Marketing strategy for a HK ecommerce business (pet food)
Business problems:
(1) Client run ads on multiple channels but return is low, only FB is better.
(2) Rely on ads to generate revenue. No ads = no revenue. Hard to profit.
How I helped:
(1) Identify key marketing channel and excel at it to maximize return
(2) Formulate marketing strategy to get rid of the "No ads = no revenue" situation
Marketing Strategy & Results:
(Briefly)
(1) Identify key marketing channel and excel at it
✖️SEM - client's pet food is not mainstream ones, keyword search volume is low. Google display usually doesn't work for unfamiliar products/ brands
✖️Email - past buyers are mostly 30-50 years old housewives, tested email open rate, super low
✖️SEO/ Content - long term investment, to be done if able to generate sustainable income to fuel it
✖️IG - Tested, conversion was low. Reasons being not able to elaborate a new product with words on a visual savvy environment. Pet food is not like an iphone case, which can attract customers with beautiful design
✔️ FB - A good balance of picture & descriptions for promoting pet food + user demographic matches with interested customers.
✔️ Whatsapp - High read rate, effective after sending out promotion to existing customers. Also able to chat with customers to build relationship and increase loyalty as pet owners are much more engaging than other industries
(2) Formulate marketing strategy to get rid of the "No ads = no revenue" situation
✔️ Main revenue source focus on Kibbles first (necessary item each day) instead of Treats (nice to have but not necessary item). Kibbles brings in monthly recurring revenue, acquired customers come back every month even you don't place ads
✔️ Place ads for Treats and upsell them with Kibble later. Treats are easy to convert through ads because pet owners are happy to try out new Treats, while Kibble is hard to convert because owners are usually settled with one specific brand already. Treats for quick customer acquisition, upsell Kibble for long term
✔️ Pet owners are usually settled with one specific brand of kibble already. Thus targeting them and promoting generic stuff won’t convert well. Rather, find out the unique values of each Kibble brand, target pet owners whose pets are experiencing problems which needs a new Kibble (e.g. pets having a bad stomach/ teeth problem finding a softer kibble) instead of promoting generic stuff in ads. Much better ROAS.
✔️ Lower the barrier of buying a whole bag of Kibble. Give samples to Treats buyers or interested owners to try out to facilitate the switch.
The MOM Revenue Chart shows the revenue improvement. In the 2nd chart, you can see the monthly revenue still increases in months even with no ads are placed (circled in green), this is due to the increasing no. of repeat customers who buy Kibble each month (acquired from the previous month). And all these happened without increasing marketing budget in months where ads were placed. Client is now able to invest more in marketing as revenue from recurring customer is accumulating more and more.