Page 17 - Engage -- Summer 2018 -- no. 13

ONGOING ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Graze encourages consumers to play a role
in product creation by staging contests that
ask them to vote on favorites and new flavors, encouraging interaction with the brand. While their social media content promotes the products themselves, they also deliver a wide variety of value-based content pieces. Topics include tips on what to eat before and after running a race, training fundamentals, pre-bed rituals to help you wind down, and how to shut down a cold before it takes over your life.
Those articles and videos are posted on the brand’s extensive blog as well as its YouTube channel, in the case of video posts. A number of the articles are created by Jess, graze’s resident nutritionist who created the brand’s health badges to help consumers choose the snacks that are the right fit for them. However, graze lists 21 bloggers on their page of authors. Some are staff members, while some are guest bloggers with their own blogs covering various related topics, such as parenting, fitness, nutrition, taste, recipe creation, and travel. The content on graze’s blog is impressive due to not only the quantity, but also the value. The posts are hardly ever brand oriented and are almost always service oriented.
Graze’s efforts with bloggers do not end with graze.com. The brand also uses affiliate- and
blogger-influenced marketing to tell its story on other sites via product and experience reviews. They’ve also employed guerilla-marketing tactics to seed their best products. For example, they sent brand ambassadors to hand out one million samples of its veggie protein power outside busy London train stations.
Graze’s consistent and engaging use of email marketing didn’t escape our due diligence either. The style and voice of the emails are
light and to the point, even humorous at times. Special offers, sneak peeks into new products, and suggested snack options—all based on your order history and your personal feedback— create a personalized experience of snacking opportunities to fit your liking.
Overall, we found graze’s marketing to be well thought out, but not overthought. We would describe it not as complicated, but rather as “strategically simple.” Engagement across multiple platforms includes social, direct mail, personalized print, email, and affiliate marketing with great use of personalization and data. We felt their content marketing strategy is spot on, as it delivers well-written, relevant content in the spirit of giving rather than receiving. n
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THINKING OUTSIDE THE (SNACK) BOX:
A CULTURE OF GIVING BACK
It’s no secret that being philanthropic as a brand is another way into the hearts and minds of consumers, especially of health- conscious consumers who watch what they eat and tend to know where their
food is coming from. Graze makes their snacks in-house and, in addition to using sustainable packaging, offers subscribers
a chance to give back to a worthy cause. New customers who receive a $1 reward for signing up can choose to donate their reward to graze’s School of Farming, located in rural Uganda. When graze subscribers refer a friend to sign up, they, too, receive a referral reward that can be donated to the school. Consumers can also donate to the school efforts when they purchase graze products through Amazon.
The School of Farming was launched to help families in the Ugandan town of Kabubbu gain the farming skills they need to grow, maintain, and harvest crops over several seasons. The school is run by a local man who is dedicated to helping his
community, and the idea is to provide the village and the students of the school with a source of sustainable income and food. Graze
consumers have raised close to $200,000 thus far with their donations. Though farming has traditionally been considered a low-status occupation only for women, the School of Farming is now fifty-fifty men and women, and 400 people have graduated. That means 400 people can now feed and support themselves and their families.
Want to try your own
snack box?
REGISTER for our summer giveaway and your could WIN three complimentary
snack boxes to graze on!
Scan the QR code or register TODAY at:
corporatecommunicationsgroup.com/giveaway