Team 8: Rachel and Avery 12/05/14
Potbelly Social Media Marketing Plan
Introduction:
Potbelly is a national sandwich chain that offers made-toorder sandwiches, sides and drinks paired with a friendly, neighborhood feel. The company’s main focus is sandwiches but it also offers alternatives such as soups, salads, and breakfasts. Potbelly’s milkshakes are also an extremely popular item. One of the company’s highlights is the atmosphere in-store but customers can also order online for a faster pickup. Potbelly’s attitude toward its customers is warm, friendly, and neighborly. In the
Potbelly Store Decoration
company’s own most recent annual report, it says “We incur costs and expend other resources in our marketing efforts to attract and retain customers. These initiatives may not be successful, resulting in expenses incurred without the benefit of higher revenues” (Annual Report). The goal of this marketing plan is to take the neighborly environment experienced in store and display this to potential customers while making the initiatives successful. The hope is through this people will be more inclined to go to Potbelly or order online, and thus increase Potbelly’s customer base and revenues for the company to combat the period of decline they are currently experiencing.
Brand Overview: Company History The original Potbelly store was on Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, Illinois and started as an antique shop with slow but steady business. The owners, determined to bring in more business, started serving lunch and as more and more people came it turned into a food/antique store that had warm sandwiches, homemade desserts, and live entertainment. In Potbelly Timeline
1996 Bryant Keil bought the original store and tried to spread the company across the country while keeping the same neighborhood
feel as the original store. (Our Story, 2014) Today there are over 280 Potbelly sandwich shops throughout the US, but the founders and Bryant Keil are determined to prevent the chain from becoming “just another fast food restaurant”. Potbelly is currently the 8th fastest growing company in Chicago and one of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the US. The company’s name was inspired by Potbelly stoves, which in the 18th and 19th centuries were gathering places for families. Potbelly aims to maintain this warmth, happiness, and familiarity at all of their stores (and even has an antique Potbelly stove at each of their locations), which is something that we aim to spread and maintain through our marketing plan. (Our Story, 2014)
Business Objectives Potbelly is a franchise that is constantly looking to expand into new areas. The company wants a new franchiser to be interested in running a productive corner sandwich shop, but also be heavily involved in the community. To make sure that Potbelly does not become “just another fast food restaurant” the company has a list of areas where new franchisors would be permitted to open a store. This prevents overcrowding a certain section of the country, so that each store can maximize its potential customer base without having to worry about another store taking its clients. (Potbelly Sandwich Works Franchising) As stated on the official Potbelly page under their Franchise Info; “Potbelly is committed to improving the world by improving the communities we inhabit. That means being a responsible member in each of our neighborhoods and always looking for ways to improve.” Potbelly aims to improve the community to increase the relationship that customers have with the store, so that Potbelly stores are not just a place to buy a sandwich, but a part of the community as a whole. This commitment can be seen in the company promise below.
Company Promise: “We choose high quality meats, cheeses and veggies then slice, cut and chop them ourselves. Our sandwich makers build amazing toasty sandwiches to order and get you through the line really fast. While every Potbelly sandwich shop is unique, they all have friendly folks behind the counter that will make you feel at home. Our promise. Fresh. Fast. Friendly.” (Potbelly Sandwich Works Franchising) Current Situation Potbelly is struggling to make a profit. According to the company’s 10 K annual report, the past five years have only had one that featured a positive value to the company. 2012 was positive because the company was in such a bad economic state it received over $15,000 in tax benefits from the government.
Potbelly tried to give stakeholders dividends this past year to make up for the fact that the company has been losing money and had a decreasing stock price. In addition, the company tried to release more shares of stock in the hopes of increasing revenue. There has been a large gain in cash for the company in 2014, but this is only a temporary patch and not a fix to the issue. (Financial Information, 2014). As seen in the above valuation of Potbelly stock, the company has faced a sharp decrease in the last year alone. In a 2012 Mintel report (see chart), sandwich sales were predicted to grow by 24.6% through 2017, reaching $32.4 million (Wall, 2012). Therefore the opportunity for Potbelly to increase sales is strong, but the company needs to change its marketing techniques to regain growth and higher sales Mintel 2012 Industry Report Forecasting Sales
levels.
