Case Study
The UPS Store
Creating competitive advantage through digital localization
The company
With over 360 franchised locations, The UPS Store is Canada’s largest network of print and copy centers. The UPS Store provides small businesses and individuals a wide range of services such as digital color and black and white printing, full document finishing, worldwide shipping and packaging services, mailbox rentals, mail forwarding, package/mail/fax receiving and mail fulfillment.
Industry
Packing and shipping, printing, mailboxes
Services provided
Social media community management, content creation, social media advertising, search engine optimization, search engine advertising, information architecture, website design, website development, mobile app development, custom software.
The situation
The UPS Store was looking to extend the strength of its established bricks-and-mortar franchise network online. Although the company was growing well, the leadership team identified a significant opportunity to improve the company’s digital presence to fuel additional growth.
The UPS Store’s website did not reflect the company’s updated branding, was not user friendly and was not search optimized. In addition, the company was not actively using digital marketing as a customer acquisition channel.
Together we identified several digital objectives:
- Replicate The UPS Store’s strong local presence online to create a competitive advantage
- Generate both digital traffic and in-store foot traffic at the location level to increase customer awareness and sales
- Provide an opportunity for The UPS Store to maintain a relationship with customers in-between store visits
The approach
Our cross-functional team worked closely with The UPS Store team to create a digital media strategy and implementation roadmap. The strategy was focused on a “local first” approach in order to drive maximum benefit for franchisees. There was also a strong social media component in order to enable ongoing relationship-building with existing and new customers.
The strategy encompassed a number of elements, including:
- Design and development of a new custom website which included highly localized microsites for each store
- Locally-oriented search engine optimization to increase The UPS Store’s visibility in local searches
- Implementation of Facebook Locations and localized social media content cascading to create a large network of inter-connected social properties
- Establishing a social media content calendar and community management approach
- Franchisee training on social media best practices
- Implementation of social media and search engine advertising campaigns to generate new business
The outcome
The UPS Store’s “local first” approach to digital generated results very quickly. The company saw an increase in website traffic, business inquiries and store-level foot-traffic.
Implementing a localized social media strategy allowed The UPS Store to find and interact with both existing and potential customers in a new and meaningful way. Through a combination of local social media posting and a sophisticated social media/search advertising approach the company could generate customer engagement at the store level to drive business results from the ground up.
The social strategy, coupled with the new website and a strong localized SEO approach, generated an immediate increase in website traffic and customer inquiries.
In the first 3 months after deployment, we saw the following results:
>150%%
Increase in website traffic>100%%
Increase in search traffic>450%%
Increase in social media interactionsWe are proud to be an ongoing partner of The UPS Store, working with the company on a variety of social media, search, content, website and mobile app initiatives.
"The Reshift team is the best there is. I couldn't imagine working with anyone else."
David Druker
President, MBEC Communications Inc.
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