When world-famous Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que came to emfluence in 2016 and asked for assistance in launching their new venture, Send Joe’s Bar-B-Que, the emfluence team was naturally stoked. As the Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que team prepared to ship their famous barbecue nationwide, emfluence challenged the team to partner together to develop a dynamic, phased approach to their ecommerce website launch that would enable strategic digital optimizations. The end result? An award-winning site that surpassed all launch day expectations and triggered a national conversation about the brand.

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Ryan Robertson
The Z-Man Takes Flight: Launching the
Send Joe’s Bar-B-Que Website
@ryanleighrob

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We have to start here…
It’s JOE’S KANSAS CITY.

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You’re going to get hungry…
• When Joe’s Kansas City is ready to take flight
• Cook it low and slow
• The Discovery
• Preparing for launch
• Take off

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When Joe’s Kansas City is ready to take flight
It all started with a BIG IDEA….

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Cook it low and slow…
After the initial Burnt-End coma wore off,
the emfluence team knew we had to
propose a focused effort in order to
launch Send Joe’s KC efficiently (in 12
weeks) and to make it as effective as
possible.

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“By failing to prepare, you
are preparing to fail” –
Benjamin Franklin

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Cook it low and slow…
Much like good BBQ requires great sides, we had
to make sure that we focused on the whole meal.
1. Organic Search
2. Paid Search
3. Content Strategy
4. PR and Earned Media Efforts (Social)
In order to do all of this efficiently, emfluence proposed a Discovery to
uncover unknowns and make sure that that team was focusing on the
right things. We had one chance to launch Send Joe’s and we had to do it
right.

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The Discovery – start with your situation
Situation:
Joe’s KC is a nationally recognized BBQ brand enjoyed by millions and loved by the KC-faithful,
foodies, celebrities and all those who enjoy authentic Kansas City-style BBQ. The time has come for
Joe’s KC to launch into a new venture that will enable consumers to enjoy the genuine taste of
Kansas City from wherever they are in the U.S.
Send Joe’s KC is the new way to enjoy the award-winning KC BBQ that we’ve all come to know and
love.
• This new brand and way to enjoy BBQ will break strongly into the premium “catalog” market and
compete with other well-known and established brands such as Jack Stack, KC Steaks and Harry
and David.
• The new concept will need to complement the current Joe’s KC brand and leverage the loyal
audience while still building its own brand and purpose for current and new consumers.

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The Discovery – Competitive Analysis
Situation:
Shipping Bar-B-Que and ordering online is nothing new, and scoping out the competitor landscape to
gather key learnings from what they did, digitally, and how the user experience worked was essential
to developing how Send Joe’s would need to operate online.
Proposal:
After an initial Competitor Analysis and Discovery, emfluence gained a greater understanding of the
competitor landscape that Joe’s Kansas City was up against. This lead to the emfluence team
proposing to merge the Joe’s and Send Joe’s websites to offer a more seamless user experience.

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The Meat
Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que will partner with emfluence to
develop a dynamic, phased approach that will enable strategic
online search, content development, social, email best practices and
brand optimization.
We will do this by launching a phased approach which focuses on
leveraging the findings of our assessment and putting into place
key strategies.

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The Discovery – Phased Approach
Phase 1: Assessments
Phase 2: Pre-launch planning, optimization and testing
Phase 3: Post-launch optimizations

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Preparing for launch – Assessments
SEO & PPC Assessment
• Fix and Update Site Meta Data
• Add More Robust On-page Content to All Site Pages
• Optimize Site Img Alt Text
• Implement Site-wide Analytics Tracking, Goals, and Heatmap Tracking Software
• Add Additional Trust Signals for Uninformed Customers. I.e. “This is the same ole Joe’s (just in mail order form).”
• Paid Search Competitor and Keyword Analysis
Competitive Strategy Assessment
• Analysis of Current Trends in Marketing Similar Services and Products
• Persona Development to be Used for Content Creation
• Social Media Channel Competitive Analysis
• Recommendations for Overarching Digital Strategy and Channel Implementation
Phase I Deliverable: Overarching Digital Strategy and Channel Tactics
Website, Search Engine Marketing, and Competitive Strategy Assessment

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Preparing for launch – Pre-launch planning
Search Engine Optimization
• Update/Create Metadata
• Create Blog on Shopify Site to House Content
• Update/Create Content Across Site
• Expand Corporate Gifts Page
• Including Kansas City Specific Page and More Descriptive Outlines of Corporate Gifts
• Implement Subscription Services
Paid Search
• Establish Paid Search Channels and Tracking
• Create Landing Pages for Paid Search Ads
• Add Additional Trust Signals to Paid Landing Pages
Testing
• Order Fulfillment
• At-Home/Office Cooking Results (Seed List of Test Customers)
• Site Load and Performance
• Web Forms
Search Engine Marketing

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Preparing for launch – Pre-launch planning
Marketing Platform Setup
• Shopify Data Sync
• Account Setup and Domain Authentication
• Email Template Design/Programming
• Website Forms/Modal Creation and Implementation on Website
• New Subscriber Welcome Email Series
• New Customer Onboarding Email Series, Including Branded Post-Purchase Survey
Content Creation
• 90-Day Marketing Calendar
• Content Focused on Product Education
Marketing Platform & Content Creation
Phase II Deliverables: New and Optimized Content Side-wide; Established
Paid Search and Social Media Channels; Complete UX Testing; Complete
Setup of Blog and Marketing Platform

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Preparing for launch – Post-launch
• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid Search/Media
• Email
• Social Media
Preparing for what happens after launch
Phase III Deliverables: Year 1 and Long Term Digital Strategy and Channel Tactics

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What we got
With the Discovery Phase, emfluence provided an initial strategy
assessment that included brand and technical findings as well as a
deep-dive into the competitive landscape, as well as a tactical go-
to-market plan.
This involved Agency Strategy, Search, Web Development and
Creative Team to work swiftly while being mindful of maintaining
the brand’s iconic status and brand essence.

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Take off – Launching the website
Develop website goals:
• New service awareness (Send Joes)
• Driving traffic to the brand’s website
• Increase time spent on-site
• Email Subscriber Acquisition

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Take Off – Launching the website

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Take Off – Launching the website
• Determine creative needs
• Once site map is approved, creative team assess the number of pages and page templates
to be created
• Image and file sourcing
• Determine development needs
• Development team assess the technical needs of the website
• UX/UI, plug-ins, etc
• Determine search needs
• Search team assess search needs that need to be set up for website launch
• Determine additional digital strategy needs
• What else will happen when the site launches? Will it be posted on social? How will you
capture emails, and what happens once you have the emails?

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Launch Results
Website Traffic and SEO
• 11,500 Unique Site Visitors in first 24 hours
• Average time on site was over 5 minutes
• 4.47% e-commerce conversion rate during 2016 Holiday Season
• 756 new inbound links since August 2016
• 155 new inbound domains
• Increase keyword ranking to #1 on Google (from unranked) for the following terms
• BBQ, BBQ Order Online, BBQ Restaurant and Best BBQ

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Launch Results
Social Media
• 2.99M Social Impressions
• 88,000 ORGANIC Social Engagements (clicks, reactions, comments, shares) during
launch
Email
• 10,000 email captures in the first 6 months of launch
• 67% Unique Open Rate on “Welcome Email” (compared to 22.31% Food & Bev
industry average)
• 114% open rate
• 15% CTV (click-to-view rate)
• 1.67% order confirmation rate

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What the client said

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The. End.