MCS 355 Social Media Marketing Plan - The Roving Radish PDF

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The Roving Radish Social Media Marketing Plan

5/16/17 MCS 355 Mary, Lea, Levan

COMPANY BACKGROUND/MISSION The Roving Radish is a mobile food market which sells meal kits with ingredients from local farms in the Howard County area. The main goals of the program are to establish healthy farm to table eating habits and support local farms while connecting with the community. Orders are placed online, and prepackaged meal kits are delivered to pickup locations. Although the Roving Radish has done a good job connecting with the community, there remains significant room for improvement, particularly in the space of social media. We propose a marketing strategy which emphasizes efficient use of social media to dramatically improve company awareness at little additional cost. ONGOING MARKETING EFFORTS ● Dedicated Facebook page with ~500 followers, but last post was in April, and they should have been posting more especially as the season was about to begin. ● Twitter with ~90 followers, a dozen likes, ~35 tweets, but last tweet was in 2015, so this medium is clearly being underutilized. ● Could definitely benefit a lot from more effective social media use at little additional cost. ACTION PLAN ● Improve website, Facebook, and Twitter; create Instagram account. ○ Emphasis on not just increased quantity of posts, but also improved quality. ○ Balance of variation between posts while keeping the overall themes consistent. ● Be active throughout the year, not just on season. Continuously fuel an ever-growing presence, instead of being forgotten every year and having to regain followers. ○ Develop a “lifestyle brand” image which captures the company’s gestalt. ● Get interns to manage social media, take advantage of volunteers. ○ Consider having a dedicated brand figure or “wellness ambassador.”

Table of Contents 2

Introduction Background Operations Social Media Marketing

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Situational Analysis

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Potential Value Facebook Twitter Instagram

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Action Plan

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References

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Introduction Background The Roving Radish is a Howard County program which sells meal kits promoting healthy eating habits while supporting local farms. The meal kits are cheap and contain healthy ingredients from regional ranches, and are delivered to pick up stations by

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trucks. The Roving Radish has two different kinds of meal kits, standard and vegetarian. Each kit includes enough ingredients to make two dinners for a family of four. The Roving Radish makes cooking simple by already slicing, dicing, and cubing the ingredients for you. If there are spices needed, they will already be measured out. However, common household ingredients such as milk, sugar, pepper are not included. There is also a recipe card included in each kit. The kits follow “Healthy Howard” guidelines, meaning the meal is no more than 750 calories, with less than 30% of calories from fat and no more than 1050 mg of sodium. There are two prices for the meal kits, one standardized and one subsidized. The standard or vegetarian meal kit is $32, averaging out to $4 per meal. There is a subsidized price for those who participate in programs such as food stamps, Women, Infants and Children (WIC), Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA), Medical Assistance- Medicaid or Maryland Children’s Health Program (MCHP), school breakfast or lunch program, and Social Security Disability Income (SSDI). If you are involved in one of these programs, the meal kit will cost only $16.

Operations The official season began on May 1, 2017 and continues until November 23, 2017. All of the orders are taken through their website. On their website, you can choose which week you would like to order a meal kit. There are different meals available for different weeks, therefore it is important that you decide which week you want based on the meal. You must also select one of the locations that the Roving Radish delivers to in order to pick up your meal. There are 9 pick-up locations throughout Howard County. You have the option to pay online or pay at pick-up.

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Orders must be placed by 11:59pm on the Sunday before the week of the meal kit.

Social Media Marketing Although the Roving Radish has done a good job connecting with the local community, there remains significant room for improvement, particularly in regards to social media. We propose a marketing strategy focused on efficient use of social media, with a particular emphasis on maximizing awareness of the program by taking advantage of the social media ecology. Although the Roving Radish has some small social media presence, these media and communications technologies are currently being underutilized. Effective use of social media is imperative for spreading the word about this organization and engaging with the consumers without being expensive, resulting in an excellent marginal cost to benefit ratio.

Situational Analysis The Roving Radish operates on a pre-order basis, where customers place their orders for the coming week on Sunday by midnight. The only way to place an order is through their website (https://www.rovingradish.com/), which means enhancing customer traffic through their website is crucial to their success. They have a dedicated Facebook page, with just over 500 likes (a good start). Their last post, however, was back on April 4th, and they have made no posts despite the approaching start of the season. They also have a Twitter with almost 90 followers, a dozen likes and 35 tweets. Unfortunately, the most recent tweet was in November 2015, demonstrating the underutilization of this medium.

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In terms of sales, the Roving Radish usually sells between 125 and 165 meal kits per week, and these figures can easily be improved at very little cost through more effective use of social media.