Competitors Potbelly is in a very competitive industry as there are many different sandwich and fast food restaurants that they have to compete with. There are the large companies, Subway, Quiznos, Jimmy Johns, but also the smaller sandwich shops. As seen in the chart Potbelly is doing a very good job of competing with the larger companies, and as they continue to grow to new locations and add this new marketing strategy they will be able to attract even more customers. Potbelly is able to attract this many customers, while having a significant disadvantage in the number of stores they have open. The second chart shows the
Jimmy Johns Findings of Company Customers
total number of sandwich shops open (Subway not shown has roughly 200,000) and it is very evident that Potbelly has significantly less stores than its competitors. This puts Potbelly in a strong position going forward as they will be able to compete with the larger competitors in the sandwich industry for long term success and growth.
Industry Report of Number of Shops
Marketing Potbelly spends on average one to two percent of its annual revenue on marketing. A portion of this budget is spent at the shop level, to “build relationships within our neighborhood to increase frequency of returns” (Annual Report, 2014). This includes but is not limited to bringing in local artists to perform at the store and donating to and helping to organize community events and fundraisers. Potbelly’s charitable contributions range from helping out local groups to support and strengthen local events, to more direct help through donating time, food, and resources to local food banks and charities (Annual Report, 2014). One issue with this is that Potbelly states in their annual report (as quoted above) that their marketing goal is to “increase the frequency of returns” (Annual Report, 2014). For a company that has not been posting very profitable years, and has recently been forced to increasing the number of shares of
stock outstanding to make a profit, this is not a proper mission. The company needs to focus on expanding its customer base as opposed to only retaining old consumers. This current method is a recipe for disaster, which is starting to take effect as seen in their recent drops in profit, and large net loss of $63.693 million this past year (Annual Report, 2014). The most common form of direct advertising that Potbelly currently uses is radio, outdoor media, and in store promotions (Annual Report, 2014). This is done to best use the strong customer base that Potbelly has built over the years. In the company’s annual report, the introduction of the company Facebook and Twitter pages is stressed as Potbelly believes these platforms will help them tap into a new customer base with high social media involvement. As seen from the above description, the current marketing campaign for Potbelly is very locally centered. It is because of this that Potbelly does not have regional or national commercials, newspaper advertisements, or other broader forms of traditional advertising (Successful Franchise Marketing, 2014). Since Potbelly relies heavily on repeat customers and a great sense of community, their main advertising strategy is word of mouth and local involvement to bring in new customers.
SWOT Analysis Helpful
Harmful
Internal
Strengths: -Ability to customize sandwiches -Variety of meal options (salads, chili, soups, breakfast foods) -Community interactions and involvement-- local emphasis -Welcoming atmosphere
Weaknesses: -Many customers aren’t aware of meal options besides sandwiches -Stagnated growth
External
Opportunities: -Reaching a broader audience on social media -Increased demand for healthier food -Projected growth in the sandwich industry
Threats: -Cheaper sandwich fast food options (eg subway) -Many consumers in the target market eat on the go and one of Potbellys points that differentiate it from the competition is its in-store atmosphere -Other stores are willing to oversaturate areas while Potbelly’s will only allow an area to have a specified low number of stores
Target Audience Potbelly’s target audience is 2534 year olds most likely to do fast casual meals. This age group also is more interested in “BFY” (better for you foods) and wants responsible companies. (Wall) Men are more likely to order hearty sandwiches, whereas women prefer soups, salads Mintel Industry Report on Potbelly Customers
and mini-snack items (Wall). More and more people are beginning to prefer fast casual meals, especially those with
higher income (Wall). These are important insights for Potbelly as to who they should target when marketing different menu options. As can be seen in the graph above, of the 25-34 age group, 27% use sandwich shops to socialize and do work (Wall, 2012). The 18-24 age group has an even larger percentage, with 34% using sandwich shops for these purposes (Wall, 2012). These two age groups also both desire qualities from companies that Potbelly’s exemplifies; 18-24 year olds want increased technology and a better experience in-store, and 24-35 year olds want responsible firms that are eco-friendly and support local initiatives (Wall, 2012). Since Potbelly is more expensive than the likes of Subway and other cheap sandwich stores, Potbelly targets loyal, community oriented customers who are wealthier (willing to spend $10-$15 for a meal instead of $5-$10) and not in a hurry. In general, this is families in the upper middle class ($40,000+ annual salary).
