Plan/create a marketing campaign

This report is a six-month campaign proposal for Instagram Business advertisers to use Instagram Stories for their small businesses. The report will mainly focus on the sector of coffee shops. The main objective of this proposal is to position Instagram Stories as an effective system to increase consumers and attention for independent coffee shop owners.

Currently, the coffee industry in the United Kingdom contributes £17.7 billion to the economy which proves that the coffee market has been emerging progressively (Caki, 2020). Coffee shops are establishments that sell coffee and sometimes light food or pastries.

According to Instagram, there are 500 million accounts that use Instagram Stories every day, in which, one-third of the most viewed stories derive from businesses and one in five stories receive a direct message from its viewers (Instagram, 2020). Moreover, Instagram Stories now accounts for 34% of the sponsored content on Instagram as one-third of marketing influencers use Instagram stories for marketing tactics.

The coffee industry in the United Kingdom is the fifth largest in Europe (CBI, 2020). The total number of coffee shops in the UK summed up to almost 26,000. Just in London, there has been a 700% surge in independent coffee shops since 2010 which shows that this a booming sector (Ackerman, 2020). British consumers have been shown to drink roughly 95 million cups of coffee per day (CBI, 2020).

A trend that has ascended in the UK coffee market over the years would be sustainability. British consumers are most affected by the environmental sustainability and traceability of their coffee. According to Mintel (2018), 45% of coffee drinkers would spend more on a cup if it were to benefit the farmers from growing it. Other sustainability practices that consumers were concerned about were plastic packaging, appropriate recycling and a transparent supply chain. Coffee shops that integrated these practices were more likely to gain customer’s attention. This indicates that sustainability could be a selling point when advertising on social media for high engagement.

Social media is a form of two-way marketing. Instead of advertisers pushing messages, consumers are pulling information. The social media market consists of a few dominant companies that make up a large portion of the market. These big companies consists of Facebook which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. A close second is YouTube which is an affiliate of Google (Statista, 2020). Another social media platform which has recently gained the youth’s interest is TikTok.

The uprising trends of social media have dictated and affected how companies do marketing. The trend of directly communicating with your consumers has allowed companies to build impactful relationships. Moreover, social media marketing maintains consumer attention rather than only having it over a period of time. A survey of 600 senior marketers found that 39% saw a return on investment from their social media posts whereas 20% said that social media brought in the highest return on investment (Shaw, 2018).

Independent coffee shop’s biggest competitors would be franchise chains such as Costa Coffee, Starbucks and Café Nero. A research by Allegra (2019) has shown that 70% of independent coffee shop consumers bought coffee to drink in stores whereas, only 56% of chain consumers bought coffee to drink in stores. Appendix 1 reveals that in a research of 1000 coffee drinkers, 43% did not have a preference of a coffee store, 32% went to the same shop whenever possible and 31% preferred independent stores (Bacon, 2013). This shows independent coffee shops sales are not influenced by competitors. Therefore, with the right marketing tools and quality of coffee and service which are the key factors of success (Allegra, 2019), independent stores could appeal to all kinds of consumers.

In 2013 Snapchat launched stories and in 2016 Instagram launched stories. Within eight months of launching, Instagram stories active users exceeded Snapchat’s (Yurieff, 2018). Whilst Snapchat and Instagram are competitors, Instagram Stories has a wider influence in the social media world. Facebook Stories which is also a competitor, is the most popular social media globally. A major disparity between Instagram and Facebook is the demographics reached. Facebook’s reaches people of all ages whereas Instagram is mainly popular among people under 30 (Jackson, 2019). Instagram in comparison focuses completely on visual content whereas Facebook serves visual and informational content.

Strengths:

· Leading social media app with a reach to almost 50% of UK's audience.

· Instagram is constantly innovating and rolling out new features.

· Instagram offers relevant data and partners to help businesses.

· There are effective metrics and insights to help businesses review their campaigns.

Weaknesses:

· Instagram's main audience is the youth therefore, they aren't able to capture a wide audience.

· Large coffee chains have a wide base following on Instagram therefore marketing independent coffee will be competitive.

· Driving traffic from Instagram is a hassle and engagement can only be done on the platform

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Threats:

· Instagram's main audience is the youth therefore, they aren't able to capture a wide audience.

· Large coffee chains have a wide base following on Instagram therefore marketing independent coffee will be competitive.

· Driving traffic from Instagram is a hassle and engagement can only be done on the platform

Opportunities:

· The trend of increased social media and e-commerce use.

