MKT 345- Discussion 8
Aramis
GROUP2.docMKT 345 Written Assignment 4
Running head: YETI COOLERS
Team Project – Week Seven
Group # 2
Kiana Soto
Saint Leo University – MKT345-DL01
11/27/2020
Introduction
YETI is an American company that markets the outdoor and recreations that designs good quality products to their targeted consumers. They are known for their most popular product, the YETI cooler. The premium coolers are made with advanced technology and sturdy, high-quality materials that can sustain any outdoor adventures. YETI has created a niche in the market and within a year, “YETI has established an aspirational brand, meaning that some people will pay a premium for the name, even if they can find a similar no-name product for less” (Steffy, 2016).
Though YETI has accomplished many of their social media goals, they are looking to grow their brand globally. Our three social media consulting objectives for this would be to increase brand awareness through social media platform, boost brand engagement, and research and development to help recognize YETI’s global competitors. During this project, we hope the learning outcomes from this company would be to have better knowledge of their social media marketing strategies. Their targeted audience: how staying engaged and responsive with the consumers can be effective to the brand. Thirdly, how social media platforms can help see the competitor’s page on real-time, giving an advantage on how to enhance YETI’s performance on posting.
Description of Product Chosen
YETI was chosen for the durability and dependability that it offers its customers. The company offers coolers, drinkware, bags, and other gear for not only people interested in adventure but for those that want a product that is rugged. The company started out in 2006 to make a cooler that would be used for an everyday lifestyle. Now in 2020 the company offers 24 different types of coolers in various colors starting at $79.99 to $1,299.99 in various sizes and uses. The hard coolers like the Tundra 45 Hard Cooler available in 5 colors at the $299.99 (Appendix A) price point offers the ability to keep your drinks and food cold in hot temperatures while at the beach or on the boat. This cooler and many other models come with a basket you can put inside to allow for keeping your dry items away from the ice but easily accessible without having to have extra bags. YETI has brand ambassadors that promote the company’s products in various countries and lifestyles as well as ages, genders, and nationalities. (“YETI | Ambassadors,” 2020).
Organizations Goals & Business Model
YETI’s organizational goals are to provide their consumers with premium products to use in the outdoor and recreational market. The brand promises to “ensure each YETI product will deliver exceptional performance and durability in any environment” (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2016). YETI works hard to engage their consumers, like the outdoor enthusiasts with innovative design and advance technology product, like the indestructible hard coolers that meets their standards. All their “elements of its products are thoughtfully designed and rigorously tested to maximize performance while minimizing complexity, allowing to deliver highly functional products with simple, clean, and distinct designs” (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2016). YETI focuses on not just the product but the lifestyle of the consumers. The consumer’s that they target in their marketing strategy trust their products because YETI shows how their products are relatable when using it.
Target Audience
YETI has created “a mass-market brand for outdoorsmen, tailgaters, college students, and backyard barbecuers everywhere” (Target Market, 2017). The demographic of their targeted audience is middle-aged, mostly men ages 30 to 40 years of age, middle to upper income who has a hobby of outdoor activities. These people also are family-oriented and/or have pets as their own. YETI’s content on their social media platforms are ads that are usually “outside tailgating, hunting, fishing, or enduring some type of outdoor adventure” (Wells, 2018). The company focuses on a strategy that approaches their content by storytelling. This “focuses on the roots of a given brand’s identity is where we always start and films that YETI creates are a great motivator of how to craft meaningful content that transcends marketing” (Manzi, 2020).
Organization’s Competitors
The two competitors of YETI are ORCA and RTIC brands. Below is the listed information with their comparisons and contrast of each company’s hard coolers.