Brand Traditional/Digital Awareness Even though Potbelly does not advertise with the typical online forms, they still have accounts on social media platforms. Potbelly mainly uses Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but also has LinkedIn and Google+ accounts. For the most part, Potbelly’s activity on these social media platforms is posting information on events and promotions, sharing pictures from users, and a few other interesting Potbelly images and facts. Through these social media sites, Potbelly is trying to allow their valued customers to communicate and talk about Potbelly’s products (and with the company) in a centralized location that is attractive to customers highly involved in social media.
Mintel Social Media Report 2014: Consumer Interactions with Companies on Social Media by Gender and Age
Because Potbelly’s target market is so young, (18-34), they are an extremely social media savvy group (as can be seen in the Mintel graph to the right) 91% of males and 86% of females in this age group interacted with companies on social media. Potbelly is not active enough in these social communities which has led to extremely low numbers of followers on each platform. Potbelly has just over 72 thousand Facebook followers and 11 thousand followers on twitter. Compared to the leader in the sandwich industry (Subway) this is very small as Subway has 27.5 million Facebook followers and 2.09 million followers on twitter
As seen in the Forrester charts above, Potbelly has a great deal of speculators and joiners in its social media target market. There are hardly any inactives, but there are a steady amount of collectors, critics, and creators to lead the discussions and promote the company’s products. From this information it is evident that Potbelly needs to move the speculators into joiners of the social media platforms, and the joiners into more involved members but to mainly focus on increasing the amount of spectators of their social media platforms to better circulate their product and improve marketing, attracting new customers.
^ https://www.quantcast.com/potbelly.com The charts above show that almost all of the people visiting Potbelly’s website are female, and the number of females going to the website are well above the internet average. However, when it comes to the male population the company is well below average, and this shows a place for improvement in their marketing efforts. The other charts show that almost all of the people visiting the company’s website have significant levels of education (college or graduate school), and almost everyone accesses the website at work. There are very few people that go onto the company site when they are at their house, which is something that the company should try to improve on since people relaxing at home are more likely to spend more time on the website then at work. The chart below shows the monthly traffic for the Potbelly website. From this chart it is clear that the traffic has hit a major drop recently, and often fluctuates from the low 200,000 to the high
200,000. This is something that the company should view as a source of improvement in their marketing efforts and try to keep the traffic levels at a constant high 200,000 instead of having large fluctuations as we see below.
Brand Point-of-Purchase Channels The brand point-of-purchase channels for Potbelly are mainly in the restaurant. Since Potbelly is a franchise store, the only place that a customer can buy its products is in official Potbelly locations. Customers can order online for carryout which adds a second point of purchase, the Potbelly official website (select stores/areas also offer delivery). However, as these purchases are made location-specifically, (the customer must choose the store nearest to them before ordering), the online sales still fall under the revenue of each location. This Above: Potbelly App on the Google Play Store Below: Potbelly App on the Apple App Store
makes the total sales for the company very easy to quantify since there are only a select number of places that people can go to buy their products. The company has produced an app for smartphones but it is extremely unsuccessful and has very low awareness. The app is available for both Apple and Google based phone but both have the same low level of awareness (71 reviews on Google Play and no reviews on the Apple App Store). The app is designed well with a clean and good looking layout (see below), but it is clearly not being used by customers as a purchase channel. Furthermore, many of the reviews on Google Play indicate the app does not work well and often force closes before food can be ordered. Due to the low popularity of the app, it is not included in purchase channels as it can be seen to have no significant effect on sales levels.
