The following is part of a marketing proposal I created for Christine's Toffee for a Social Mobile Marketing class at Madison College in Spring of 2014. This is not the entire proposal, as that was created with other members of a group. This is just the part of the proposal I created. (Current competitor analysis is not included here).
Marketing Proposal for Christine’s Toffee
Objectives
Target Market: Women 25 – 44 in Dane County with a college education or above and a household income of $75,000 and up. Our typical audience enjoys cooking, wine, reading, eating out and traveling.
Objective 1: Increase brand awareness
Objective 2: Increase the number of retail locations carrying Christine’s Toffee.
Objectives Summary: To increase brand awareness as measured by doubling the number of likes and “talking abouts” on Christine’s Facebook page to 1,200 by the end of one year, doubling the number of Twitter followers, and increasing the number of retail locations carrying Christine’s Toffee from 50 (includes as “1 site” all PDQ locations) to 55 (by 10%).
Branding. Eliminate “brand confusion.” The brand is connected to “Christine’s Gourmet@lacordisco,” “Christine Toffee.com,” “popularsnacks.com,” Christine’s Gourmet Toffee (website), and the Chocolaterian.
Brand recognition for the toffee would improve by renaming the retail location to the name of the toffee, such as “Christine’s” or “Christine’s Toffee Shop” (with a big cup of coffee on the sign?) or (not as clear) “Christine’s Chocolaterian.”
Slogan. Our creative message is that Christine's brand is local/sustainable, unique and gourmet (toffee and candy). Focusing on these points will appeal to the upscale Madison crowd, as well as help Internet sales. This is especially so because Madisonians pride themselves on being unique and supporting local businesses while “sustainability” is a current buzzword.
Christine’s slogan, “Making life better, one snack at a time,” should be changed to reflect this focus. Currently, no marketing efforts reinforce this slogan. The team felt that no one thinks of toffee as a “snack.” We could not find wide or prominent use of this slogan.
Tactics Summary:
Christine's Toffee can use social media tools to:
• Create engagement with contests
• Reward followers with promo codes and special deals
• Feature customers
• Build interest in events
• Engage customers and build relationships (by encouraging comments and responding promptly!)
• Post videos as well as photos, and make sure everything links back to their main web page.
• To get people into the store, post "walk-in" promotions on social media.
• As with all social media, it's important to remember that it's not so much about "selling" as it is about building relationships.
Christine’s Toffee should take the following actions on the listed social media platforms to increase interest in the product:
Website:
Add social media logos.
End brand confusion on the Christine’s gourmet toffee site, by removing the prominent cross-promotion of the Chocolaterian.
Service Directories:
Participate in these mobile marketing services.
Word of Mouth Promotion
Facebook:
Highlight location of retail outlets.
Improve top photos.
“Like” other local businesses.
Draw interest by holding contests.
Use hashtags in posts.
Increase the frequency of posts.
Increase the use of photos in posts.
Offer coupons for Facebook visitors.
Facebook has 1.26 billion users, the average US female has 250 Facebook friends, the average number of items shared by Facebook users daily is 4.75 billion, 30% of Facebook users have a bachelor's degree and 40% of users check Facebook multiple times a day.
(Source: Expandedramblings.com http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-17-amazing-facebook-stats/#.UxfcYaXHPjQ)
We recommend Christine's find and "Like" other upscale Madison businesses who cater to their demographic. (Flower shops, Wine Boutiques, etc.)
On the Facebook page for Christine's Toffee, it doesn't list store hours, phone number or website. We had to go looking for it in the "About" section. We recommend putting this information on the front page.
Facebook offers many options in paid advertisements, but we suggest trying the following free options before paying for ads:
• Holding a new contest each month, such as "help us pick the next new flavor" or having people send in pictures showing themselves with Christine's toffee and they'll be entered into a random drawing for a prize. This will keep people engaged and coming back.
• Shortstack allows you to create free Facebook promotions as long as your business has under 2000 likes. Contests are great way to get more "Likes" and build brand awareness.
• Hashtags are now on Facebook; use them to reach more people who are looking for posts in your topic.
• Keep posts short, regular and visual. Christine's needs to post some beautiful, colorful photographs of their products.
• Coupons and specials for Facebook users could bring people into the store and build brand awareness.
