Just shy of 30 years in the trade, Sky Music has consistently invested in more digital marketing over the past five years, but had not been in a rush to get on the social advertising scene.
However, its recent foray into social advertising with digital agency partner Shout Digital has delivered 5 million impressions, with Sky reporting a 30 per cent increase in online sales that is directly attributable to the campaign, delivering revenue 20 times greater than what the business spent on ads. It also resulted in more customers entering the sales funnel and purchasing over the phone or in-store.
Sky Music’s Andrew Li says his father came to Australia on a song and a prayer to seek a better life for his future family and has been working hard and making music ever since.
“My father, Anthony, who is of Chinese Korean background, arrived in Australia in the 1980s and worked in factories for 10 years before pursuing both a dream and a business ambition – opening a music store.”
Starting with his love of pianos, the first customers of Sky Music were the local Chinese community in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs. Over time, the business expanded to offer brass, wood, percussion, and drums. Its legendary guitar offering arrived 15 years ago, and the company went full noise.
With a 2000sqm showroom and warehouse in Clayton, Sky Music now employs more than 25 staff – many of whom play in bands – and has sold thousands of instruments to aspiring musicians over the past three decades.
Andrew says the key to the family’s success has been to work in an area they are passionate about, hire the right specialists to grow each instrumental business unit, and move with the times when it comes to retail planning, e-commerce and digital marketing.
“We’d been operating online for some time and used ad hoc SEO support. But I just felt we could be getting better results, and so I started to speak to a lot of agencies.
“Shout stood out to me as it had all these brilliant case studies showing great results. I thought – okay, I’ll test those results and see if the clients they are working with are where they say they are. I got on my computer and found the rankings and dominance claims were legit.
Sky Music started using Shout for SEO and SEM services in 2019.
“Digital data doesn’t lie and since then our overall revenue has been on an upwards trajectory, we’re selling more high-end gear and we’ve realised that even for a highly tactical product – like an instrument where a customer probably wants to hold and hear it before committing – digital marketing plays a huge role in the decision making process,” adds Li.
“While about 30 per cent of our sales come from the e-commerce platform, about half of all in-store sales are preceded by a phone call to one of our experts to get more details, which has come directly from our online presence. So, our funnel is predominantly a three-step waltz – online to ignite interest, a customer-led inquiry via the phone, followed by an in-store purchase.
“Online activity has played a huge role in our recent success, and the returns have provided us the confidence we needed to increase our spend with Shout because the ROI is unquestionably there. We recently started to invest in social media advertising, and the results have surpassed our expectations.”
Shout CEO, Michael Jenkins, says it’s been great to report results that continue to track in an upward trajectory for Shout across SEO and paid search, and is pleased that the new channel of social media advertising has had a strong start.
“For the last six months, we’ve leveraged Sky’s catalogue ads to reach new customers and drive revenue on Facebook, and have delivered a consistent return on ad spend (ROAS) of 21.71.
“And many of these impressions inspired customers to enquire and purchase – either over the phone or in-store.
“We’re in tune with their business and happy to see them making music and money,” Jenkins concludes.
Shout Digital is an expert digital advertising agency, specialising in SEO, paid and social media advertising and e-commerce. Visit the company at Stand 99 at Retail Fest May 28-30 at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, or learn more at www.shoutdigital.com.au.
