Some brands have grown exponentially since their inception. Sam’s club is one of them. How did they manage it? What did they do to increase their customer base? What did they do to keep their consumers coming back? We think Sam’s club’s Marketing Strategy played a significant part in all this, especially its digital marketing strategy. This article analyses a few digital marketing strategies used by the company to give you an insight into what they have been doing.
About Sam’s club
In the United States, Sam’s Club is a membership-only retail warehouse club. It is a subsidiary of Walmart Inc., the largest retailer in the world. Since its inception on April 7, 1983, the club has grown to over 600 membership warehouse clubs across the United States.
From the United States, the organization has expanded to China, Brazil, and Mexico. Every year, over 20,000 Sam’s Club associates are promoted to positions with more responsibility and income. It also provides full-time associates with paid parental leave, additional support for adoptive families, savings, health plans, associate stock purchase plans, and associate discounts, among other benefits.
Sams Club has become one of the best retail warehouse club members. It also has ranked second in sales volume among warehouse clubs with $57.839 billion in sales in 2019.
Now that we are discussing Sam’s club, let’s take a look at their marketing strategy too.
What’s new with Sam’s club?
Here’s what was buzzing around Sam’s club recently:
- Sam’s Club to open new distribution center in Oklahoma City.
- Sam’s Club and TechBridge, Inc. teamed up to offer no-cost technology-focused training
- Walmart and Sam’s Club announced enhanced seafood policy in Tuna supply chains
- Sam’s Club started their 2nd High School Internship Program
- Sam’s Club members can save money when shopping
Let’s now understand the target audience of Sam’s club better with the help of a buyer persona.
Buyer Persona of Sam’s club
A buyer persona generally refers to the detailed information of an ideal customer of a company. When it comes to Sam’s club, people from India use it the most. This buyer persona will help you understand the attributes of regular a Sam’s club user.
Buyer’s Persona
Name:
Sarah Johnson
Place:
Suburban Chicago, Illinois
Age:
36 years
Profession:
Marketing Manager
Motivation
- To save time and money on groceries and household goods
- To find high-quality products at bulk prices
- To have a convenient shopping experience
- To take advantage of exclusive member benefit
Interest & Hobbies
- Cooking and entertaining
- DIY projects
- Spending time with family and friends
- Outdoor activities
Pain Points
- Long checkout lines
- Limited selection of specialty items
- Difficulty finding coupons and discounts
- Lack of personalized shopping recommendations
Social Media Presence
From the table above we can conclude that an ideal Sam’s club Useris a busy person who is always looking for ways to save time and money..
Want to know about the current challenges of Sam’s club? Read a detailed SWOT Analysis of the brand before moving on with marketing strategies.
Sam’s club Marketing Strategies
Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning
The target audience of Sam’s Club are urban middle-class and upper-class individuals with membership for club warehouse retail operations as the products include branded and expensive goods. Members are of both business and individual consumers. This segment also includes online sales at www.samsclub.com.
Sam’s Club uses its app store and online platforms to target its customers, and the club had created a campaign with Liftoff. The club introduces sam’s club which offers a curated assortment of high-quality products at an incredible value.
Sam’s Club made its positioning in the market with an effective brand and effective marketing strategies. The club offers credit value to all the members on its Mastercard for fuel, dining, travel, and everything else. Club interacts with their customers in many ways like celebrating Independence day with an $8 membership offer, Initiating a food donation camp, and Helping to fight hunger to change.
1. Search Engine Optimisation
Sam’s club has put a lot of effort into SEO.
As per Ubersuggest data, it ranks in India for 5,936,612 keywords as of September 2023. Its organic traffic is 38,415,266 sessions per month. The stats are higher compared to their SEO performance in April 2023.
Here are some of their Search Engine Optimisation techniques :
Backlinks
Sam’s club gets backlinks from 4,072,645 unique domains. All this increases the Domain Authority of Sam’s club’s domain and helps it rank higher.
2. Social Media Marketing
Sam’s Club is active on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. As of August 2023, it has 630k followers on Instagram and 3.5 million followers on Facebook.
Sam’s club runs three different X(Twitter before), Sam’s Club, Sam’s Club News, and Sam’s Club Help with a composite of about 150k followers.
Let’s analyze how their posts are:
- Focus on showcasing member value. Sam’s Club’s Instagram feed is full of posts that highlight the benefits of being a member, such as exclusive deals, savings on bulk purchases, and access to high-quality products. This helps to reinforce the value proposition of Sam’s Club and encourage people to sign up for a membership.
- Use a mix of high-quality product photography and user-generated content (UGC). Sam’s Club’s Instagram feed features a mix of professionally shot product photos and UGC. This helps to create a more engaging and authentic feed that is relatable to followers.
- Partner with influencers. Sam’s Club has partnered with a variety of influencers to promote its products and services on Instagram. This helps to reach a wider audience and generate buzz around the brand.
Sam’s Club has joined forces with the Jonas Brothers to offer a limited release of the largest 12oz bags of Rob’s Popcorn, a favorite snack of the popular band. This collaboration aims to provide an exciting snacking experience for Sam’s Club customers.