Pinterest:
Keeping in mind Christine's Toffee target market, (women age 25-44 with a college education or above and a household income of 75K and up, who enjoys cooking, wine, reading, dining out and traveling), Pinterest should be utilized.
In September, 2013, there were 25.6 million monthly unique Pinterest users in the U.S. 80% of Pinterest users are women, and 18% of those women have a yearly income over 75K. 9 million Pinterest users have connected their accounts to Facebook, and Pinterest's share of all social sharing on iPads is 48.2%! (Source: Expandedramblings.com http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/pinterest-stats/2/#.UxfFqqXHPjR)
• Pinterest would be perfect for creating boards of the different products, (showing beautiful, colorful photos), photos from their store and tasting events, creating theme boards (example: pair with upscale local flower shops, show flowers and candy, or boards for different holidays where candy would be appropriate, such as Valentine's day); ask customers to pin pictures of themselves with their products to win prizes (have monthly contests to build repeat traffic).
• Include links to online store for people who want to purchase products online!
• Use relevant keywords and hashtags to make pins easily found in web searches.
• Pinterest would also be a great way to tell the brand's story. A separate board could be dedicated to the history of the company.
• Pinterest is very visual and it's important to not use too much text. It's also important to link the Pinterest page to their other social media sites (and main website), as well as have all of the pins link back to the main website. Pinterest can also be used for crowdsourcing.
• Add "Pin It" buttons to make it easy for people to pin your images, and add a follow button for your Pinterest profile.
Many of the same photos, information and tools could be shared on Instagram as well. While Instagram has 150 million active users, and 68% of the users are women, the largest demographic of users is 18-29 year olds, which is not exactly the target demographic. (Source: Jennstrends.com http://jennstrends.com/instagram-statistics-for-2014/ )
Twitter:
There seem to be three different Twitter pages for Christine's: one is "Christine's Gourmet@lacordisco" and one is "ChristineToffee.” In all, it is a little confusing. One of these accounts links to "popularsnacks.com" and one links to "Christinestoffee.com" These seem to be the same page but are under different urls. There's also a Chocolaterian store listed on their website. Is this the only brick and mortar store, or is this just a store that carries Christine's Toffee products and perhaps other products? The website is a little confusing. It would be wise to reorganize this.
Like Facebook, Twitter offers paid advertisements, but there's much Christine's Toffee can do now to utilize Twitter for free. These include:
• Tweet regularly, especially on the weekends and in the evening. Twitter engagement for brands is 17% higher on weekends. Tweet using images and links linked to the store website (Tweets with images get 2 times the engagement rate of tweets without images). (Source: Bufferapp.com http://blog.bufferapp.com/10-new-twitter-stats-twitter-statistics-to-help-you-reach-your-followers) Twitter feed or Hootsuite can be used to automate your tweets.
• Use relevant hashtags.
• Ask questions, ask for feedback, and respond quickly to all tweets about your company.
• Tweet about special events, (and tweet FROM special events, include pictures and video), tweet special offers, and occasionally ask for "Retweets".
• Find local upscale Madison businesses who cater to the same demographic and follow them and interact with them on Twitter. If you @mention them on Twitter, your tweet will show up in their stream.
• Find and post links to articles your target audience might be interested in, and things that tie into your business, such as an article on chocolate toffee used for wedding favors, or as hostess gifts, or even quotes or trivia about chocolate. Anything readers might find interesting or inspiring would help enhance the social media presence. Remember, the idea is NOT to do a hard sell.
• Since Christine's Toffee is gluten-free, all natural and made in Madison, links about these things could be tweeted. There are also a number of articles online about Christine's, and the Sam Jacobsen Foundation. Links to these articles should be tweeted or re-tweeted. And if there are entrepreneurs that the foundation has helped, Christine's Toffee should follow them on Twitter and ask if they would consider tweeting about the company.
• We recommend running discounts or specials regularly just for Twitter followers, such as "The next 50 people who retweet me will receive a coupon for 50% off one item instore or online," or "Post a picture of you in our store or enjoying our product and be entered in a random drawing for a free sampler."
Geofencing:
Use geofencing to make people aware of the retail locations for Christine’s when they are close-by.
Run special promotions during community events that draw large crowds.