· Instagram stories marketing for coffee shops attracts new consumers and raises awareness.

· There are multiple ways a user can interact with a business, through stories, post, direct and IGTV.

The primary objectives of this campaign is to convert 25,000 small businesses that are currently Instagram Business advertisers to use Instagram Stories during the six months of the campaign.

They are secondary objectives set using the SMART framework that will help attain the primary objectives. The SMART framework states that objectives should be Specific, Measured, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. SMART objectives assist to make the target and progress clearer (Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2015). The secondary objectives of this campaign are:

· Inform marketers in the UK about the potential Instagram Stories has and how the process of visual storytelling can benefit their business month to month with steady progress.

· Use data and previous case studies to prove to coffee shop marketers that Instagram Stories is an effective method for increased engagement and brand awareness with their consumers by the end of 6 months.

· Make current Instagram advertisers increase their usage of Instagram Stories by 20% in 6 months.

The identification of the target audience is necessary so that the campaign developed matches the needs of the audience and is therefore, effective.

The target audience of this campaign is small businesses owned independent coffee shops. This is an upcoming market as independent coffee shops are becoming more popular through time. The cities with the most coffee shops are London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh, Brighton, Liverpool, Glasgow and Leeds (Lacey-Davidson, 2017).

These cities will be emphasized whilst considering the media strategy. Moreover, small businesses have a minimal amount of resources therefore all decisions and risks taken have to maintain with adequate data that determines the most cost-effective method for that decision. For them to believe that Instagram Stories can benefit them, it is important to be credible so they can trust and believe they will see results. Success stories can be used for this.

A problem marketers experience is Social Media Optimization (SMO). 55% said they found SMO fairly difficult and 10% said they found it very difficult. This shows that although marketers understand what to do, they can find it challenging to achieve their objectives (Borowski, 2017). This is an element that will be considered when creating a strategy to ensure that marketers understand and are able to attain objectives. Moreover, according to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2020 (Stelzner, 2020) 65% of marketers want to learn more about Instagram Ads. The study also reported the top questions by marketers. The most common questions concerned, audience engagement, best social media strategies, improving organic reach, video creation, acquiring new consumers and the best metrics for analysis. These will help when designing the strategy, as it’ll dictate areas that marketers emphasize and would like to be more aware of.

A survey of small business in the UK found that the biggest role social media plays for businesses is creating brand awareness and increasing customer engagement. A breakdown of the results can be seen in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1

As seen the most important factors are brand awareness and customer engagement. Therefore, the campaign could focus to educate its audience more about these factors as these are areas that are key for marketers. Figure 2 shows two kinds of personas developed for this campaign. They are quite similar however one is keen on using social media for their business whereas the other persona only uses it occasionally and does not emphasize it. The Social Media Expert is someone who understands how social media can benefit their business whereas The Occasional Advertiser does not understand how using social media can be of much advantage. The aim is to convert both users to understand the drive Instagram Stories can create for their business.

Figure 2

The media selection has been made using Dholakia et al’s framework which looks at eight dimensions when making a choice for a media channel and the customer journey framework. The eight dimensions are: purpose of channel, type of channel, accessibility, communication the channel facilitates, flexibility of interface, convenience, switching costs and organization’s flexibility. The customer journey includes the elements – awareness, interest, consideration, purchase, retention and advocacy (Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2015). Figure 3 illustrates the media channels that will be used, both online and offline.

Figure 3

The communication plan for this campaign has been devised following an Integrated Marketing Communications strategy. The campaign’s communication strategy intends to aid independent coffee shops transit through the different stages of the purchasing process.

Online Strategies:

Email is the first initiative that will be taken for the media strategy. The emails will be personalized for the coffee shops and include details on the new features and how these features can be beneficial to their business. Appendix 4 shows an example of an email that would be sent out to the advertisers.

The Instagram Business website will also be constantly updated to encourage advertisers. The website will include articles and tips to allow advertisers to develop their skills with Instagram Stories. The website will occasionally include blogs and success stories which will include an online forum for interaction or any queries. This will lead to relationship marketing and allow advertisers to be able to reach out and feel seen by the company. The links to articles and the website will also be included in all other forms of online marketing such as email, Instagram post, stories and direct messages.

Lastly, the Instagram platform will be used for advertisements through direct messages, stories and posts. The direct messages will be short but effective and eye-catching. Promotional offers will be included in these messages to grab the reader’s attention. These promotional offers will include free credit or a free trial run of a sponsored story. Instagram stories and post will also be used to run ads, an example of this can be seen in Appendix 2 and 3. The stories and posts will show illustrations of coffee adverts with a visually appealing design that will attract coffee shop advertisers. A video will be produced to be used online and offline for advertising.

