16. The Campaign Budget
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Editor's Notes
Creating a Community for Quality Dairy
-QD has been around the Mid-Michigan area since cigarette advertisements looked like this.
-They’re a chain of convenience stores selling snacks, medicine, beer, liquor
-They also bake their own doughnuts, muffins, and cookies, as well as produce dairy goods like milk and ice cream.
-It’s the Kwik-E-Mart of Lansing
-There is little conversation around QD on the web.
-Quality Dairy is easily searchable and dominates the top results when searching “Quality Dairy”
-Yet, there are few FourSquare check-ins and even fewer mentions on Twitter
-QD’s biggest web presence is on their Facebook page
-QD has an opportunity to tap into over 60,000 students from MSU, LCC and Cooley Law.
-Then there are the all the politicians working at the capitol and business people in the Greater-Lansing area
-QD’s 31 locations make them easily accessible by virtually anyone
-Quality Dairy needs to be what people think about when they hear East Lansing or Michigan State University
-The goal is to create a community.
-This “in-the-know” online community will make people feel like they are apart of something
-It starts with announcements on QD’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
-For example, there is a thread on QD’s Facebook page about their limited edition Pac-Man Cookies.
-QD could announce they are offering Pac-Man cookies for one day on their Twitter and Facebook page
-Not only does this show QD is willing to listen to their customers, it will drive Re-Tweets and hopefully, in-store visits.
-QD also needs to monitor the conversations of college students and local residents
-During Izzone, housing campouts, or rallies in Lansing, QD should be handing out coffee, hot chocolate or doughnut holes.
-QD could also offer discounts or free samples to anyone who mentions them on Twitter or check-ins to a QD location on Four Square
-This is even better than handing out free goods because it gets people into the store where they are more likely to purchase other items.
-Either way, it shows QD is keeping tabs on the students and people in the community,
-In addition to making QD-related announcements, QD should Tweet and re-tweet links on local businesses and people in the news.
-This will further solidify QD as a company passionate about the Lansing area and should help boost QD to the top of search results when people search Lansing or East Lansing
-These posts will not only inform their followers, but also promote followers to have deeper connection to their own community as well
-QD is surrounded by thousands upon thousands of college kids
-Why not use them?
-QD should hold a contest seeking the best art by local artists or students to be used on coffee and pop cups
-And instead of being known as the birth place of Steven Seagal, Lansing should be known for a unique flavor
-Through community voting, the Greater-Lansing population will decide what the official flavor of Lansing should be. This flavor will be then be turned into a line of cookies, ice cream and milk
-Quality Dairy also has it’s own plastic blowing operation
-QD could call for the most unique designs for milk, orange juice or egg nog plastic containers
-Then they could show the process of blowing these unique plastic containers on YouTube
-A YouTube series could be just the thing to make Quality Dairy synonymous with Lansing and potentially world famous
-With a 37,000 square foot bakery, QD makes their own line of goods including doughnuts, milk and ice cream.
-By experimenting with recipes posted by their Facebook and Twitter followers, QD could create limited edition flavors of ice cream.
-The most unique ingredient combinations would certainly make for the most entertaining clips.
-QD could then go on the streets, taping the entire process, and give out free samples, gauging people’s reactions when they take a bite of some weird ice cream flavor like pickle or hummus.
-The flavor creator series could also experiment with new flavors of cookies, doughnuts or even milk
-An extension of this idea could be Tweeting at Ben & Jerry’s or Baskin Robbins calling for an ice cream “taste-off” to build hype around QD ice cream flavors
-Following a successful social media presence and YouTube series, QD could set up temporary, pop-up shops that are announced on Twitter or Facebook to build the buzz
-In places with a large MSU alumni, like Chicago or Detroit, QD can reintroduce their brand to old customers selling their baked goods, coffee and ice cream.
-Detroit is a particularly good place to start a pop-up shop because of the city’s high number of vacant storefronts in desirable locations.
-The best time of the year to pull off this type of stunt would probably be during the winter when MSU alumns are following State football and basketball. And with the colder weather, people can appreciate a warm cup of coffee.
-A pop up shop will also provoke conversation on Facebook and Twitter with old and new customers trying to figure out why a QD is in the middle of Detroit or Chicago if they didn’t get the memo the first time. This should result in new followers.
-Tracking the success of the campaign should be fairly simply.
-Does QD have more followers on Twitter and Facebook that are interacting with the brand?
-Are hundreds of thousands of people watching the Flavor Creator YouTube series or is it just a hundred?
-Are people driving from an hour away to try a scoop of ice cream?
-Are people taking pictures outside the store and posting it on Flickr or their blog?
-Are other companies re-tweeting or reposting what QD has to say?
-Ultimately, the brand will need to listen and implement change based on what the customer’s are asking
-QD is currently running radio ads. I would propose they cut those entirely and focus more on new media. People who listen to Lansing radio probably already have an idea of what QD is all about. But with a constant influx of visiting professors, business people, politicians and students from outside the area, a successful social media campaign can reach a larger target.
-Costs would come in the form of :
-Distributing free samples which they already do in all their stores
-Film equipment, editing software: $1000-3000
-Unique ice cream ingredients for Flavor Creator YouTube Series $1000
-A redesigned website making it easier for web crawlers to pick up on QD text, tweets and Facebook posts $500-1000
-Establishing a pop-up shop, transporting goods and getting city approval would be a little more costly. However, Two Men and a Truck are based out of Lansing so trying to work a deal may alleviate some transportation costs. Renting a vacant store for a few days should be cheap, roughly $1000 in Detroit. Chicago would be more costly, but testing the pop-up in Detroit first would be best.
-The money saved by cutting money toward radio spots should cover the video production costs and new ingredients for flavor creator YouTube Series.