Geofencing would be a great way for Christine's to build brand awareness, and there are some unique Madison experiences that would reach the target market. We recommend trying some Geofencing promotions during events like the Concerts on the Square, the Madison Farmer's Market on the Square, Brava Magazine's "Women's Expo," Rhythm and Booms, Madison Art Fair on the Square and possibly UW Madison's graduation weekend.
Christine's Toffee can use all of these social media tools in the following ways:
• Create engagement with contests
• Reward followers with promo codes and special deals
• Feature customers
• Build interest in events
• Engage customers and build relationships (by encouraging comments and responding promptly!)
• Post videos as well as photos, and make sure everything links back to their main web page.
• To get people into the store, post "walk-in" promotions on social media.
• As with all social media, it's important to remember that it's not so much about "selling" as it is about building relationships.
If posting to all of these social media sites gets too overwhelming, Hootsuite could be utilized to cross post to all sites at once.
LinkedIn is growing, but has a lower percentage of active users than Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Google+. (Source: fastcompany.com http://www.fastcompany.com/3021749/work-smart/10-surprising-social-media-statistics-that-will-make-you-rethink-your-social-stra). Vine and Google+ may also be helpful in the future, but we feel it's best to concentrate marketing efforts on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Geofencing for now.
• The website pages for Christine's should have the Facebook Like It, Twitter Tweet, Share on Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest Pin It buttons so that customers can easily share the products.
• "Like us on Facebook" should be incorporated on printed advertisements from now on.
• Christine's Gourmet Toffee is not listed on several business directories including CitySearch, eLocal, Hotfrog, FourSquare, LinkedIn, and Yahoo! The business should be added to these directories.
Our creative message is that Christine's brand is local/sustainable, unique and gourmet (toffee and candy). Focusing on these points will appeal to the upscale Madison crowd, as well as help internet sales, especially since Madisonians pride themselves on being unique and supporting local businesses. In addition, “sustainability” is a current buzzword.
We also recommend more cross promotions with other company is serving the target demographic.
Some examples:
• Bring your ticket in from any show at the Overture Center this month, and receive a free caramel. This could be alternated with a special each month, including Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison Symphony Orchestra, and the Madison Food & Wine Show.
• Offer samples and coupons to people taking a Betty Lou Cruise - a uniquely Madison experience.
• Cross promote with high end day spas in the area such as ANUI, Ultimate Spa and Salon and Sundara in Wisconsin Dells. They could offer a sampler gift bag with each "day of pampering" that would also have a coupon for an online or in store purchase.
• Talk to jewelry stores. Could they gift a coupon for a free sampler bag with each wedding ring set purchased?
• If interested in doing personalized wedding favors, may consider attending local bridal shows to promote, contacting bridal photographers, bridal gown stores, etc.
• Offer a special deal in November for "Small Business Saturday" and promote that heavily on social media.
• May also consider contacting large, local companies/corporations if interested in creating corporate gifts.
• See if high end Madison floral stores like George's Flowers, Chloe’s Floral, J. Kinney Florist, Klein's Floral & Greenhouse, Floral Designs by Paul, Beauty Blossoms, etc. would be interested in creating gift "baskets" using Christine's Gourmet Toffee, or carrying the products in store. This could be cross-promoted on social media.
One more idea:
More and more people are having issues with gluten and trying to live "gluten free." Since all of Christine's products are gluten free, it would be smart to capitalize on this trend. Some suggestions:
• Add a small, brightly colored, "gluten free" burst sticker to all products, like the one that's on their home webpage.
• Search the internet and post on blogs like "Living Gluten Free In Madison" and blogs about living with Celiac disease. Local and national, there are hundreds of gluten-free organizations. Be sure to have the website link in your signature.
• Register on sites like "GlutenFreeRegistry.com" where people who are looking for gluten free products can find you. There are a lot of groups online, like the Gluten Intolerance Group of East Central Wisconsin, where they may let you post information about your products.
• See if places specializing in gluten free would carry Christine's products. (Silly Yak in Madison, health food stores like Trillium Natural Foods Community Co-op in Mount Horeb, Yahara River Grocery Co-op in Stoughton, Gluten Free Trading Company in Milwaukee, etc.)
• Search out events like the Gluten Free Expo in West Bend, Wisconsin and see if it would be worth attending.
• Consider advertising in niche publications like Simply Gluten Free Magazine, for more online sales.
References:
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