Offline Strategies:

For direct strategies, the advertisements on a billboard (Appendix 6) and workshops will be primarily in London as that is the city with the most coffee shops as mentioned in the target market section. Workshops and billboards will be held twice in the span of the six-month campaign. During the second period of workshops, a panel will also be held. The panel will include marketing experts with insights on Instagram Stories and other business owners who have successfully scaled their business through Instagram Stories. They will propose ways in which audience engagement can increase and how organic reach can be improved through Instagram Stories as these are areas that marketers struggle with most.

Coffee exhibitions also attract a large audience of coffee shop owners therefore a booth will be set up at each of these exhibitions. The two exhibitions, also seen in Appendix 5 that the booth will be located at are:

· London Coffee Festival: April 15-18, 2021

· Coffee Shop Innovation Expo: June 15-16, 2021

Both exhibitions take place in London and attract people from all over the country. During the exhibition, we will display the video created and hand out leaflets with success stories. While being physically present we can show them the application and answer any queries they have. Moreover, the first exhibition will take place before our first workshop therefore, we can invite people interested in the workshop as well.

All advertisers will also be informed that they are responsible to comply with the GDPR legislation and all adverts run on Instagram need to comply with GDPR rules (Instagram, 2020). A timeline and GANTT chart of the media strategy can be seen in Figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4

GANTT CHART – MEDIA PLAN

Figure 5

Figure 6 shows the breakdown of the budget for the campaign. The estimated total cost of the campaign is £120,290. There will be still be a remainder of over £30,000 for other unforeseen costs that incur during the campaign process.

Figure 6

An effective way to see if profitability will be achieved with this expenditure is to calculate the return on investment or ROI (Gallo, 2017). The higher and more positive the ROI Supposedly if businesses were convinced to spend £15 during the six months of the campaign, the return on investment would be:

· Number of business advertisers: 25,000

· Expenditure in 6 months: £15

· Total Revenue = 25,000 x £30 = £375,000

ROI =

TOTAL REVENUE – CAMPAIGN COST

CAMPAIGN COST

Figure 7

The campaign aims to convert 25,000 Instagram business advertisers to use Instagram Stories within six months. The campaign informs advertisers about how Instagram Stories can assist them to scale their business. Instagram Stories can help users achieve the milestones they want by simply using Instagram Stories to advertise.

The reason why this campaign will lead to converting 25,000 advertisers is that because there are testimonies that will convince the audience. The testimonies show that Instagram Stories has helped other businesses previously and moreover, the brand Instagram has an extensive following which drives more engaged traffic than any other platform with visual content. The campaign positions Instagram Stories as the ultimate tool between your business and your next advertising breakthrough. This is because Instagram Stories increases the business’s brand engagement and organic reach.

The ensure that this campaign will sustain its objectives, online and offline media tools will be utilized. The online tools are a crucial element of the campaign. The response the campaign gets from the online tools will also be a way to prove to the advertisers that Instagram Stories is effective. By making each element of the campaign personalized for each business, it shows that each one matters to Instagram and that we are here to help them reach their best potential. The offline tools will help transform the advertisers as they will educate them on the entire process. Workshops and booths allow first-hand interaction which helps develop better customer relationships. The billboards raise brand awareness and exposure to the target audience. The media tools all run for a specific span of time which is important to the campaign as some tools will be needed for a longer run and some just for the short run.

A monthly evaluation will be done during to measure the efficiency of the campaign. To measure the efficiency key performance indicators and specific metrics will be used.

A/B testing will be used as a pre-test before the campaign to ensure the best practices are presented to the target audience. The Instagram ads with a high conversion rate and response are the ones that will be used for the rest of the campaign.

To encourage small business advertisers to unleash their full potential, Instagram should host yearly awards or competitions for the most creative advertisers. There could be different categories such as Best Story Design, Most Interactive with Consumers, Best Theme and etc. This will also be an event where small business advertisers can socialize and share their success stories. Whilst this is beneficial to small businesses, it also shows the provision Instagram provides to its business users.

Due to Instagram’s many business features and trends, A/B testing should constantly be considered to ensure that advertisers are attaining the most out of the platform. Through the testing, it can be seen what features most valuable and used and which features are should be improved or removed. Instagram also allows users to interact with stories by swiping up to links, reacting and polls but other new features that could lead to more engagement such as games.

