MULAY’S

Building a start-up brand and repeat customer count by leveraging behavioral customer data.

BACKGROUND

Mulay’s Sausage, a delicious premium natural product, enjoyed a loyal following and strong sales online and at select natural and independent grocery stores. They were ready to take it to the next level with distribution nationally and in conventional grocery.

CHALLENGE

If you are a food brand, it’s a hard truth that national and conventional grocery store chains will only consider your product if you have proven strong consumer demand and a proven sales track record. This means that smaller brands – the “mom and pops,” the innovators, the disruptors – are often out of the game before it even starts. This is just as true as if you’re a brand attempting to navigate the natural products marketplace.

STRATEGY

Avocet worked with the Mulay’s team to develop strategies that would help shorten the sales cycle regarding product placement while increasing consumer adoption as distribution increased.

A full-funnel integrated marketing campaign including social media, digital advertising, public relations, and influencer marketing increased brand awareness, created exciting buzz in the marketplace, and helped get both retailers and consumers attention. Geo-targeting a three-mile radius around select grocery locations not only used the marketing budget efficiently but demonstrated a level of customized marketing through a behavioral understanding of our customers, that retailers appreciated. Insights gained through AI optimization drove messaging and replicable approaches market-by-market.

Avocet connected the dots between the product and mouth-watering recipes through social media advertising and organic content.

Moreover, engaging influencers, micro-influencers, and passionate affinity groups in addition to a national PR campaign reinforced the hyper-local focus and proved that Mulay’s was ready for the national stage.

GROWTH

Over the course of working with Mulay’s, the company successfully made the jump from specialty/natural distribution to conventional with an increased distribution in 40 states and an overall sales increase of 400%.

Avocet’s local and national PR, media relations, and influencer relations strategy – aimed most specifically at affinity bloggers and others – garnered an Earned Media Value 5x investment.

Digital campaigns drove store traffic and coupon redemption. Strong sell-through was the catalyst for product expansion nationally.