How Heat Transfer Warehouse Boosts Followers and Online Sales

Kirk Anton is nothing short of innovative. As the owner and senior sales manager of Heat Transfer Warehouse, a company that supplies anything one could need to transform blank products into a custom work of art, it’s no surprise he takes a creative approach to marketing his business — specifically through social media.

Over the years, this B2B and B2C brand has managed to build a robust social media presence across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest — each consisting of thousands of followers. 

This strong digital presence has allowed Heat Transfer Warehouse to showcase its variety of products — from printing and press equipment to vinyl — in creative ways that engage with its internet audience and generate additional sales.

However, its success didn’t happen overnight. Even though Heat Transfer Warehouse has had a social media presence since 2015, the company didn’t start investing efforts in this form of marketing until 2019.

After seeing the success social media has had for so many other companies, Anton knew it was time to start seriously focusing on building Heat Transfer Warehouse’s digital presence and take a creative approach to marketing the business. 

Fast forward to today and it’s clear that Anton made the right decision. 

Over the past five years, Heat Transfer Warehouse’s social media presence has built strong brand awareness that’s created new and repeat customers — which is evident through its 58,000 followers on Instagram alone.

Here’s how Heat Transfer Warehouse’s creative and strategic approach to social media allowed the company’s online presence to skyrocket.

Creating a fluid strategy that can evolve with algorithms

A key reason why Heat Transfer Warehouse has seen such great success across its social media accounts is that its strategy is constantly evolving.

“The algorithms with social media are always changing. We’re adjusting our strategy almost weekly to follow those algorithms so we can get the best reach and engagement possible,” Lexi Olson, Marketing Manager at Heat Transfer Warehouse, explained. “But on the other hand, marketing is also a lot of trial and error. A video that you put hours into editing and creating will sometimes flop when a video you post randomly can take off and get tons of views.” 

Staying open-minded to new ideas and changes allows Heat Transfer Warehouse to keep up with algorithm updates and make adjustments to its social media strategy when necessary. This helps the company achieve a high number of views and stronger engagement more consistently on posts.

Educating and connecting with viewers through video

Whether you’re scrolling on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok — video content seems to constantly present itself to us. Heat Transfer Warehouse has taken note of this rising popularity and made it a primary component of its social media marketing strategy.

While the company encourages thinking outside the box and getting creative with its content, it likes to stay true to two overall themes: educating viewers and showcasing who it is as a brand.

Many of Heat Transfer Warehouse’s Instagram Reels and TikTok posts involve demonstrating how a product can be used in a quick 30-second video accompanied by a trending song. These posts help anyone from your everyday crafter to commercial business understand the ease of using its products.

For customers looking for in-depth guidance, longer and more detailed videos can be found on its YouTube channel.

“We're educating and showcasing all of the things that our customers need in order to buy a product which helps create sales. Many of our customers have even asked for the art file used in the video because they want to try it themselves,” said Olson.

In addition to educational videos, Heat Transfer Warehouse has found success in showcasing who it is as a brand through video posts that highlight philanthropic efforts and team-building activities.

“We're not necessarily like every other brand. We post a lot about our company culture and the charity work that we do, and we show we're more than just selling stuff. We try to be bigger than just sales,” said Anton. “We want to show that there are people here and we're not just some robots somewhere — and those types of things have really helped grow our social media following.”

Engaging with the Heat Transfer Warehouse community

Heat Transfer Warehouse is always looking for ways to connect with potential followers through different engagement initiatives, and has found a few reliable tactics that typically seem to get traction.

One of those methods is sending Facebook invitations.

“A key tactic that has worked for us is sending invitations on Facebook. On Facebook, you can invite people to your business page. Many times people comment on our posts but don’t follow us. With those individuals, we’ll send an invitation for them to follow our page which they usually accept,” explained Olson.

When someone says, “Facebook is dead,” Heat Transfer Warehouse’s social media team is prepared to prove them wrong. Through tactics such as sending Facebook invitations, the company has reached over 154,000 followers and 131,000 page likes.

In addition to this, Heat Transfer Warehouse has seen skyrocketed engagement from free giveaway posts.

“People love free stuff. We typically try to incentivize the viewer to either tag someone in the comments to get more people to our page or even just comment in general. That works into the algorithm because when there’s more engagement, the post is more likely to show up in the feeds of those who don’t already follow us,” explained Olson.

It’s no surprise that Heat Transfer Warehouse has found giveaways to be a great way to attract new followers and bring people to its online store. In fact, Anton and Olson have both found that these posts tend to create an influx in sales from new customers, who usually end up becoming repeat customers.

Taking advantage of content boosts, ads, and social shopping tools

When it comes to getting Heat Transfer Warehouse’s name out there, the company pulls out all the stops. It frequently boosts educational content across Instagram and Facebook through Meta to attract new followers and connect with existing ones. 

Additionally, the company runs promotional ads through YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram every once in a while.

“We boost organic educational content through Meta. We like to push this content because educating our customers is one of our top priorities. The feedback we get regarding this educational content is very appreciative. Occasionally, we’ll run paid promotional ads through YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram,” said Anton.

On top of this, Heat Transfer Warehouse leverages social shopping tools available to them through Facebook and Instagram. This creates a seamless customer journey and generates additional sales through the ease of shopping within the same platform that the user is browsing.

“Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping have really helped improve the customer journey. We're able to tag our products in reels, videos, and just standard posts that we're doing,” Olson explained. “When people see something that might be eye-catching, instead of going from that video to our website and searching what they might think it is, they’re able to view it by clicking a button directly in the post.” 

With the success the company has seen from both Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping, Heat Transfer Warehouse is now in the process of creating a TikTok Shop page.

Leveraging partnerships

As part of the company’s social media strategy, Heat Transfer Warehouse makes sure to leverage the partnerships it has with the different brands it carries. 

One of the ways it does this is by featuring these brands in its social media posts — in hopes the partner reposts the content so it’s shared among a new follower base.

Recently, Heat Transfer Warehouse posted a 40-second video across its different accounts demonstrating how to use Siser’s Easy Puff Metallic vinyl. In just a few days the post received over 40,000 views on Instagram alone.

“We tagged Siser and they shared the post on their story, so we're getting in front of their followers,” said Olson. “Shortly after launching the post, we saw an influx of orders. That awareness of a new product and then showcasing how simple it is to use educates our customers on what they need to know in order to buy the product.”

By sharing the relationship Heat Transfer Warehouse has with its different partners, the company has not only gained more brand awareness but also strengthened its partnership with these companies.

“Just showcasing the relationships we have with our vendors and partners is something that I think has really helped us grow as a business and on all of our social media platforms,” explained Olson.

The final word

In today’s world, having a social media presence is essential to establish yourself as a reputable brand. Not only will it help you create brand awareness, but having an active presence that’s consistent with your brand also builds trust among your shoppers, which can lead to an increase in sales.

There are a variety of tactics brands can use to stand out on social media and build a follower base. However — as Heat Transfer Warehouse knows — algorithms are always changing. Experimenting through trial and error is the best way to find what methods get your posts traction and staying open-minded to new strategies is how you remain successful.

Interested in learning more about how you can use social media to boost your company’s sales? Check out our Channel Manager which lets you easily connect and manage your different social platforms through your BigCommerce account.