UCSD Adwave x EcoPackables

EcoPackables x Adwave Market Research & Brand Guidelines

Table of Contents 02 Creative 04 Style Guide 06 Packaging Redesign 07 Media 15 Media Timeline + Budget 17 Experiential 19 Sources

1

Creative Setting the Tone EcoPackables is the solution that the packaging industry needs and our creative copy and brand tone need to reflect that. In writing copy and creating marketing materials, EcoPackables should strive to sound transparent, playful, conscious, educational, and intentional.

For us, these are the qualities that we find most impressive about EcoPackables as a brand and we hope that message comes across clearly

Creative Deliverables Our creative work represents a cohesive vision for the EcoPackables brand.

Through the development of tone words, a new slogan, and the website rewrite, we aim to create a unified brand that is not only eco-conscious and transparent, but also one that sparks environmental change in the ecommerce world.

2

Creative

Slogans & Tone Words

Transparent Transparency is key to building trust and maintaining accountability as EcoPackables continues to grow their clientele and brand image.

Deliver Without

A Trace

Intentional EcoPackables is literally built to make a difference. Each action taken by the brand is intentional to make a positive environmental impact.

Educational

Sustainable Packaging

Done Right

EcoPackables serves a double purpose of being sustainable and educating its audience on the benefits of compostable packaging.

Playful

Slogan Justification As the need to fight climate change becomes increasingly urgent, the business world will need to reduce its environmental impact. With your slogan, our team wanted to make Ecopackables the clear sustainable solution. Thus, we created slogans that target ecommerce businesses, highlight your products' compostability, and communicate that EcoPackables truly offers a product for the future.

Although EcoPackables’ commitment to the environment may seem intimidating to some businesses, we want the brand to be friendly and easily approachable.

Conscious Whether it’s creating new eco-friendly product lines or planting trees for every purchase, we want the brand messaging to make it evident that EcoPackables is conscious about every decision.

3

Style Guide Typography

The typeface Sifonn is the primary font utilized in the EcoPackables rebranding. It is a sans serif typeface with boldly angled apertures, promoting a fun and inviting quality.

The simple and geometric construction of Sifonn -- with circles and rectangles -- is trendy, fit for the contemporary demand for reusable and compostable packaging. The typeface is a typographic extension of our creative tone words of “playful” and “transparent.” Sifonn is used exclusively for titles and headings.

Aa Sifonn - Basic Used in all lowercase, primarily for the slogan.

4

Style Guide Color Palette Why It Was Time For A Change The original EcoPackables color palette consists of forest green, dark

blue,

turquoise,

and

black.

While

these

colors

are

representative of an eco-friendly brand, the colors (coupled with the cartoon font and corn icon) give off a cliché and ordinary vibe. To counteract this, the packaging needs to be more vibrant while making use of more earthy tones.

The New Color Palette We

redesigned

the

new

color

palette

to

fix

these

issues.

It

consists of a light green, earthy brown, salmon pink, dark teal, olive green, and an accent color that is corn gold. These colors

Primary

are bright and modern, while still evoking eco-friendly imagery and

communicating

to

the

customer

that

the

EcoPackables

brand is environmentally conscious. Instead of harsh blacks and whites, the light green and earthy brown work as unique dark tones while within the realm of colors found in nature. We kept blues, navys, and greens, as they evoke peaceful, dependable, and natural feelings. However, we changed the tones and hues of these in order to appear more unique and adhere closer to these values. In order to maintain the “corn” branding in a subtle

Olive Green

Teal

Salmon Pink

Brown

Light Green

#97A458

#467773

#F29B7E

#5C4A3E

#F4FAEC

way, we chose yellow as an accent color. Yellow accents are used to

show

that

the

product

is

made

of

corn

without

being

too

direct about the fact. These new colors are certain to make the EcoPackables brand more cohesive, as well as give it a new and modernized

look.

The

brand

will

better

communicate

Secondary

Corn Gold #FDF185

its

message by appearing more intentional.

5

Packaging Redesign Compostable Mailers For the packaging redesign, we wanted to pay homage to the brand’s emphasis on compostability, while incorporating a design

that

would

highlight

EcoPackables’s focus on natural, playful, conscious, educational, and intentional messaging.

We

also

recognized

the

importance of the corn imaging — both as an environmentally-friendly motif and as a strong, literal visual of the packaging material — and decided to maintain its

deliver without a trace.

deliver without a trace.

deliver without a trace.

feature at the front of the mailer. The new packaging

maintains

modernity

and

minimalism with a flat vector graphic and

Bubble Mailers

earthy, yet bright colors selected from our color palette.