|
Criteria for Comparison |
YETI |
Competitor # 1 – ORCA |
Competitor # 2 – RTIC |
|
Annual Sales Volume |
$913. 73 million |
$50,000,000 |
$5,000,000 |
|
Price - MSRP Range |
$200-$1,300 |
$190-$450 |
$129.99-$419.99 |
|
Product Unique Attributes |
Durability |
Ice retention/Insulations |
Ice retention/coolers are larger than competitors |
|
Placement – points of distribution |
USA |
USA |
USA |
|
Promotion – where / how do they advertise |
Website, TV & Social Media |
Website & Social Media |
Website & Social media |
|
|
Orca Coolers - Outdoor & Sporting Goods Company - Nashville, Tennessee | Facebook - 2,923 Photos | ||
|
| |||
|
Other Items of Comparison |
Cups/Mugs, soft coolers |
Cups/Mugs, soft coolers |
Cups/Mugs, soft coolers |
Evaluation of Current Online Activities
YETI has its own website (Appendix B), Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. All social media platforms are focused on the “outdoors people, the early adopters, the gear junkies, and the wannabe professional guides” (Britton, 2019). Looking further into their platforms, it shows the YETI “tribe” of people who are the supporters of this brand. This company is about attracting the audience with the necessity of having their products for everyday essential needs. The company does this well by having American influencers tell their stories with YETI products. If the consumer relates to the influencer, they are likely to view the product and purchase it. The changes we consider for expanding internationally is to reach out to influencers from other countries to start branching out and creating curiosity of other consumers outside of America.
Snapchat
YETI does not have a Snapchat. Most of their consumers use other social media platforms to gain their brand recognition.
Blogs
YETI uses a blog called “stories”. They create content on people’s lifestyle and their accomplishments/job activities they go through on a daily basis. These stories mostly likely take place outdoors. Link: https://stories.yeti.com/
YETI is not as popular on Twitter as other social media platforms. They mostly share their collaborations advertising their products and also focuses on giving back to the community like small businesses/charities. Link: YETI (@YETICoolers) / Twitter
YouTube Videos
YETI has a YouTube channel called “YETI Presents”. They are very diverse with their videos and even have section (playlists) in different topics. It ranges from testing products, adventures taken by people, storytelling, and YETI coolers versus videos (Appendix C). Link: YETI - YouTube
YETI is also very popular on Instagram and has about 1.5 million followers. Their posts are sceneries of nature, whether it’s in the country, mountains, or at sea, they have it all. They focus on the quality of the customers and sponsors rather than post a lot of pictures of their products. Link: YETI (@yeti) • Instagram photos and videos
Gamification Activities
YETI has a reward system called “YETI PRO PROGRAM”, but it’s not for just any consumer. This is a program that meet the needs of certain professions in the outdoor industry. Link: YETI Pro Program
Corporate Web site
YETI’s website starts with their targeted market, for instance, if the season is to barbeque then that will be the first thing you will see when you open their page up. Then they go on and show you their best-selling products based on what you are looking for (APPENDIX B). When you scroll to the bottom, you will see their top blog story posted there to keep the customers engaged. Link: YETI Drinkware, Hard Coolers, Soft Coolers, Bags And More
Other Activities
YETI has recently started a podcast called “Drifting” with a very popular Texas fisher, JT Van Zandt. The podcast will be about “life, the wild, personal philosophies, hardships and triumphs, and of course some fishing too” (YETI, n.d.). The company has a entered the music apps like Spotify, Stitcher premium, and apple music. Creating this can grab audiences that may have not heard of YETI company and if they know the celebrity hosting the podcast, even more comfortable and trustworthy the product becomes.
Competitive Advantages
YETI’s competitive advantage is that they are constantly engaging with “retailer partners on product presentation, marketing, and retail merchandising” (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2016). The trademark that YETI has provided and along side the distinctive product on performance, technology designs has built a great reputation within their consumers. Not only that, but YETI’s advantages have “larger retailer bases, global product distribution, greater financial strength, superior relations with suppliers and manufacturing partners, or larger marketing budgets and brand recognition” (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2016).
Competitive Disadvantages
A disadvantage that YETI is having are the pricing on their products being too high. Like stated in the previous sections, RTIC and ORCA cooler brands are a lot cheaper than a YETI and most consumers may turn those companies before looking into YETI products. They also “may face challenges that are different from those we currently encounter, including competitive, merchandising, distribution, hiring, and other difficulties” (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2016).
Overall Analysis of Online Marketing Efforts
The marketing strategy that YETI focuses on is their content. They want to create a lifestyle while using their products, not their product directly. In all their social media platforms, they try to tell a story about an actual person, which helps stick the brand out more and never lose sight of who they are. The main effort is to know your online audience and “create a full network building a lifestyle around your brand through utilization of the one thing that connects us all – people” (Rustand, 2018).