For the year ending in 2013, Potbelly reported revenues of $298.574 million, which is up from 2012 which had revenues of $274.070 million. While the company does not report the gains or losses for each individual store, one can look at the financial statements as a whole to see the big picture effect of these marketing efforts on sales. (Financial Information, 2014) (Potbelly Official Website, 2014)
Social Talk For the most part, comments about Potbelly are neutral in nature (213 out of 256; 83.2%) (Social Mention, 2014). There are very few positive comments (37 out of 256; 14.4%) and hardly any negative comments (6 out of 256; 2.3%) (Social Mention, 2014). In addition to these very neutral comments, a look at the social profile produced by socialmention.com shows that the top users for Potbelly have only posted a maximum of ten times, with the majority posting around five or six times each. This means that their customers are not being overly active on social media about promoting Potbelly through word of mouth or reviews, which is something that the company should focus on improving. While socialmention.com shows that Potbelly is talked about on many different social media sites, the amount of usage on each site is very low, maxing out at only 99 for photobucket (a photo sharing website). The company should also look towards becoming more of an advertising force on specific social media platforms that their target market uses the most (Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter- see the Mintel Daily Social Media Usage graph on the next page). Potbelly’s social media influence is said to be reaching 66% of people which is a very good number, but the company only has a 40% strength and 31% passion rating. This shows that Potbelly is reaching a fair number of its customers, but the content that is being shared to them is not effective in enhancing the company’s advertising campaign(s). Improving upon this would help bring in more business and increase the customer base for Potbelly. Finally, socialmention.com says that there is an average of 9 seconds per mention of Potbelly, and the most used terms when talking about Potbelly are sandwich, shop, and Potbelly. This is good since it shows that people are discussing the food and atmosphere, which are the unique features of the brand separating Potbelly from its competitors. (Social Mention, 2014)
Social Feedback Cycle
In terms of awareness, as stated earlier, Potbelly relies on current customers to spread the word to their friends, and has very limited advertising to alert people of their products. Potbelly utilizes print ads on billboards, bus and train stations as well as community involvement to generate awareness about their product. As mentioned above, the point of purchase options for Potbelly are strictly the app or in-store, with the purchase advertising consisting of the strong in-store experience discussed in detail above, and the appeal of their well-designed yet un-used app (also discussed above). The social web section consists of the social media platforms that Potbelly utilizes: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Linkedin and Google+ are not included since their performance is so poor, while the goal of this advertising campaign is to increase the effectiveness of this social web section.
Touchpoints/Touchpoint Map Potbelly has the following social media touchpoints; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+, to compliment print, radio, community involvement and in store marketing. To create a touchpoint map for the brand, each platform was given a grade (which will be explained below) from 1-10 for both Talk Value and Performance. Facebook: Performance- 7 Talk Value- 6
Potbelly Facebook Page
Performance is high because all posts are very interactive with customers and are creative, witty, and positive. However the talk value is lower as the Potbelly Facebook page does not have many followers (74k compared to 24m Subway followers and 2m Jimmy John’s followers) so the volume of interactions is lower than those of the competitions. Twitter: Performance- 5 Talk Value-4 Potbelly Twitter Page
Most of Potbelly’s tweets are self-promoting, there are a small percentage of replies and retweets of customers tweets. Out of the latest 20 tweets (October 14, 2014 3:00 EST, @Potbelly Twitter) only 6, or 30%, were the Potbelly’s account retweeting or replying to a customer (the rest were self-generated, promotional content). Potbelly’s Twitter account also has a low number of followers, only 11.1 thousand.
Instagram: Performance- 3 Talk Value- 4 Potbelly’s Instagram only has 398 followers and as can be seen to the right, has barely posted any content. However this channel definitely has potential for the brand as the Twitter page has retweeted consumers’ instagrams of their Potbelly meals and experiences. The photos on Potbelly’s Instagram also include customers and local musicians both of which could provide good talk value (if the company could up its followers and post items like this more frequently). While this is a relatively weak touchpoint it is something this marketing plan aims to greatly improve upon. LinkedIn:
Potbelly Instagram Page
Performance- 4 Talk Value- 1 Potbelly’s LinkedIn has 9.7k followers and has information about the company and open positions. However, this is an entirely one way channel as the company does not interact with followers at all. There are also no postings or updates besides jobs openings. This is a very poor performing touchpoint, and Left: Potbelly LinkedIn Updates
thus not something that we think they should put time and energy into improving, but not something that they should eliminate as it can bring in some new employees and generate an interest to work at Potbelly.
