It’s not about your business, it’s about the customer – a lesson from The Entertainer

Earlier this year High Street toy store The Entertainer purchased The Early Learning Centre from longtime stragglers, Mothercare. The Entertainer has continued to win the game at a time when other toy retailers like Toys R Us have not.

With a growing online business and a sizeable chunk of the children's market in their toy box, we explored what's working well for The Entertainer. 

Maybe* listened to the online conversation created by and about The Entertainer through June 2019. In our three-part blog series, we explore how the toy brand is playing hard with social media and influencers.

The findings

1) Engage the right audience
2) Consistent brand communication
3) Create a community of influencers

Looking at the detail

The entertainer data

Product and people

Take a quick look at the topics of conversation that The Entertainer is creating and two things jump out. Firstly, they make no mention of themselves. They haven’t shoehorned themselves into every piece of content they create, nor plastered links to their website everywhere.

Secondly, it's all about the product and the people. For those of you not up on pop culture or down with the kids, Endgame equals Marvel’s Avenger, Buzz - him of the Lightyear variety; you get the picture. Meanwhile, other topics that feature? Sons, Daughters. Conclusion? This is content about the people, for the people. It’s not about The Entertainer, it's about the customer.

The brand focuses on what their audience wants to play with. And with almost 20 engagements per post and approximately 8 posts per day - it’s working well.

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The 'What's being said report' showing the most talked about topics by The Entertainer. See what your organisation is saying

Connected and conscious conversations

Something the brand has done really well is connected to its customers through their local shopping centre network. For World Environment Day the toy store partnered with the Salvation Army. Aiming to reduce plastic waste by rehoming toys to those in need, The Entertainer ensured all local shopping centres had the same message to share to their customers across social media.

They won at not only creating a conscious conversation that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, and earns them a sentiment score of 44.5%, but they also connected to more customers than they might have achieved on their own.

There are 1,123 pieces of content created about The Entertainer by customers on social media. That’s 10 times more content than they create themselves.

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The Maybe* 'See what works' report for The Entertainer. See hwo your content is performing.

Take a look at the number of shopping centres that appear in their Influencers report (those whose content has cut through in the conversation about The Entertainer).

The Brewery, Mander Centre, The Brooks Centre, Clyde Shopping, and Kings Walk, Gloucester are all up there banging the drum about The Entertainer, furthering their reach.

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The 'Who's got influencer' report from Maybe*. See who influences the conversation around your business. 

The key takeway

Aim to get the right stuff to the right people, and your engagement will flourish. To increase the reach and engage a wider audience, utilise your network. You can connect to your customers with a consistent message through your partners - especially if it’s a message they’d be proud to be aligned to.