We designed two sets of color ways: one for EcoPackables’s compostable mailers and another for the bubble mailers. The compostable mailers make use of our darker colors to encapsulate the earthy, natural

image

bubble

mailers

of

EcoPackables.

utilize

our

The

palette’s

brighter colors to differentiate from the compostable mailers and focus more on the playful aspect of the brand.

deliver without a trace.

deliver without a trace.

deliver without a trace.

6

Facebook

General Increasing Brand Awareness Strategies Join environmentally sustainable groups as well as groups focusing on protecting the oceans and contribute meaningful content and build relations with members of these groups.1 Incorporate more videos and live content.

Build up user engagement by asking users to share environmentally sustainable tips/practices/charities.2 Consider paid Facebook Ads since they include brand awareness and website traffic options. Keep in mind that the minimum daily budget for an ad set is $1.00 USD and must be at least 2X your CPC.3

Case Study: Tentree4 Using the Facebook Stories ad placement, Tentree partnered with Northern Commerce, a digital marketing and ecommerce agency

The stories gave 10-point increase on ad recall and brand awareness

70% lower cost per content view than other digital ad placements

Case Study: BlueHost4 Used In-stream video ads

79% of people watch ad to completion

3.2 point increase in brand awareness

2 15-second video ads

16:9 horizontal aspect to optimize viewing

7

LinkedIn Justification for Focusing on LinkedIn:

Tools by LinkedIn

94 percent of the B2B businesses use LinkedIn, with B2B marketers considering the social platform to be most effective.5 B2B blogs and websites get 90% of their social traffic from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And, LinkedIn drives half of this traffic. This justifies the campaign’s heavy focus on LinkedIn. OkDork also found a correlation between the number of views and other LinkedIn metrics. According to the correlation data, more views equal more likes, shares, and comments.6 More than seven out of ten buyers are influenced by social media when deciding to purchase a product or service.7

Sales

Navigator8

(offers lots of industry insights, finds targets, and engagement opportunities)

Super Effective: 69K Navigator

vs

3.7K

saved leads via

Sales

saved leads via sponsored

content

General Increasing Brand Awareness Strategies: Posts aren’t frequent enough (the article states that posting weekly is ideal) and not visually appealing (header could be changed to showcase packaging). Many posts are just plain text and could use more visuals to entice readers. It’s important to have a

Objective Based Campaigns8

thoroughly filled-out Linkedin business page. There needs to be more engagement with

Engagement

users to create potential partnerships with other small businesses, potential hires, and

Drive clicks, social actions and company page

environmentally cautious organizations.

Inspiration for a glowing LinkedIn

follows

Lead Generation Get

leads using forms pre-filled with LinkedIn

member information

Metrics to Focus on Based off of Campaign Objectives:10 Sponsored Click Through Rate - Offers an overview

Native

Updates9

ad feature

Target specific audiences better

Bounce Rate/Time on Page - Page content

New Viewers or Renewals - Targeted campaigns

8

Google Analytics Increasing Conversions Content

Use negative keywords. Google Ads further defines negative keywords as “A type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. Your ads aren’t shown to anyone who is searching for that phrase...When you add ‘free’ as a negative keyword to your campaign, you tell Google Ads not to show your ad for any search containing the term ‘free.’”11 Utilizing negative keywords will lower the cost per click, lower bounce rate, and increase google quality score for ads. Common example words could be words related to sustainable fashion bags and general lists for plastic replacements.12 Decoy prices are a tried and true method where a consumer chooses the slightly higher priced product because they perceive it as a comparative gain.13

Adding prices to an ad, especially if it is lower than competitors, could serve to attract more consumers and increase conversions.14 Capitalizing each word in the title in Ad Copy attracts more people to click on the ad copy. People are more likely to click on the ad copy that has capitalized titles.15

Changes to Consider

Create a custom landing page for potential partners with more extensive information in addition to a contact form.1 6

A B split test between different landing pages on the website to determine the most effective landing page.1 Align the ad copy with the landing pages. This ensures the user engages with the website since they will see a site that aligns with the ad they have clicked. This lowers the bounce rate, lowers cost per click, and raises the quality score.15 /

7

New Technology Headline Analyzer

A headline analyzer such as CoSchedule woud rate headlines based on length, word choice, key terms, and how it displays in search results and ensure that essential components such as a clear purpose, product, and call to action are included within 90 characters.16

Ad tensions Ex

Items such as site links on the ad can take customers to the mission, products, and contact information.