Google+: Performance- 1 Talk Value- 1 The Potbelly Google+ page only has 69 followers. All posts are selfpromoting or self-generated content with no interaction with followers (not that there are enough to see any content posted). This is far and away the worst touchpoint and thus something that should be eliminated.
In Store Marketing
Potbelly Google+ Profile
Performance- 9 Talk Value- 6 This has been discussed in detail before, and is the essential piece to the Potbelly experience. This is high performance, and only generates talk value if you visit the store. People enjoy their in store experience so much that they even take to social media to share their experiences with others as seen in the comment to the right.
Community Involvement Performance- 7 Talk Value- 6
Positive review from a satisfied customer, June 2014
This has also been discussed in detail above, and helps create the community feel desired and welcome. It is high performing, but doesn’t generate talk value for audiences who are not at the event.
Print Performance- 3 Talk Value- 2 The print ads are nice supplements to a larger advertising campaign, but should not be the focal point. They help enforce your message on other platforms, but are not seen by many people, and are only beneficial if someone takes the time to read the ad, which this day in age is not happening as often as in the past.
Left: Various Potbelly Print Ads
Radio Performance- 2 Talk Value- 1 Fewer and fewer people are listening to radio advertisements as people pay for Pandora, plug in their IPhones, or just don’t listen to the radio at all. This causes a very low talk value and performance, since it is too old of a strategy to use and does not offer much benefit.
Touchpoint Map: Based on the evaluations of Potbelly’s touchpoints, the company should focus on its Facebook activity and think about cutting its Google+ account. Facebook is both Potbelly’s highest talk value and highest performance touchpoint while Google+ has the lowest values for both these criterions. As the company’s Google+ account has such a low number of followers it is inefficient to continue activity on this platform. Potbelly would be better off focusing on its top platforms, Facebook and Twitter, or on increasing the talk value of LinkedIn (by being more interactive with followers) or posting on Instagram more frequently and trying to increase awareness/followers in this channel.
Marketing Channels ROI A large factor in keeping the customers that they currently have is the in-store experience, since it sets them apart from competitors like Subway, Jimmy Johns, and Quiznos. Potbelly has a stronger set of customers than most other sandwich shops. The cost of having this tremendous in-store experience is not overly expensive, as the decorations cost the same as any other store, and the personal touch given by the employees is done through the training programs that exist throughout the company. It is these effective training programs that make Potbelly stand out, and since this is so cheap to possess and generates such a great profit for the company it makes the in-store marketing the number one marketing technique in terms of return on investment (ROI, 2014).
The second strongest current method of marketing for Potbelly is community service involvement. Potbelly has stressed a strong community feel in all aspects of their business. This starts at the instore experience described above and ranges all the way to their first point of contact with potential customers. This is why Potbelly’s involvement in community service events make the company come across as more caring and community-focused than any other sandwich shops. Potbelly continually donates food and makes appearances at local charity events to show their support and help out. This is a great first impression as it introduces people to their product while showing everyone just how much they care about the community they are a part of. The only cost to the company on this front is through donations and time from employees giving back to the community. While all of these Flyer for a Fundraising Event for a local charity held at their Potbelly location
can be written off as a tax write off, it is also not that expensive to donate a portion of sales, or the time of a few employees to a community cause. However, doing so has proved to bring in a
great deal of customers which makes this a great return on their investment and thus the second biggest marketing technique in terms of ROI.
