Gap Turns to Social Media to Draw Shoppers

I came across this article on the Wall Street Journal online. It focuses on Gap's innovative social media idea to draw customers into the stores. They offered 10,000 pairs of free jeans to people who checked in to any men's and women's Gap U.S. location using Facebook's new Deals feature. Deals allows users to earn special discounts when checking in to different businesses via Facebook's Places application. This benefits local businesses because it allows them access to Facebook's 200 million mobile phone users. Customers showed their check-in to a Gap employee and then received the free jeans. Shoppers who weren't quick enough to get one of the free pairs of jeans were offered 40% off any full-price item.

This is just one example of how Gap is creatively using social media to bolster sales. In August, Gap teamed up with daily deals site Groupon to present users with $50 worth of Gap products for $25. The corporation ended up selling 441,000 Groupons and made sales records in the process. That same month, Gap also offered 25% discounts to customers who checked in to a location via Foursquare.

Gap has been aggressive with traffic-driving promotions and the results are positive. The company's pioneering efforts to integrate social media with marketing and sales is genius. Gap is the country's largest apparel retailer and hopefully other businesses will follow their lead. Gap President Marka Hansen said, "This is about igniting our most loyal customer and acquiring new ones where they are." I think this method of drawing customers is effective and should be used by more companies, even smaller ones. It is a good way to raise awareness of your business while also increasing revenue.

Gap says that it will continue utilizing social media outreach techniques but will not overuse them. They plan to learn from the techniques but will use them as one-time occurrences. I think this is a good idea because if a company is constantly offering specials, they are no longer unique and people do not have a sense of urgency to get to the store for the deal.