Recommendations for Improvements
The future growth depends not only on continuing to reach to the current demographic, but also continuing to broaden our consumer base. The growth of the company is “based on how they can continue to market to the consumer that are more than just the Unites States” (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2016), expanding to international markets. YETI’s goal is to reach out to consumers outside of the United States, which can be helpful to refresh and evaluate marketing efforts and other strategies for this expansion.
Web Site Improvements
YETI’s website has it all, from pictures, to front-page best-selling products, deals, and blogs. One thing that can improve is that there are too many images on the front page without showing much of their products. Though the company is expressing what their product is all about, “you” the customer, it can be distracting and take away the clearness of potential customers.
Blog Improvements
Two things that can be improved for YETI’s blog is create a section where the consumers can participate on a blog. Right now, YETI is telling a one-way story which can get a bit hard to know what the reader (the customer or potential customer) is wanting from the content of the company. Secondly, when the reader has opened a post and wants to share an insightful post, there are no ways to share the blog. Ensuring “that you provide relevant social-share buttons for your posts” (Churick, 2016) can help spread the company’s brand.
Twitter Improvements
For how popular YETI is, their Twitter only has 1,322 followers. Reviewing their content, it shows mainly pictures of supporting local businesses and promoting their collaborations with other companies. Each tweet that has been posted by YETI receives 40-80 likes and retweets. YETI needs to focus on engaging their users interacting with them to help expand brand awareness. One way to engage is to retweet users’ tweets using YETI’s name and/or brand. This shows the user that the company does value the user’s opinion and creates a relationship between the brand and the users.
YouTube Video Improvements
A thing that YETI can improve on their YouTube Videos is trying to engage their followers to grow their channel. YETI can create a giveaway of some of their products to a lucky winner. This assist on giving that traction to bring in more subscribers. One other thing that can be improved is all videos are video blogs and nothing about promotional products. Doing promotions can be a teaser for the followers and build their anticipation of the product. Doing this can make the follower aware of the promotion, making them want to share the channel/video on other social media platforms.
Conclusion
YETI makes great products that are perfect for the adventurers and the everyday lifestyle. The company uses various social media platforms to market their products with Instagram, Twitter & YouTube as some notable platforms which allow them to reach different types of people. They offer brand ambassadors which allow them to showcase their brand in different settings with different types of people that they are marketing to. They also use their social media platforms to deliver content that a consumer would want in addition to their products with articles, promoting non-profits and videos it allows the consumer to not only associate the brand with quality products but as a go to place for more about boating, fishing, hiking, etc.
References
Churick, N. (2016, May 3). 5 Hacks to Improve Your Blog and Get More Traffic. Content Marketing Institute. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/12/improve-your-blog/
Manzi, R. (2020, June 4). Case Study: The Yeti Cooler Marketing Model. Oswego Creative. https://oswegocreative.com/case-study-the-yeti-cooler-marketing-model/
Rustand, D. (2018, November 29). 3 Marketing Strategies Every Brand Needs to Learn From YETI — WAYPOINT TV. WAYPOINT. https://waypointtv.com/blog/3-marketing-strategies-every-brand-needs-to-steal-from-yeti
Securities and Exchange Commission. (2016, July 1). YETI Holdings, Inc. SEC.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1670592/000104746916014127/a2229052zs-1.htm
Steffy, L. S. (2016, December). The Pot of Cold. Texas Monthly. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-rise-of-yeti-coolers/
Target Market. (2017, June 18). Yeti Coolers. https://yeticoolersblog.wordpress.com/about/
The Secrets to YETI’s Success. (2020, January 29). Britton Marketing & Design Group. https://www.brittonmdg.com/blog/the-secrets-to-yetis-success/
YETI | Ambassadors. (2020, October 25). Retrieved November 20, 2020, from YETI | Stories website: https://stories.yeti.com/ambassadors?page=1
Wells, B. (2018, April 16). YETI Research for MC 3031 - Bon Wells. Medium. https://medium.com/@Bonnaroo_/yeti-research-for-mc-3031-936d8c44f6a8
YETI. (n.d.). YETI Drifting Podcasts. YETI. Retrieved December 1, 2020, from https://www.yeti.com/en_US/podcasts
Appendix
Appendix a: TUNDRA 45 HARD COOLER $299.99
APPENDIX B: YETI’S MAIN WEBSITE
APPENDIX C: YETI PRESENTS” YOUTUBE CHANNEL PLAYLIST