Overall, the campaign’s strategy should meet the primary objective of turning 25,000 small businesses to use Instagram Stories. This will be accomplished through all the various online and offline media strategies.

Through the situation analysis and target segmentation, it can be concluded that if the campaign chooses the right target audience and content, the objectives will be achieved as even competitors are not a threat to the Instagram since they have the highest engagement among all social media platforms. It is important to understand the customer journey when developing the campaign as this increase its success.

This campaign builds Instagram’s brand transparency and gains the trust and loyalty of its business advertisers. The interaction this campaign allows, aids in customer experience leading to a better brand image and brand preference. By integrating this, the brand is able to build a more sustainable relationship with its consumers.

Ackerman, Naomi. "London Sees 700% Surge In Independent Coffee Shops". Evening Standard, 2020, https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/restaurants/london-sees-700-surge-in-independent-coffee-shops-a4354216.html.

Allegra. "Independent Cafés Fly The Flag For UK Coffee Innovation". World Coffee Portal, 2019, https://www.worldcoffeeportal.com/Latest/News/2019/Independent-Cafes-Fly-the-Flag-for-UK-Coffee-Innov.

Bacon, Jonathan. "Brewing Up Plans To Beat The Competition – Marketing Week". Marketing Week, 2013, https://www.marketingweek.com/brewing-up-plans-to-beat-the-competition/.

Borowski, Craig. "Study: How Marketers Optimize Their Social Content". Software Advice, 2017, https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/study-marketers-optimize-social-content/.

Brown, Zoe. "Research Reveals How Smes Are Using Social Media | The UK Domain". The UK Domain, 2020, https://www.theukdomain.uk/social-media-research/.

Caki, Sirin. "Economic Impact Of The UK Coffee Market | Market Inspector". Market-Inspector.Co.Uk, 2020, https://www.market-inspector.co.uk/blog/2019/09/uk-coffee-market.

CBI. The United Kingdom’S Market Potential For Coffee. 2020, https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/coffee/uk/market-potential. Accessed 18 Oct 2020.

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2015. Marketing Digital. México, D.F.: Pearson, pp.61, 203.

The Coffee Shop Innovation Expo, 2020. The Coffee Shop Innovation Expo. [online] Available at: <https://www.coffeeshopexpo.co.uk/> [Accessed 18 October 2020].

Gallo, A., 2017. A Refresher On Marketing ROI. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: <https://hbr.org/2017/07/a-refresher-on-marketing-roi> [Accessed 18 October 2020].

Instagram. "Instagram Stories Ads | Instagram Business". Instagram For Business, 2020, https://business.instagram.com/a/stories-ads.

Instagram, 2020. How Does The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Affect Advertising On Instagram? | Instagram Help Centre. [online] Help.instagram.com. Available at: <https://help.instagram.com/2000935033561463?helpref=search&sr=11&query=About%20the%20Creator%20Account%20on%20Instagram> [Accessed 18 October 2020].

Jackson, Dominique. "Instagram Vs Facebook: Which Is Best For Your Brand’S Strategy?". Sprout Social, 2019, https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-vs-facebook/.

Lacey-Davidson, Mattie. "‘Tea, Coffee… Or A Pint?’ Is Our Caffeine Obsession Drowning Pub Culture?". Times Series, 2017, https://www.times-series.co.uk/news/15082068.tea-coffee-pint--caffeine-obsession-drowning-pub-culture/.

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Mintel. "UK Coffee Drinkers Want To Go Green, But Price Is A Key". Mintel, 2018, https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/food-and-drink/latte-levy-uk-coffee-drinkers-want-to-go-green-but-price-is-a-barrier.

Shaw, Atanu. "Council Post: How Social Media Can Move Your Business Forward". Forbes, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/05/11/how-social-media-can-move-your-business-forward/#1b1720a74cf2.

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(Bacon, 2013)

Attend a workshop. Tips and Benefits

Dear ____

All of us at Instagram would like to wish you a Happy New Year! A new year means new business adventures so why not start yours with us on Instagram Stories?

Instagram Stories highlights:

· has 500 million users a day

· one in five stories receive a direct message from its viewers

· accounts for 34% of sponsored content on the platform

Thousands have found success with Instagram Stories, find your magic now! First time users are susceptible to free credit!

Yours sincerely,

Instagram Business Team

[email protected]

(The Coffee Shop Innovation Expo, 2020), (Londoncoffeefestival.com. 2020),

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