Potential Value In order for a company to succeed in the 21st century, it is important for them not to neglect social media. According to a Forrester Research study, “75% of Internet surfers used ‘Social Media’ in the second quarter of 2008 by joining social networks, reading blogs, or contributing reviews to shopping sites; this represents a significant rise from 56% in 2007” (Kaplan). Kaplan stresses the need for companies to get involved due to increased consumer engagement in social media everyday. Social media is not limited to millennials or young kids - it is becoming more widely used by people of all ages, including more 35-44 year olds (Kaplan). Kaplan also stresses the cost efficiency of social media marketing. He states that “Social Media allow firms to engage in timely and direct end-consumer contact at relatively low cost and higher levels of efficiency than can be achieved with more traditional communication tools” (Kaplan). Businesses are engaging in social media more everyday, and the Roving Radish must “get serious 6

about social media and participate in this communication,” not just passively stand by (Kietzmann et al. 2011). This infographic by Morrison below displays interesting statistics around businesses and their use of social media.

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(http://www.expertmarket.com/the-business-of-social-media) We believe that the Roving Radish would benefit greatly from updating their current social media platforms, and creating more of a social media presence for their name. The Roving Radish can utilize social media in order to get their brand out without spending money. Social media is a cost effective way to market a company. In his article “The Real Value of Social Media for Your Business”, Andy Eliason discusses that it is important to not just focus on social media. Yes, it is a good marketing strategy to engage in social media platforms, but one must make sure that they are using social media in order to grow their business. If businesses become more focused on social media than on their business itself, this may be detrimental to the company. It is important to have a balance. Eliason defines ways to track social return on investment (ROI) as well. When you are able to track social ROI, you can figure out what specifically you need to change in order to be more successful. These ways include, but are not limited to, asking customers how they found you, finding “correlations between sudden increases in conversions and sales with a new social campaign, [testing] how two different types of posts or ads increases or decreases traffic and conversions, [finding] some thirdparty tools can show you a range of metrics” (Eliason). He states “when you can effectively track social Return on Investment (ROI), you will be able to prove the value of the effort to your organization’s leaders, show what content is working well and which has gone stale, and fine tune your key messages” (Eliason).

Social media is important for brand awareness, gaining new customers, and

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legitimacy/authenticity. According to recent polls, “as of January 2015 there were 2.078 billion active social media accounts in the world (that’s 2.078 billion potential customers worldwide!).” (Morrison). Once a brand is involved in social media, their name is on the Internet. Gaining a huge following may be difficult, but the quality is more important than the quantity. It is better for a company to have a few followers who are actively engaging with them, than to have millions of followers who do not engage at all. Some people might even become brand advocates and happily advertise or endorse your brand on their personal account because they are dedicated customers. Social media is also important in developing new customers. A recent study shows that “78% of small businesses attract new customers through social media” (Morrison). Word of mouth may be a successful way to market a company, but digital word of mouth is even more valuable. Word can be spread through people who are not in the same area and therefore can attract a larger customer base from all over the world. In addition to this, legitimacy/authenticity can either be supported or thwarted through social media. It is important for a brand to be engaged in social media, and if they are not people may start to question the legitimacy of the company. Overall, social media provides a way for companies to not only be more engaged with their clients but also promote their brand. The Roving Radish will benefit greatly from improving their current social media platforms and creating more.

Marketing efforts by platform Website

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The Roving Radish website is set up as a business website for customers to view the company’s services and products. When you Google search “The Roving Radish,” the first thing that pops up is their website, but the title shown in blue is “Roving Radish Logo.” This needs to be fixed so the title on Google says “The Roving Radish.” When you first enter the domain, you see the logo, a message alerting customers when they will be taking orders, and pictures of their team members and products. There are click through links to see reviews, sign up to volunteer, and view the farms where the company gets their produce, as well as a big red button that says “Order meal kit.” When you click on the order meal kit button, you are shown 10 week options and the dates that they apply to, as well as a link to view pickup locations and a warning that they stop taking orders on Sunday night for each week. When you click on each week to view the food options the link takes you through to the two meal options, where there is another link to click to buy the food. From there, you select where you would like to pick your food up and when. The website layout is pretty good so far, but we have a few ideas to enhance user experience. Our first idea is to simplify the hyperlink layout. As of right now, you have to click through about three different links to actually buy something, and if you change your mind and do not want to get food for that week, you have to go back

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and figure out where you left off. A way that we would make this easier would be to set up the page so that whenever you click on the link for one week, the rest of the weeks appear at the bottom of that page. This way, instead of having to go back and forth and forget which week you just looked at, you could simply hit the “see next week’s options” button and move forward that way. One of the Roving Radish’s competitors, Blue Apron, has a very well-set-up website. The first thing you see when you log on is a box full of colorful food and the button to either make your purchase or learn how it works, and below is the step by step process of how the company works. It is important for the Roving Radish to continuously update and enhance their website experience, not only to keep up with other similar companies but also to enhance customer satisfaction and engagement. Another plan for the website would be to make it more aesthetically pleasing. The color scheme looks great with the company, but as you can see above, the different fonts, pictures, and layouts that they use don’t all match up. There is also some awkward blank space between their logo and click through links, so we would place a title in that blank space, and then place the Roving Radish logo in the bottom right corner of the title. The “Order Meal Kit” bar would also be moved above the green text, and the text would be formatted to fit accordingly. On the Blue Apron’s website, there are animations, fun graphics, and funny food puns throughout the site to get users excited for the product they are going to buy.

