Samsung: Doubling The Flagship Smartphone’s Pre-order Sales
Brief
Samsung, the world’s leading phone maker, was preparing to launch the S7 Hero model. Every year, Samsung unveils its new flagship smartphone during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The new product launch is a chance to demonstrate the company’s leading position as the key innovator in the mobile market.
Months before the event, Samsung started evaluating the results of the previous year S6 launch and testing multiple strategies to optimize engagement and beat the previous year’s performance. Last year was good, with the CTRs above industry benchmarks and high pre-registration numbers, but this year, Samsung wanted to raise the bar even further.
Strategy
Samsung was adding six more countries to its campaign, so it needed a powerful, enterprise-grade marketing technology partner to support all the pre-and post-launch activities for the Galaxy S7 model in Europe. The stakes were high: It was targeting over 30M people speaking 26 different languages in 23 countries. The Samsung marketing team wanted to generate prelaunch buzz and excitement around the new product, identify prospective buyers, keep them engaged, drive prospects to purchase, and then follow up with successful onboarding to optimise the satisfaction rate.
This required an integrated solution that could support these goals across all channels. Each goal had a subset of smaller goals to ensure the campaign’s successful outcome, which was to beat last year’s performance on pre-orders, increase sales both online and offline, and improve customer satisfaction rates. For example, at the pre-launch stage, Samsung wanted to:
- Convince Samsung smartphone users to upgrade
- Promote the premium upgrade creatively (e.g., “the new dimension”, “rethink Samsung”)
- Make switching as easy as possible.
Execution
To deliver the right message to the right prospects at each stage and for every goal, Samsung turned to its trusted omni-channel engagement provider. Selligent provided all the functionality Samsung needed for the campaign, including advanced segmentation by multiple data sets, real-time optimisation, A/B and multivariate testing, and contextual personalisation based on the campaign’s feedback and results in real-time.
Result
The campaign launched simultaneously across Europe, with messages localized in each region and powered by continuous feedback loops. Using Selligent, Samsung targeted eight different segments based on predictive purchase behaviour analysis, customising messages by preferences (e.g., some were interested in the new camera features while others in gaming). Samsung used A/B and multivariate testing for its messaging and dynamic content with a countdown clock for prelaunch teasers, leading prospects to purchase with a combination of push notifications, email, and surveys.
The brand also followed up with a post-purchase campaign, creating a seamless and highly personalised stream of communication in full alignment with corporate goals and customer preferences.
- 30M consumers in 23 European countries reached in 26 languages
- 1081 per cent revenue boost compared to the S6 model launch
- +57 per cent improvement on push notification CTR rates compared to the S6 model launch
- +48 per cent increase in pre-orders compared to the S6 model launch.