Reviews prove to be highly effective for customers when they’re considering a product. This is supported by BrightLocal consumer revealing that 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.18

9

Google Ads Metrics Insights Examples

Search Words e average conversion rate in Google Ads on mobile across all industries is 3.48% on the search network and 0.72% on the display network

Th

The average conversion rate we have is about 32% which is really high (important to note that this may not be the overall conversion rate for the campaign, it might just be the conversion rate for the most successful search words).

ost successful search words in terms of conversion rate were specific to EcoPackable’s products, material, and customizability abilities: M

east successful search words in terms of conversion rate were generally specific to poly mailers.

L

“Buy poly mailers”

“Custom composable mailers”

“Compostable poly mailers”

“Poly mailers in store”

“Poly mailers wholesale”

ost expensive keywords included broad environmentally sustainable terms and “mailer,” which also broadly encapsulates mail packaging.

compostable +mailer”

“+eco +friendly +mailer”

east expensive keywords were generally specific to EcoPackable’s material and product.

“custom poly mailer bags”

“poly mailer bags”

M

L

Analysis of Insights

The most efficient search words to use based on cost efficiency and conversion rate are “buy poly mailers,” followed by “custom poly mailer bags” and “poly mailer bags”. The search words “compostable poly mailers”, “biodegradable mailing bags” and “custom compostable mailers” are most expensive, but we believe that they are valuable as they have the highest conversion rates, and are therefore the most likely to bring in more revenue.

“+

Key Metrics (Averages) Clicks | 46 Conversion Rates | 32% CPC (Cost Per Click) | .8 cents Cost per Conversion | 0.82 cents Interaction Rate | 4.37%

10

SEO + SEO Applications General Strategies 1.

Identify keywords based on search volume, relevance, competition. Note that websites don’t rank for keywords — pages do.19 Diversify your website’s pages by optimizing for unique, valuable keywords.20 It may be more advantageous to target terms with lower search volume because they’re far less competitive. Consider other factors like seasons or region (Google Trends, ie. Soda may be considered Pop).21

2.

Use a keyword analyzer to prioritize the best keywords to target.22 This easily allows you to diversify the keywords on each page, not just on the whole website. This can especially be applied to Custom/Bulk, Products, and Contact Pages.

3.

Place keywords in the title tags, which are “the single most impactful place you can put your keyword is your page’s title tag.

The title tag is not your page’s primary headline.”

Applications Semrush

AHREFS

Voted the best all-in-one SEO platform, as well as a

All-in-one SEO toolset covering competitor and keyword

leading tool across all major SEO categorie

research, rank tracking, content analysis, backlink analysis,

Lets you see competition's keywords

and site audits

Single dashboard = easy use Monitor

Analyze the top-performing content on any topic in any

Keyword rankings at national, regional, and local levels

niche with Content Explorer.

in the Position Tracker tool.

$99/month

$99/month

11

Email Applications Re: Four Affordable and Simple Options

Constant Contact

Hubspot

Easy template

Free email marketing tool that can support a lot of a small

Tracks open rate, conversions, click-through rat

business’ transactional email needs (templates. email tools,

More useful for newsletters/updates to many email

etc.)

Can create different categories for emails/contacts to send

Integration with other HubSpot tools, such as the

out t

free-forever CRM.

Streamlines the process instead of sending individual

Ability to create a centralized contacts database, organize

emails to every contac

it in lists, and manage and track email performance.

Auto responses with the plus account

Sender

Sendinblue

Tool to ensure deliverability and create stunning

Use behavioral data to send an email after a contact takes

newsletters without any HTML knowledge. Just choose

certain actions (ex: after a purchase

from a template and customize it with elements like

Has templates, similar to Constant Contac

images, videos and text.

Can use A/B testing and segmented recipient lists to

Track who opened your emails and clicked on the links,

optimize your campaigns and target audience

when they were opened and more.

Build accurate buyer profiles based on your subscriber actions, so you’ll be able to optimize your existing email strategy and craft compelling offers

12

Outreach Opportunities

TikTok

Eco-Magazine “A critical bridge between science and industry, offering

Tiktok is currently on the rise as one of the biggest social media

advertising partners a unique opportunity to profile your

platforms

products and services to this exclusive audience.

opportunities.

with

its

easy

access

and

increasing

“virality”

Very focused on marine safety--save plastic bags from

going into the ocean--similar to EcoPackable’s mission

GenZ and Millenials are the two biggest generation groups that are most likely to be environmentally conscious23; in fact, 80% of

Green and Growing A blog that writes to inform buyers about everything green

Be-Kind Magazine Magazine that promotes products that are beneficial for the environment. Promotes sustainable products like fashion, containers, etc.