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Facebook Currently, the website’s Facebook page is extremely underutilized. The company posts infrequently, and they rarely interact with their customers online. The information that they post is, however, very relevant. They post about when they will be taking orders, job opportunities, and more. Left is pictured their most recent post- one alerting their customers that their services are about to begin again for the season. They inform users about the changes they are planning to make, pricing, and then finish it off with a link to the website for users to make purchases. While the post content is good, the consistency and frequency of posts is lacking. As stated this is the company’s most recent post, and it is from April 4th- over a month ago. The company also rarely posts pictures on their page, something that users are more attracted to. The last picture that the company posted was from last year. They posted pictures of each of the weeks meals on their page as the dates approached, with a reminder for customers to place their orders before time ran out. This was a very good marketing technique, except that posting stopped after the season ended. On the Blue Apron’s Facebook page, they update constantly, and post pictures that encourages their followers to comment. They recently posted a picture of some kitchen utensils, with the caption “Q&A: Do you mix bites, or keep ingredients separate?” The post has over 100 comments and 427 likes, showing high user engagement.

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Our two main goals with the Facebook page would be to improve the frequency of the posts, as well as customer interactions. We would try to post daily, and if there was nothing relevant to post on a certain day, then we would make sure that we were interacting with customers: replying to any questions or comments, thanking them for tagging us in pictures, and things like that. We would also like to implement a similar tactic as the Blue Apron’s Q&A post, but make it relevant to the small nature of the Roving Radish. Since it is such a local company, we would ask questions relating to that, such as “Where is your favorite place to picnic in Howard County?” We would also want to post quick, 30-45 second videos, similar to the style of Tasty videos, with a quick how-to for the recipes that were being offered that week (right). This way, customers could see not only what foods were being offered, but exactly what ingredients would be in the package, and how simple it is to make the food. Another thing we think the Roving Radish should emphasize on their Facebook page is their lifestyle branding during the offseason, which is between December-April. The Roving Radish should generate posts that target and emphasize their focus on healthy living and eating, such as physical activities that they can do, or healthy alternatives to common junk foods like pizza or fries. If people see that the Roving Radish is making an effort to keep their customers informed in the off-season, they will trust the company more during peak season.

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Twitter The Roving Radish has a Twitter account, but it has not been used since 2015. When it was being used, however, it was managed fairly well. They replied to customer’s tweets, updated followers with where they were, and retweeted tweets that other significant Howard County members put out. Again, though, their biggest issue was consistency. They posted incredibly infrequently, and sometimes not for months at all. Home Chef is another company that provides a similar service to Blue Apron and the Roving Radish. Their Twitter account is very active, and they post tweets with videos and pictures of their foods, links to their recipes, and retweets of customers enjoying their products. One way that we would enhance their Twitter account would be to keep up with frequent posting. Just like any other social media platform, followers will lose interest if the company is not consistently posting. They may see that they still follow the account, and wonder why they do. We would also encourage customers to post pictures of their finished products after they make their food with the hashtag #RovingRadish2017, and offer an incentive, like a $5 off coupon for people who do. Another way to strengthen the company image on Twitter is to ask customers to “tweet in” ideas that they have for new recipes. While we want to increase their following, we don’t want to fall into the million follower fallacy. We want to make sure that we are getting as many quality followers as we can. Another hashtag The Roving Radish could utilize is something fun and playful about eating healthy and organic. This hashtag could be something along the lines of #EatOrganicLiveOrganic, or #OrganicIsTheWayToGo.

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Instagram At the moment, the Roving Radish does not have an Instagram account. As a company whose services involve food, this can be harmful to their business. We looked at Blue Apron and Home Chef’s Instagram accounts, and saw that the two were posting similar images. Their feeds are filled with brightly colored pictures and videos of the products they sell and how to make them. The food is plated nicely with a pleasant background, such as a picnic table or designed tablecloth; whichever fits the food better. Home Chef doesn’t have an Instagram for it’s national company, but there are local accounts, such as HomeChef Virginia and HomeChef Local. Again, the page has brightly colored photos of food and people making it. We would build the Roving Radish’s Instagram account based off of similar concepts. On the Instagram page, we would post pictures of food, any specials or deals

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that were coming up, and pictures of employees as well. Since it’s a small business, we want the customers to feel as if they know the company on a personal level. We would post weekly “Featured Employee” pictures, with a short biography about each employee to go along with it. We would also do random volunteer shoutouts, to thank any people or groups who decided to volunteer and help out with the company recently. One post in particular we had in mind would be a picture of the first customer who came and picked up a food kit for the season. The caption would be something along the lines of, “First pick up of the season! Thanks to (insert customer name here, tag them if they have an Instagram) for your support.” While trying to keep...