Potbelly’s use of social media to promote customers enjoying their sandwiches
The third strongest method of advertising in terms of ROI is social media. Social media is a relatively new form of advertising and has thus cost Potbelly money only in the sense that they have had to hire employees whose specific purpose is to take advantage of this ever growing platform. These costs are approximately $36,000 a year according to glassdoor.com (Glassdoor, 2014). This means that the cost is higher or about the same as the previous two methods, (but not terribly expensive). While the Potbelly marketing plan currently in use is not very effective in increasing the number of spectators, it does a very
good job of involving the spectators and making them go from spectators to joiners. Therefore, while this is not currently helping the company a great deal, it is still bringing in a little bit of money for a low cost and thus is third in terms of ROI. With some enhancement Example of Potbelly replying to a customer’s tweet
of this marketing strategy, social media could very well become one of Potbelly’s strongest marketing techniques in terms of ROI. The weakest method of advertising in terms of ROI is print and radio advertising. Potbelly utilizes certain print advertisements in large cities such as Washington DC and Chicago Potbelly Print Ads
by posting on billboards, buses and bus stops. This is a very expensive form of advertising as it costs money to come up with the idea, make the poster, buy the space, and pay for the printing of these large posters. All of this totals to a very large expense, while less and less people are paying attention to these signs on a daily basis. For the most part, people are constantly on their phone not paying attention to their surroundings, and as Forbes has stated; “is print dead?...is a question that has been buzzing around the marketing world since the rapid surge of the Internet and social media” (Forbes: Print is Dead, 2012). In this article by Forbes, print ads are declared to be a good way to enhance and support the other forms of advertising out there, but are no longer a method of advertisement that can be used alone.
As for radio, more and more people are ignoring radio advertisements as they are switching to Siruis radio, iheartradio, Pandora, Spotify and other online radio channels (with paid ad-free versions as options). Through this technology, radio advertising has become almost nonexistent and on the verge of extinction. This can be seen in the chart to the right depicting radio advertisement usage over the years. Simply put, people do not pay enough attention to print or radio advertising anymore and therefore this cannot be utilized as effectively as it has in the past. With all of this considered, there is no possible way that the results can justify the costs of all of these print advertisements.
Top Social Media Objectives
Radio Advertisement Usage 1949-2009
The business objective for Potbelly’s social media and traditional advertising campaign is to raise awareness to increase sales. Potbelly’s issue is that they have a set customer base that is not expanding at a quick enough pace. Therefore, to solve the company’s decreasing profits over the years, the company
needs to attract new customers. The top social media objective, which goes hand in hand with this business objective, is to increase content for spectators and generate more awareness. The hope is that by increasing awareness and spectators these people will be more inclined to go to the store for the first time and fall in love with the great product that is Potbelly sandwiches. This objective, if met, will greatly increase the number of spectators, and at this point the company can focus on moving the original spectators to joiners. While both of these are important, the emphasis is definitely on increasing overall awareness, or the number of spectators, with moving spectators to joiners as a more minor point. The goal of this transition is to make the customers that the company already has more involved so that the new customers will see how loyal the fan base is, and help provide proof to audiences of why Potbelly is a great company that they should support.
Primary Social Media Opportunities The primary social media opportunities that we have found are focusing on outreach, awareness and consideration. This is because the goal of the plan is to alert and inform more people about the product that is Potbelly, since we have found awareness levels to be low. The information we have gathered throughout the report has shown that the company is very good at listening to what the customers want and delivering a quality product that can separate them from competition. However, the glaring weakness has been in how
Mintel Social Media Report 2014: Daily Social Media Usage
many people know about this product, which is what outreach hopes to fix. The social media opportunity will be awareness and consideration focused is because we are trying to target people in these phases of the purchase funnel (awareness and consideration phases). This means we are trying to reach them when they are becoming more responsive to the brand and thinking about the different sandwich options that are out there, and influence their brand decision (to choose Potbelly) during the consideration phase. We believe that the plan described below will be able to do a very efficient job in reaching these goals through an increased personal feel on social media and other initiatives.
Overall Theme or “Big Idea” The strongest points of Potbelly as a company are its delicious food and warm, neighborly, and welcoming attitude. To portray these strengths, Potbelly can use the idea that: “Potbelly makes a happy belly.” The focus of this idea is the “happy belly” phrase which can be turned into a hashtag. It’s catchy and cheerful and plays on the actual name of the company (with the repetition of belly). Happy belly is something that customers will be encouraged to share with friends and family, which mirrors the values and personality of Potbelly. This phrase can be shown on print ads, said in radio spots, and hashtagged online to integrate Potbelly’s current marketing efforts with new social campaigns. The encouragement of customers to “share their happy belly” will help drive consumer generated content and therefore increase awareness.
