Digital marketing isn’t enough in 2023
An ORTO Pizza Case Study
When ORTO approached me about spearheading their marketing strategy, the brand was only a few months old. They had recently opened their first ‘pizzabar' concept in Belfast with a phenomenal all-day offering — streets beyond anything else in the pizza industry in Northern Ireland. However, their main pain point: after the initial opening-day hype had dissipated, their social media wasn’t doing the fantastic product justice.
That’s where we started. Social media. Specifically focussing on Instagram.
We implemented our tried and tested formula of great content + great delivery and within half a year of the brand existing, we had surpassed 10,000 followers. With the wonderful photographic talent of Stephen McAvoy, the grid was filled with stunning pizza pics. The traction was great, and even now it’s still fast-moving with dozens of people tagging @orto.pizza in their Instagram stories every day.
However, any time we’ve met for ideation sessions, we haven’t spent any time congratulating ourselves for doing a great job on Instagram. The question continually asked was ‘how can we do it better?’. That’s when we started to integrate real-world experiential activities into our marketing mix to optimise the digital strategy. Looking good on social media wasn’t enough.
Read about three real-world activities that had a massive impact:
1. The Treasure Hunt: Digging for Data
In September, as tens of thousands of students descended on University Quarter (the location of the first, and at this time only, ORTO Pizzabar) we decided to play a game. In the early hours of a Thursday morning, our team was out and about hiding gift vouchers around South Belfast. Without any warning (aside from hinting the night before that we were up to something to encourage followers to turn on Post Notifications), we released a map of their locations on social media, and hundreds of people dropped tools and ventured out to secure the goods. Behind each gift voucher was a QR code sticker, which remained in place even after someone had retrieved the prize. This is where it gets good…
When scanned, the QR stickers brought the treasure hunters to a webpage. Here, they were consoled for missing out on the gift voucher that someone must have found first, then they were given the opportunity to enter a bigger giveaway (free ORTO for the rest of the year) for filling in some basic customer data and opting in for marketing. Always gotta’ be GDPR compliant! This meant that even if you missed out on finding anything on the treasure hunt, all was not lost. You still had the opportunity to win.
This experiential marketing activity was a success on a few levels. Firstly, it boosted ORTO’s public image as a fun and dynamic brand. Secondly, it created a stir on socials with dozens of people sharing Instagram Stories of them on the hunt throughout the day — UGC for the win! And thirdly, it yielded a massive database of highly engaged brand evangelists who had scanned our codes around the city. A win, win, win.
2. Just Giving Away Your Products For Free
This is a simple one that is often hastily shot down because it flies in the face of intuitive fiscal responsibility. Accountants hate this stuff. And, in fairness, without strategy, it can be a waste of time and money. With a clear objective and a bit of marketing pizazz, however, you can get a fantastic return on investment.
ORTO is my favourite kind of client. They’re always happy to give something a go, so when I asked the team to bake me a few hundred cinnamon swirls and choc chip cookies to give away for free they didn’t even blink. The objectives were to raise awareness that ORTO served coffee and fresh-baked viennoiseries in the morning, boost engagement on social, and grow our database of highly engaged customers.
So, the plan to bless Belfast with fresh-bakes and filter coffee was in motion.
The Sugar Snap squad donned some ORTO t-shirts and set up outside the Stranmillis Pizzabar and announced on socials that we had straight-from-the-oven swirls, cookies, and litres of specialty batch filter coffee to claim. We soon had a queue up the street and huge reach on Instagram as people shared the word. Everyone who obtained the treats that morning happily signed up and opted-in to marketing and the morning sales were boosted significantly from that point on.
3. Spin The Wheel
It’s hard to beat the classics! We designed a custom Spin The Wheel to promote the ORTO morning offering of specialty coffee and viennoiseries, and had it manufactured in time for the student population of South Belfast returning from their summer break.
It’s as simple as it is effective. You scan a QR code and fill in your details, then have a go at winning a prize. With a bit of music and some charismatic people manning the wheel, a fun atmosphere was created that had people crowding round to join the marketing list.
Real-world activities curate memorable brand experiences with a textural richness that just can’t be achieved through a screen alone. When utilised as part of a bullet-proof digital marketing strategy, some creative thinking in the non-digital realm can deliver some fantastic results for your business objectives.
As a dedicated hospitality marketing team, we’re always keen to hear from owners and operators in the industry who are interested in creative solutions. If you’re interested in finding out more, let’s chat.
