FDBusiness.com

Weetabix-owned natural and organic cereal and snack firm Barbara’s says it can better target its niche consumer base with digital media efforts at a cheaper cost.

Speaking to BakeryandSnacks.com, senior brand manager for marketing at Barbara’s Katrina Yolen said digital marketing campaigns enable the company to specifically target natural and organic consumers.

“If you’re Kellogg or General Mills and you have a multi-million dollar TV budget and you’re appealing to everyone, then traditional media certainly works. But we don’t have those kind of budgets and we are not targeting all consumers,” Yolen said.

“Digital makes a lot of sense for a brand like us… With digital media we can speak one on one to consumers and have more of a conversation. It’s targeted and more efficient.”

“Traditional media is expensive and not very targeted. Digital marketing is a cost efficient way for us to reach natural and organic consumers,” she said.

‘Discover Puffins’ digital push

For the last two months Barbara’s has had a large-scale digital media campaign for its Puffins cereal brand. The marketing push involved instant-win online contests via its website and social media platform Facebook.

The campaign generated around 28,000 contest entries and more than doubled Barbara’s Facebook fan numbers.

Marc Walkin, assistant brand manager for marketing at Barbara’s – in charge of digital marketing strategy, said the campaign has proved valuable because the firm has learned more about its consumers.

The campaign showed us that 70% of those engaging are new or lapsed consumers and that many are tech-savvy, he said.

“With the QR code, we had about 50% higher entries that what is considered the bench mark for industry. One thing you can take away is that our consumer is comfortable with smart phone technology,” Walkin said.

The digital coupons in the campaign also enabled consumer demographics to be tracked through an algorithm, he said.

“It’s scalable and measurable data,” he said, which is useful when compiling the firm’s next marketing efforts.

Engagement: The key to success

“Digital marketing and social media are not necessarily easy to execute successfully because you have to be transparent and very relevant. So engagement is the new metric in digital marketing,” said Walkin.

“We pride ourselves on being very transparent and interactive,” he added.

Yolen said Barbara’s is “pushing the boundaries” with digital marketing. “Why should the standard mainstream cereals have all the fun? Why can’t better for you, healthier brands do the same?”