Tagline The overall big idea described above is concise and will be expressed in its entirety as a tagline: “Potbelly makes a happy belly.” This tagline can be put into traditional media (such as print ads and radio commercials) or can be integrated in social media channels succinctly with a hashtag: “#happybelly”. The hashtag will connect different content ideas across multiple platforms by playing up the deliciousness of Potbelly’s food and emphasizing the community and neighborly feel the company portrays with a slight tweak of the phrase into “share your happy belly” or “give a happy belly”.
Ideas and Examples of Content the Big Idea will drive or create: The following three campaign ideas stem from the theme of “happybelly”. Each campaign can be used on Potbelly’s strongest social media channels but may work better on specific platforms, as will be discussed below.
1. Potbelly Pals This is an existing campaign of Potbelly’s where customers can tweet or post on Instagram about sharing a Potbelly meal with a friend. The idea is strong as it welcomes customer interaction but it is only really active on twitter and Potbelly has not fully taken advantage of this strategy. The goal for this idea is for the company to branch onto Instagram and connect the two platforms. Customers can be encouraged to post pictures of themselves and their “potbelly pal” on
Right: Potbelly Pals customer entry picked as winner of the week
instagram and share the instagram photo on twitter where the company should aim to retweet, reply or favorites to show customers they care. 2. Who’s in your Potbelly family? A campaign could emphasize the friendly, neighborly attitude of Potbelly by asking consumers who is in their “Potbelly Family”. This could also help the company to increase usage of their app. When users download the app, they could have the option to (through Facebook) add their friends to their Potbelly Family. The app could also have a way to share an image a user’s “family tree” which could be posted to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. As seen in the picture to the right, the user’s social media profile picture would appear over the potbelly stove and then his or her “Potbelly Family members” would appear in the tree coming out of the potbelly stove. To further encourage app downloads, Potbelly could do a contest for the biggest family tree, and to help users get friends to download could offer a coupon
Potbelly Family Tree
to a user when their friend uses a download link specific to their account (following the Uber model1). The campaign would focus on the sharing aspect of happy belly, and encourage customers to post about enjoying Potbelly collectively with their groups of friends or family.
3. Put a cookie on it This is a phrase that has appeared a few times in Potbelly tweets and refers to the way the company places cookies on the straw of their classic milkshakes (see photo to the left). This phrase could be turned into a hashtag and an idea that “putting a cookie on” makes something better. Potbelly could post its own content of situations where “Putting a cookie on” would make them better, for example with text Potbelly Milkshake 1
overlay. This could in turn encourage consumer participation by asking
When Uber was first released, users of the app could send their friends an invitation with a specific code that when used, would give the original customer a 20$ credit as well as the friend who downloaded the app.
audiences; “What would you put a cookie on?” Potbelly could hold competitions for the most creative entries of what to put a cookie on. The phrase portrays what makes customers excited about Potbelly, and portrays that feeling of enthusiasm. This campaign would be fun and humorous which would greatly appeal to Potbelly’s online audience. (See below for example content).
Examples of “Put a cookie on it” content that could be placed on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook
Conclusion To achieve greater sales, Potbelly needs to increase awareness by expanding its customer base. Social media platforms provide a great opportunity for the company to achieve these goals, especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. By using the campaign “Happy Belly” across all of these platforms, Potbelly can increase audience participation (and really create two-way channels between the brand and customers) to increase awareness and aid the reputation and friendly persona of the company. If spectators see a large increase in consumer-generated content of happy Potbelly’s customers, they will be more likely to become customers themselves, thereby helping the company succeed in increasing sales. Quantifiably, this plan would aim to see a 15% increase in social media followers on each platform in the next year. With this increase in awareness of the brand, we would like to see a corresponding increase in sales of 15% in the next fiscal year.
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