Every food business should be thinking about an integrated marketing plan that pulls all of your marketing efforts together into one coordinated strategy working towards one set of goals. Implementation of tactics just won’t be as effective if you don’t know who want to reach or what you want to say. Plus, it will be harder to measure what success even looks like.
Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva has a conversation with Michael Ray, Social Media Director at STIR, a digital marketing and advertising agency based in Milwaukee, WI. In this episode, we talk about how to use social media to build your brand based on your objectives.
The Importance of an Integrated Marketing Plan
“No matter what the size of business or whatever you’re working on, it’s so tempting to just get started,” Katie says, “but it’s always important to start with your goals and objectives.” When Michael’s team is starting with a new client, the most common problem is that they simply have too many objectives. The trick is to focus on one primary objective based on your end-goal.
Once you have your goals in mind, you can look at your overall marketing plan. “Integrated marketing is an opportunity for everyone to be rowing in the same direction,” Michael says, “by pooling our resources together around a single objective, we’re able to help each other, complement each other, and learn from each other.” Something that’s working well on social media might be able to translate to email, or something from digital can influence your social. You can make the decision to cross-promote and keep everything coordinated.
When it comes to how you figure out the details, the trick is to break it down and use data to help. If your objective is to get 1,000 downloads or 1,000 contact forms, you can work out how many page visits you need and—working up the ladder–how many impressions that requires. At STIR, they do a lot of testing on social to see what resonates, and are constantly looking at each channel within the marketing plan to see what’s the most effective. “Your audience is going to tell you what kind of creative they like,” Michael says, “more often than not, people surprise us in the choices of what they respond to.”
The Step Most Brands Skip on Social Media
“With social, the step that most brands skip is listening,” Michaels says, “what you’re trying to gauge, from an audience perspective, is the kind of content they’re looking for and how they want to be communicated with.” Again, looking back at past campaigns, engagement on posts, and leveraging your past data can help you get there. You also need to listen to the data as you go along so you can make adjustments. This kind of effort takes time, and Michael recommends setting goals within your social media plan for the year so you have enough space to test and learn.
What’s in the Full Episode
We decided to tackle each of the popular social media channels one by one to hear what Michael has to say about what works (and what doesn’t) for each one. Make sure to listen to the full episode for Michael’s specific recommendations for Instagram Stories versus posts, when it makes sense to go live, why authenticity is so important on Facebook, what to do on LinkedIn, the pros and cons of Twitter, and how to get started on TikTok. We also do a Q&A from the Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group.
Special challenge this week: go Live on Instagram and tag to get started using this powerful feature. Don’t forget to tag @realfoodbrands so Katie can share!
Now, let’s go shake up shopping carts!
In This Episode:
- Why an integrated marketing plan including your goals is always the best place to start.
- How to work backward from your end goal to figure how what channels you need to engage to achieve that goal.
- How to estimate digital marketing campaign costs based on your goals.
- When to focus on Instagram Stories and when to focus on your feed.
- Trips and tricks for going live.
- What to do if your posts aren’t getting the engagement you’re looking for.
- Why every food business founder or leader should be on LinkedIn.
- The #1 thing to keep in mind if you’re going to use TikTok.
Quotes:
“Integrated marketing is an opportunity for everyone to be rowing in the same direction. By pooling our resources together around a single objective, we’re able to help each other, complement each other, and learn from each other.” – Michael Ray
“With social, the step that most brands skip is listening. What you’re trying to gauge, from an audience perspective, is the kind of content they’re looking for and how they want to be communicated with.” – Michael Ray
“No matter what the size of business or whatever you’re working on, it’s so tempting to just get started, but it’s always important to start with your goals and objectives.” – Katie Mleziva
Resources:
- How to Create a 6-Step Marketing Plan to Align Tactics with Business Objectives
- Ep #36: How to Define, Align and Activate Your Brand Strategy
- STIR Marketing
- Follow Michael Ray on LinkedIn
- Connect with Katie on LinkedIn
- Real Food Brands Brand Checkup Scorecard
- Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group
- Real Food Brands website