3. Paid Advertising- Online Advertising: Sam’s Club invests in targeted online ads across various platforms, including Google Ads and Bing Ads, to capture potential customers actively searching for wholesale or bulk shopping options.
- TV and Radio Commercials: Traditional media channels are also utilized, especially during high shopping seasons like the holiday period, to create mass awareness and attract new members.
4. E-commerce Strategies
About the Ecommerce strategies, Slams Club has an online website where customers can order goods online mode and will get the delivery, they even provide many offers on the website to engage customers their website.
Club also has Mobile Apps where the customers can order their products and get delivery on their doorsteps.
5. Mobile Apps
The Club has a mobile app called sams club event which allows participants easily navigate the events throughout the year. The app contains all the helpful information like schedule, venue, etc.
Marketing and Advertising Campaign Examples
Here are some of the unique and successful advertising campaigns of Sam’s club:
- “Savings Made Simple” Campaign:
Sam’s Club has traditionally focused on promoting its low prices and bulk-buying advantages. The “Savings Made Simple” campaign highlighted the idea that shopping at Sam’s Club allows consumers to save time and money by offering a simplified shopping experience. This campaign emphasized the value and convenience of a Sam’s Club membership.
- “Get More of What You Love” Campaign:
In this campaign, Sam’s Club emphasized the breadth of products and services they offer. It highlighted the idea that members can “get more of what they love” in terms of groceries, electronics, home goods, and other items. Sam’s Club showcased the variety and quality of products available to members.
- Holiday Season Campaigns:
Sam’s Club typically runs marketing and advertising campaigns during the holiday season. These campaigns focus on promoting holiday-themed products, gift ideas, and special offers for members. They often include TV commercials, digital advertising, and in-store promotions to attract shoppers during the festive season.
4. Sam’s club “like a VIP” campaign:
Sam’s Club organizes its ad debut at football’s biggest game of the year on 31st Jan 2022. There was huge excitement among fans, using their social strategy the club made a way to reach the fans. The campaign collaborates with a star who is an actor, comedian, and entrepreneur Kevin Hart, the “Like a VIP” spot highlights the warehouse retailers. The ad follows Hart shopping like a VIP.
The strategy was like, the 30second commercial will air at the two-minute warning in the four quarter. The club will carry the VIP theme into the Big Game by giving fans a chance to score like a VIP on Sam’s Club membership and prize packages.
In-game when the yard line in the ball is spotted at the time the ad airs will be the price new members can pay for special, limited-time offers for annual Club membership so that fans should tune in to see the discounts. The club is also giving fans a chance to win one of four incredible VIP offers – a $25,000 shopping spree at the club, A luxury vehicle by sam’s auto buying program, fuel for a year, and a $50,000 VIP trip.
To enter and to win the sweepstake fans could tweet or add comments on Instagram, #samsclubsVIP, #sweepstake. The Club planned to announce the winners on social media throughout the Big Game. This campaign got a huge crowd on its social platform and increases fans’ excitement about the contest.
5. Fight Hunger. Spark Change Campaign
Sam’s Club with Walmart has also reached a food donation milestone. For context, 7 billion pounds of food equates to more than 50 billion meals. The campaign name was Fight Hunger. Spark Change to involve others in this fight against food insecurity. This campaign has been going on for the last 9 years, this year it’s also about raising awareness in the community that simple action can make a big difference for people who are in need.
With the help of Clubs associates, members, customers, and suppliers they have secured over 1.5 billion meals for people in need. That progress is valuable and exciting. Progress has certainly been made this year that Walmart stores and Sam’s club are working to help fight hunger. They will continue this campaign until their neighbours access the need for food that sustains them. And they always welcome those who want to help them.
Failed Campaigns of Sam’s club
Sam’s club more than often grabs attention with its unique marketing. But, there have been a few times when the campaign failed to connect with the audiences and gained backlash.
What was the issue?
The plus members received a direct mail piece from Sam’s Club stating a free item had been loaded to their member card but when they went to their location to pick up the said item, at checkout they didn’t get the free item. On top of it the cashier insisted that the customer produce the printed piece of mail, even though the mailer specifically stated that the customer didn’t need to bring it in.
What backlash did the brand face?
It could be a case of a lack of follow-through in loading reward codes to member cards. Also, lack of training for the cashiers on how to give better customer service (or simply info provided to key in the reward).
What did the brand do in this situation?
The store cashiers didn’t behave appropriately and no other information was found related to the incident.
Did they take down the campaign or changed it as a whole?
Later they came out with better offers for their plus members and improved the communication gap that they had earlier.
Top Competitors of Sam’s club
Here’s the list of top competitors of Sam’s club:
- Costco Wholesale
- BJ’s Wholesale Club
- Amazon Prime Pantry and Amazon Fresh
- Target
Conclusion
As we wrap up our analysis of Sam’s club’s impressive digital marketing strategy, it’s clear that staying up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques is key to success in the digital marketing world.
Whether you’re a marketing professional or just starting out, be sure to check out our free digital marketing masterclass to gain a solid foundation in the essentials of digital marketing.
Who knows, you might just develop the next big marketing strategy like Sam’s club’s! Don’t forget to share your thoughts and comments on Sam’s club’s strategy in the comments below.
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