How Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez Took Hawkers to The Next Level of Profitability Through Social Media
By Mary Smith
Many people know of Hawkers, the stylish, super cool sunglasses that have made their mark on the industry. What many don’t know is how diverse the marketing for these sunglasses was and how innovative its lead investor needed to be to take a small-scale concept and turn it into a global effort. More so, he did it using social media marketing as the main marketing tool, long before other companies were capitalizing on this market.
A History of Hawkers
In 2012, four young Spanish entrepreneurs had an idea to use a second-hand, buy-and-sell website to sell products. The four worked hard at their business, putting all of their money into it. Still, 18 months later, they had only sold 50 pairs. Over the next few months, they would work to develop websites for customers selling directly through eCommerce, which helped them realize just how important online sales were. Doing this, along with exposure to Knockaround sunglasses, a California brand that grew thanks to social media influence, helped to push them in the direction of selling sunglasses.
How does a group of entrepreneurs turn an initial $300 into a $78 million sunglass empire in just about two years? Consider the work Alejandro Betancourt Lopez offered the company.
How Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez Transformed Hawkers
Marketing is always a big part of any product launch, but for Hawkers, the goal was to get people interested in these sunglasses not because of huge brand recognition like other companies offered but rather due to social marketing. Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez took an interest in the company and helped fund it. With that investment and some guidance, the company quickly became a hit.
How Social Media Created Hawker’s Success
After purchasing 27 pairs of Knockaround sunglasses for $300, the group of four entrepreneurs designed to resell them for a profit and found fast success. They continued the process. This time, they used Facebook ads as a tool to help them to build some recognition for their products. They didn’t just sell their sunglasses through those ads, though.
Rather, they used Facebook ads to attract influencers to their brand. They game each influencer a few sunglasses for free in exchange for a few Facebook posts where they would wear the sunglasses.
Within six months, the group had become official distributors in Spain thanks to their success. At this point, the group was still using the Knockaround brand, not their own. They decided to part ways with that brand and launched Hawkers instead.
In late 2013, they launched a Shopify store with a new product they had manufactured in China specifically for their needs. They followed the same social media marketing strategy and relied heavily on aggressive word-of-mouth marketing.
With early investments from Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, they were able to continue to push their product forward and got more of their …read more
Source:: Social Media Explorer