TikTok users are between the ages of 16-34, and 60% of Tiktok users are GenZ.24 With this in mind, GenZ and Millennials are often dubbed “The Green Generation”, actively being more eco-conscious than other generations with 73% of shoppers 22 years and under more willing to pay more for sustainable brands, with a majority willing to pay a 10% premium.25 TikTok allows for great exposure to those who are already eco-conscious and to those who are still on the fence.

TikTok’s average engagement rate has the chance to be higher than competitors like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. With

BioFriendly Planet Magazine that highlights important stories and news surrounding sustainability and eco-friendly projects and advances.

proper usage of free (Videos, Hashtags, Consistent Activity) or paid marketing (Influencer, Platform Ads), videos can have large exposure. Consider producing videos that show off the business, the product, or the mission statement

13

TikTok

Influencers to Consider Waste-Ed (@getwasteed) 969.3K Followers | waste-ed@maffick.media TikTok page that features events, news, and products that are focused on sustainability

“We’re sowing the seeds of sustainability by creating and sharing inspiring, purpose-driven and solution-oriented content and curating the best eco-forward products on the market.” (From website)

Waste-Ed also runs their own shop featuring sustainable items. Consider getting into contact to feature yourself on their page as well as locating another partner.

EcoTok (@eco_tok) 93.6K Followers | ecotokbusiness@gmail.com | www.ecotokbusiness.com/contact A group of 16 creators whose main focus is to use TikTok as a platform to teach people about climate change. They do so with diversity in identity and approach to determine appropriate climate action.

Their website is dynamic and has a direct Google form that lists services like content creation and consulting. It also inquires for specific goals and time frames for your campaigns.

Sabrina (@sabrina.sustainable.life) 139.2K Followers Co-Founder of EcoTok, a team of TikToker activists whose main focus is highlighting and teaching about climate change and the importance of using sustainable products. She often highlights a lot of sustainable products on her pages (TikTok and Instagram) and promotes them extensively.

14

Timeline + Budget JUL

Platforms

AUG

SEPT

OCT

NOV

DEC

2021

JAN

FEB

Avg Per Month

MAR

2022

Total

Google Ads

$4,500.00

$40,500

Facebook Ads

$1,000.00

$9,000

$115.00

$1,035

TikTok Influencers

N/A

N/A

Email Applications

$25.00

$225

Outreach Opportunites

$300.00

$2,700

SEO Applications

$100.00

$900

LinkedIn

High Spending

Medium Spending

Light Spending

TOTAL $6,040.00

$54,360

1.66% 1.90%

0.41%

4.97%

Percentage of Budget M O ST T O L E A ST

Google Ads

74.50%

Facebook Ads

16.56%

Outreach Opportunites

16.56%

4.97%

LinkedIn

1.90%

SEO Applications

1.66%

Email Applications

0.41%

TikTok Influencers

T OTA L

100%

74.50%

15

Timeline Justification Google Ads

The first two months of the campaign were allocated the least spending to measure the effectiveness of the newer, more specific keywords on a variety of landing pages. Zima Media recommends this approach to allow users to experiment with different categories of keywords by evaluating the Google Quality Score. This also allows changes to be made with little loss. Spending is slowly increased during September and its maximum (to be determined

by EcoPackables budget) will be during EcoPackable's busiest season. As winter closes, the budget once again allocates light spending to continue filtering and testing different categories of keywords.26

Facebook Ads

Facebook users are most active during October-January. Usage goes down in February but rises in March, only to go down again April – September.

However, since the range of usage is not significantly proportionate to the total number of people using Facebook, the budget could be raised during the lower usage months. Facebook ads prices are highly variable; therefore, we included an average budget of 1K that can be fluctuated as needed.27

LinkedIn

All months of LinkedIn spending included the sales navigator tool for $65 dollars per month. Afterwards, since the objective campaigns' cost is determined by impressions and engagement rate, we placed objective campaigns before and during EcoPackable's peak season, expecting the average expenditure on objective based campaigns to be $50 per month.28

TikTok Influencers

In July (Plastic Free July) and September (September 15, World CleanUp Day), planning certain partnerships with influencers can result in an overall increase in engagement with posts and and increased interest. December holiday spending only steadily increased last year, with over 3 billion packages shipped across the country — 800 million more than the previous year.

