Social Network Drives Sales at BodySpace
While some e-retailers are still figuring out what social networking is, and whether they want to be involved, Bodybuilding.com did not take a wait-and-see approach to social networking. A year ago it created its own social network called BodySpace, and the result has been an increase in brand awareness, traffic and sales.
BodySpace is a place where users can post photos of themselves; describe their workout goals and blog about their progress. Sine its launch the site has added about 117,000 active users. In addition to BodySpace, Bodybuilding.com offers 20,000 pages of content from experts and consumers, an online forum where more than 800,000 fitness buffs have posted 19 million messages over the past five years (making it the 34th biggest online forum on the web as measured by forum tracker Big Boards), 24 educational online video series, and functionality that enables a user to create his own blog.
In an interview in Internet Retailer, Ryan DeLuca, CEO spoke about the positive results that BodySpace has generated:
“There is no doubt our community and social networking offerings are making a big difference for sales and conversion. Since we added BodySpace, our average order size is up nearly $10 to $92.41, and our conversion rate is 8%, up from 7% a year ago. That one percentage point is huge.”
Because of the success of BodySpace DeLuca is projecting $90 million in sales this year and $122 million next year. There sales in 2006 were $65 million.
“We are building something that is not just based on making money,” he adds. “Everything we add to our site is based on helping visitors reach their goals. Helping our visitors stick to their programs and reach their goals will ultimately lead to much higher revenue, a much more valuable brand based on emotional connections, and more profitability based on increased customer loyalty.”
BodySpace is one the more tangible examples that I have found where a company has been able to show that adding as social network has generated a measurable increase in brand awareness, traffic and sales. That they are expecting to almost double sales in 2 years largely because of the success of their social network is a testament to the power of social networking.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Social Retailing : Comments (1) : Nov 15th, 2007
December 11th, 2007 at 5:50 am
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