If you can reach people on an emotional level as a marketer, you can ignite their passion and drive desired outcomes. Using social media, one high-end camera retailer tapped into photo enthusiast communities to increase revenue by nearly 200%.

The company had a strong presence regionally, but wanted to expand nationally. The client was already a very social brand, often sharing information about camera equipment, encouraging its audience to share photos, and interacting with Facebook fans. So it was a natural move to use Facebook advertising to take sales messaging to photo enthusiasts. To achieve the client’s goals, we took a two-pronged approach: one campaign to drive fans and another campaign to drive revenue.

The first campaign targeted people interested in photography, including people who liked relevant interest group pages, such as nature, sports, and wedding photography. Ad copy was specific to the group targeted. For example, those interested in sports photography received the message, “Do you like sports photography? Click ‘Like’ now!” After three months of implementing the fan-generation campaign, the client’s fan base increased by 347%. The cost per fan (CPF) was 24 cents, almost 80 percent lower than the average CPF reported by Webtrends.

And though the camera company has a national audience, it has a high regional concentration. So we helped create a second geo-targeted campaign focused on direct-response sale conversions. Many of the same people were targeted as the first campaign, with the exception that this campaign had a concentrated geo focus. The main difference in this campaign was the creative; the ads used to drive revenue advertised the company’s services, available product lines, and promotion codes.

Within two months of the campaign’s launch, revenue tracked from Facebook increased by 177%. Two months later, revenue from Facebook increased another 31%.