We had a little April Fools fun with one of our willing clients and are pleased to announce they had a great return on a very small investment of humour and creativity.
Lobster Cottage is a holiday home based in Tenby Pembrokeshire. These clients were open to some April fools fun over the weekend to elevate their profile and perhaps reach a few new followers.
The Process
Here at activ we implemented a PR plan to capture the essence of the business, engage with the local community and ultimately create some word of mouth discussion to raise the profile of this new business via their Instagram account that we manage.
April fools stunts can be and often are, a damp squib because they are usually very obviously fake, however, we worked hard on some ideas that would plant a seed of doubt even momentarily that would begin the conversation on social media and directly with the business owners.
After an hilarious thought shower at HO, and many ideas later, we came up with the Lobster Sanctuary angle.
We wanted to include the name of the cottage within the storyline and highlight the businesses investment in the local area and the wildlife of Pembrokeshire- and so the storytelling began.
We used some AI to create eye catching ‘believable’ imagery that accompanied some lighthearted text used on Lobster Cottage’s Instagram feed.
We also researched local projects that are responsible for keeping Tenby in such clean conditions, especially its coastline, to demonstrate the businesses investment in the area.
We posted the story first thing on Saturday April 1. ensuring we tagged local news outlets and tourist channels. This was shared by various followers and some discussion was generated on the instagram feed, where we engaged as people posted.
This continued until midday when we posted again, asking if anyone was caught out by our previous fib. This post also included the local project Recycle Mor and a contribution to the project for the continuation of their hard work ensuring Tenby remains a beautiful place to visit.
The Result
Within 24hrs, Lobster Cottage had taken a booking from a new follower worth £1050 as a direct result of the April Fools Post.
This is a huge return on an investment of a little time and creativity.
It is also worth noting that the statistics on instagram re. Likes and shares, was minimal. And whilst many people would be disappointed by this and assume there was little engagement and interest, they would be wrong. The Lobster Cottage instagram account saw a huge spike in reach over the weekend, with a 70% increase in accounts reached, and a 4% increase in followers over a 7 day period. Impressions by non-followers was higher than followers and the account gained 25 new followers on the same day, and Lobster Cottage gained one new guest! Proof that it only take one new follower to get that sale.
In summary, return for some creativity:
- Direct booking value of £1050
- 70% increase in reach
- 4% uplift in followers
Lobster cottage’s business owners were also inundated with direct messages, calls and face to face questions about the post and whether it was real. Lots of lighthearted conversations created a ripple of word of mouth and in doing so reflected the nature of the business and the warmth they have for the community and their residents.
All in all in was a huge success, the name of the cottage will definitely remain in the minds of the audience.
So, we are definitely going to be having some more fun with our marketing and get as creative as we can be to elevate our clients business goals in 2023.
If you want to add some creativity to your socials or a well thought out PR stunt, get in touch with our thought provoking team.
