A Beginners Guide to Snapchat Marketing

According to the latest Snapchat statistics, over 210 million snaps are created every single day (Snapchat, 2020). With other social platforms, the content you publish is saved and archived, however Snapchat has something else in mind, with image and video posts that self-destruct after being viewed.

In this article, I’ll take you through the basics of Snapchat marketing, and why you should consider the social platform for your marketing efforts.

Why is Snapchat important for marketing?

In the first three months of 2020, Snapchat had a whopping 229 million daily active users worldwide. According to recent research, the average Snapchat user spends 30 minutes every day on the platform as well, meaning they are highly engaged.

That makes Snapchat a decent-sized social media marketing platform. Let's also look at the demographic breakdown because this is where it becomes a little different than most of the other platforms out there. The majority of Snapchat users are under 35, so Snapchat has a uniquely young user base.

If you have a service or product that caters to a younger demographic, then having a Snapchat presence and reaching younger people and engaging with them would be a very smart move. Another marketing angle could be engaging with these young users, so that they talk with their parents about your product or service, is another effective method and something that you want to consider.

The benefits of Snapchat marketing

A huge percentage of these Snapchat users are using this platform every single day. This means you're going to have an easy way to reach those users. Because of their unique user demographics, compared to platforms like Facebook or Instagram, marketing competition is actually a lot lower than you would expect. Therefore, if you are after a way to market to a younger audience, embracing Snapchat may be an ideal method to do that.

Snapchat is known as more “authentic”, because there seems to be significantly less ads being shown to you than when you are on Facebook or Instagram. The difference here is that Snapchat is not purely deriving revenue from advertising income, so the user experience doesn't really seem like you're overloaded with ads.

This can be a huge benefit to advertisers, as Snapchat ads are used in a more platform native way, meaning they are subtly inserted between your friends' stories, so they often seem more authentic to the platform.

Different methods to market your business on Snapchat

There are a number of different methods that you can adopt when considering Snapchat marketing as a way to promote your services or products. The first step obviously, is simply to have an account on there and to start posting snaps and stories.

There’s a number of different topics that anyone can immediately use to create content. Just like when you are growing your brand on Instagram, you could share a ‘behind the scenes’ of the business, showing the daily life of your team. You could also start creating content about a product or service that hasn't actually launched yet, as people love seeing ‘exclusive content’ and know about newer things first.

Sneak peeks are a fantastic way to drive people to your content or to your website. You should always make sure that if you're creating Snapchat content, that you show real team members at your business, and don’t fall for the ‘stock image’ trap. People are always interested in that more personal “day to day life” view of your business operations.

One of the best things about Snapchat content, is that the platform allows you to add links into any story that you create, and encourage users or snap viewers to “swipe up” to visit a landing page or your website, etc. The great thing about embracing this feature is that anybody can easily do this, and this can be a powerful way to increase traffic to your website, especially in an area or topic that has less competition on the platform.

Another Snapchat marketing tip is to try running simple contests. You can easily use Snapchat as a platform to run a contest by creating stories and adding a swipe up to an entry form landing page, where they enter or join a messenger list to get updated about a particular contest.

An effective yet paid method obviously, is to start using the Snapchat advertising features. They are as easy as Facebook ads, if not easier, as all you are really doing is creating a very short video or image, and a “swipe up” link to your landing page or website.

You obviously need to put all of your focus into creating a story or advertisement that will be very engaging and interesting for your target demographic. Your ad needs to really catch their attention and draw the user into swiping up for more information.

Another interesting method to promote your business is to try using sponsored lenses. These are a way that you can actually pretty much submit your brand for other people to use and attach to their stories. Now this is often far more expensive than other traditional ways of marketing, however they can be a super effective way to spread awareness about your brand.

Snapchat as a customer engagement tool

Finally, the platform doesn’t need to be purely social media marketing for you. You should also understand that is actually a great platform for general customer communication as well. You can encourage your customers or potential customers, to send messages to you and communicate with you via Snapchat.

They can then ask pre-sales or support questions about your products or services. or any other problems or even compliments and reviews about your products or services. Snapchat is an excellent communication platform for your younger customers, because that's where they're already communicating on a day-to-day basis.

Because you can use video calling with Snapchat, why not test the market by setting up face-to-face calls with customers? This is also a great way to get potential customers informed about your products or services and adding that personal touch at the same time.

In Summary

In conclusion, if you are after a predominantly younger target demographic, then giving Snapchat marketing a go may be a great strategy for your business. 

It is super simple to get started, and because they have a uniquely younger audience base, marketing and creating content on Snapchat may help you reach new customers for less cost than other social media platforms.