1. How can a 30-year-old frozen food company stay up-to-date with changing technology and consumer needs?
With roots that trace back to 1912, Michelina’s has a rich history of providing affordable and convenient meals to the masses. Their goal is simple: nourish communities with warm, rich meals made from fresh, delicious ingredients. Unfortunately their website lacked the same simple, fresh and appetizing approach. That’s when they contacted Spyder Trap in 2013 to do a complete digital overhaul. Our initial task was to transform their outdated Flash website into something that aligned with the brand.
2. Implementing best practices to build brand and overall engagement
When our relationship with Michelina’s began, the website did not function on mobile devices. The old-school design also didn’t align with the direction of the company, and there was no social media presence or strategy in place. The need for digital overhaul was imminent, and our team saw endless potential in the chance to build from scratch.
In analyzing the company’s marketing profile and existing customer digital activity, we discovered an even larger opportunity to get Michelina’s new social media presence off of the ground. Many of Michelina’s community of frozen food consumers enjoyed sharing their meal customizations through Twitter and blogging. Therefore, we knew that extending that dialogue into a two-way conversation would increase value and engagement volume. The question was, how could we bring consumers under one united umbrella while pointing them to the new Michelina’s site?
3. Solution: Incentivize engagement, drive traffic and strengthen brand value with creative solutions
The solution was multi-faceted. From a social strategy standpoint, we provided maintenance and guidance through a mix of organic posts, sweepstakes and community management. This helped us engage with existing consumers and bring new ones into the Michelina’s family. We developed a creative sweepstakes campaign called, “Make It Your Michelina’s,” in which we asked fans to send in original recipe creations featuring Michelina’s products for a chance to win.
From a web standpoint we transformed the website, making it mobile-friendly, and adding a “Where to Buy” location finder and coupons section to give consumers useful tools worth coming to the site for. We then put our email marketing experts to work to spread the hype around the social campaigns and recipe sharing. This included designing templates that would be flexible and could adjust to any content requirements Michelina’s might have in the future.
4. Outcome: Mama Michelina makes her mark online
After the strategies were in place and the work was completed, Michelina’s had seen huge results in just a matter of months. Though they came to Spyder Trap with no social presence and an outdated website, our team was able to grow the brand from zero to 17,000 Facebook fans and 2,500 Twitter followers in five months. Using many of the best practices we put in place as their guide, the company continues to cultivate an audience that celebrates their brand and the legacy of Mama Michelina.
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