Focusing spending on this month can increase impressions and elevate brand awareness. March is also the onset of spring, a season usually associated with eco-consciousness. March also leads into Earth Day.29

Email Applications

The cost of email applications is set throughout the year, and will not change based on the volume of emails that are sent. Best times for email marketing are mid-week (Tuesday–Thursday), and not around holidays (4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years).30

Outreach Opportunities

Spending should stay relatively the same throughout the year with the exception of a few months. Months like March (the onset of springtime) and December (holidays) may result in more traffic to eco-conscious specific magazines and blogs. Certain partnerships on specific days can result in increased exposure and engagement. This cost is also highly variable depending on the opportunities that EcoPackables gains. Overall, this should have about 5% of the total budget.

SEO Applications

All monthes of SEO applications had low spending because the only cost was the application, and each application reccomended by Adwave was $100.

16

Target Audience Small Businesses

Gig economy is HUGE. Many young millennials and Gen Z consumers are starting their own businesses via Etsy and Instagram (IG) — they are extremely active on social media. Using this to our advantage, EcoPackables will partner with sustainably-active Etsy and IG-based businesses (e.g. sticker, jewelry, clothing) to increase brand awareness as well as B2B and B2C interaction.

EcoPackables will send samples or set up giveaways to selected businesses for them to try our products in order to raise brand awareness and develop brand love. To increase social media reach, we will feature consumers and business on our page through shares, likes, and comments.

17

Target Audience Big Businesses

Conferences serve as a great place to reach professional audiences. Establishing a presence at sustainability conferences will increase brand awareness across larger and established businesses representatives.

Circularity21 is an annual conference with the goal of empowering incoming and leading business leaders to mitigate climate risks.

They discuss business innovation and strategy, bio-based solutions, next-gen packaging and products, and rethinking supply chains -all topics related to Ecopackable’s business model.

Accelerate at Circularity21 is a program where new companies have the opportunity to pitch their product to 8,000 business leaders from June 15th-17th. Although the deadline to present this year has passed, EcoPackables will take this opportunity to prepare for next year. Attending this program will increase brand awareness and exposure; and it serves as a great place to get feedback, and network with other businesses.

Other conferences Sustainable Business San Diego

Oct 18 – 21

Small Business Expo

Varying Dates

Sustainability Week USA

Jun 8 – 11

Following these conferences, Ecopackables will utilize the experience for varying content creation. This will generate reach via social media while conveying brand personality. We can leverage the content from attending these events by writing articles highlighting lessons learned and heavily publishing on social media (specifically LinkedIn). LinkedIn is a great platform to connect, meet like-minded professionals, and grow your network. Additionally, these publications can be linked to giveaways to increase engagement across all social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc). Giveaways are a wonderful way to not only build brand awareness, but increase your follower count. By increasing your follower count, you are exposing your brand to new consumers. All in all, EcoPackables will raise their brand awareness through conferences, collaboration with other brands, and social media exposure.

18

Sources https://digitalagencynetwork.com/how-to-use-facebook-to-launch-your-startup/ https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-use-facebook-as-a-marketing-strategy-for-your-startup-77509f06fa0 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-paid-ad-checklis https://www.facebook.com/busines https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2015/06/16/where-should-b2b-spend-on-social-advertising/?sh=179415f5a1c https://influencermarketinghub.com/linkedin-stats https://awario.com/blog/how-social-networks-influence-74-of-shoppers-for-their-purchasing-decisions-today https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/amp/marketing-solutions/images/insights-and-research/adve rtising-insights/pdfs/Measure_What_Matters.pd https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions https://neilpatel.com/blog/linkedin-insight https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2404198?hl=e https://neilpatel.com/blog/8-techniques-thatll-double-your-google-adwords-conversion-rate https://adespresso.com/blog/increase-google-ads-conversions https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2404198?hl=e https://rapidboostmarketing.com/6-ways-improve-conversion-rate-ppc-google-adword https://supermetrics.com/blog/increase-ppc-conversion-rat https://propelyourcompany.com/increase-google-ads-conversions https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/

19

Sources 19. https://www.wordstream.com/seo

20. https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

21. https://www.authoritylabs.com/why-you-should-use-google-trends-for-seo-and-fun/

22. https://moz.com/explorer

23. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-younger-generations-are-more-willing-change-name-sustainability

24. https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistics

25. https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/generation-z-willing-pay-more-eco-friendly-products/2227101

26. https://zimamedia.com/blog/google-ads-budget/

27. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/facebook-statistics/

28. https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/compare-plans

29. https://marker.medium.com/americans-will-ship-3-billion-packages-this-holiday-season-c90dce987135

30. https://www.bbs.unibo.eu/the-marketing-of-holidays-how-consumption-has-transformed-traditions/

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EcoPackables x Adwave