 million a year because we spend €39 million
An example to follow
Their success caused impression in the marketplace. It is the first Spanish company with sponsorship sponsored by the NBA “Layers”.The Hawkers achievement story shows us that no matter your offer, but how you build the strategy behind.
Even when writing a blog, you must think wisely. You can write about any subject matter, but the way you format the content.