Farm Girl Food

MARK5000 Interactive Web Marketing

COME GET YOUR FARM GIRL FOOD!

Farm Girl offers gourmet locally sourced comfort food from a mobile truck. Serving everyone from families to students to professionals in Kingston and the surrounding area. The goal of this campaign is to increase catering sales. This campaign budget is $5/day. This campaign will be centred around the goal of increasing awareness that Farm Food Food offers catering, with the desired end result of increasing sales in this field. When creating a campaign, three main themes emerged that focused on what Farm Girl represents. Mobility, custom catering, and fresh local ingredients. Three ad groups could be created from this, and represented on Google when searched for:

Ad group 1:

Kingston Mobile Food Truck

Kingston's first gourmet mobile food truck is serving up homemade soups, sandwiches, wraps and even gluten free options. Find out where we are today!

Destination URL:

http://www.farmgirlfood.ca/

Ad group 2:

Farm Girl Custom Catering

Let Farm Girl Food cater your next special event. We can create a custom menu just for your event. Book now!

Destination URL:

http://www.farmgirlfood.ca/index.cfm/catering/

Ad group 3:

Farm Girl's Seasonal Menu

Supporting local farmers by buying fresh, seasonal ingredients. Help support your community by having lunch with us today!

Destination URL:

http://www.farmgirlfood.ca/index.cfm/seasonal-menu/signature-items/

Campaign Idea: In order to start spreading awareness, Farm Girl Food could cater an event in Kingston that the public can attend. As people are at the event encourage them to tweet/post/blog about it and they receive a discount off catering services. Continue the campaign by increasing the discount each time a tweet/post/blog is shared by others. Have an ultimate Share Goal (500 people reached from one person) to give one lucky person a free catered event*! During this campaign payperclick (PPC) ads should appear on sites like Google search and the Facebook newsfeed. 

(*limit the free catered event to 25 people maximum).  

Facebook vs. Pinterest: The Social Shopping Experience

MARK5002 Integrated Digital Media

Social media sites are being used more and more to purchase goods online. Traditionally when going online to purchase something we, the consumer, would go directly to the companies site or a retailers site. For example lets say I'm interested in buying a new camera. Traditionally I would go look on such sites as BestBuy or Black's Photography to do research about the camera and eventually buy. While now I may still buy directly from one of those sites, how I get to these sites and what prompts my decision to buy has changed. While looking through my Facebook news feed, read a tweet on Twitter or boards on Pinterest I may see a camera I'm interested in, or a comment someone has made about a camera. I also may find a photograph that I find inspiring and through that learn what type of camera was used to take it. It is through the interaction with other consumers that I'm influenced.

Now, of all the social media sites being used today, what site is more likely to influence or cause me to make a purchase? Before doing any research my educated guess would have been between Facebook and Pinterest. So, which site does have more influence over the consumer?

According to an article from Hubspot "Pinterest buyers spend more money, more often, and on more items then users from any of the other top five social media sites". Pinterest drives referrals to a businesses site. As we look through Pinterest boards and like, comment or repin something that interest us we are in turn sharing this information with others by saying we endorse what we are seeing/reading.  Going back to my camera example, if I see a beautiful photo on Pinterest I may click on that image in order to learn what camera was used to take this photo. This may then lead me to say, Canon's site where I will see the type of camera used. I then may make a purchase and in turn like and repin the original photo from Pinterest, possibly leading another consumer to do the same as I have.

The Social Shopping Experience

Food for Thought
Where have your most recent online purchases come from?
Do you click on Ads on Facebook? If yes, does that lead you to make a purchase ever?
Have you ever made a purchase from something you have found on Pinterest?

Please feel free to comment

RON

Digital Marketing MARK5000

RON, sorry uncle Ron this is actually not about you, but rather Run-Of-Network advertising...next time ;)

Run-of-network advertising is a form of internet marketing where an online advertising campaign is applied to a wide collection of websites without the ability to choose what specific sites. The advertiser may not be able to choose where their ads appear in this type of campaign but this does allow them to take advantage of extra inventory that might not be in as of high demand, but yet is still reaching an audience that could be beneficial and maybe wouldn't have been reached otherwise. It could be beneficial if your trying to influence a diverse range of consumers. This style of campaign should also result in lower prices, being a low-cost, high-reach strategy. Since this form of campaign is based on non-targeted ads it can be less affective then more targeted ads, but it is an excellent start for first-time online advertisers. Upon the completion of a first-time advertiser's run-of-network, data can be read on the back end to see what sites, or categories of sites, performed best according to whatever metric is being used to determine success. The advertiser can then go back to the networks that performed the best and buy more targeted ads.

Looking at the big picture, run-of-network is not the best form for an advertising campaign, for non-targetd ads are just less affective then targeted ads. But don't dismiss RON too quickly, as it can really help out first-time advertisers discover what works best for their type of advertisements.

The Social Six

Interactive Digital Media MARK5002

Yes, I'll admit it, social media sites take up way too much of my time on a daily basis. Whether I'm on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Instagram, I like to stay connected. I want to know what my friends are doing, express my random thoughts, hear about the latest trends, watch what happened on the VMAs, get ideas on what to make for dinner or be inspired by beautiful photos. These social sites we use on a daily basis play a key role in creating our own digital identity.

Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are the most common social media sites, while others debate on which site takes the spot for number 6. Whether it be Instagram (personally sitting in my number 6, or should I say number 2 spot based on my activity), FourSquare, Google+, Tumblr, or a blog, social media sites are shaping our online identity. Our digital identity is the way we represent ourselves via text, images, sounds and video to others who access the web. "You are what you post". There are so many ways we use social media sites that contribute to who we are online: Who we follow, who follows us, what we post, what we comment on, how we comment and where, pictures/videos we share or like, what we search, what we buy online and the sites we use...just to name a few. In all that we do online we create our own digital identity.

So think about how you represent yourself, and don't get lost in your digital identity.

To Blog Or Not To Blog...that is the question

Digital Marketing MARK5000

While I'm still struggling with the idea of blogging I decided to look into what the industry leaders think about it when it comes to promoting their brands via blogging. In the article To Blog or Not to Blog they break down some of the reasons To and Not To blog. Basically unless you are an extremely successful company/brand with enough rich and engaging content available through more traditional marketing strategies, then blogging is going to be more beneficial to your brand then not.

When companies provide any type of forum for their customers to discuss their brands it makes the customer feel as if they are more INVOLVED. At least that is how it makes me feel. I can see what other customers are saying about the products, how the company has responded to them and contribute my own feedback. It feels more like a conversation between two individuals as opposed to a huge company telling you what to do. It starts to create this feeling of trust and openness between a company and their customers that didn't exist in the past with traditional marketing strategies. We, the little guys, now have a voice that these big companies are being forced to not only listen to but now respond to.

So really is blogging more beneficial to the companies trying to promote their brands, or to us, the consumers who are finally given a say?

Ad Men to Math Men

Digital Marketing #MARK5000

Whether I'm looking through my News Feed on Facebook or searching on Google I am surrounded not only by ads but ads marketed directly to me. How does Facebook know I'm looking for a new camera? And is Google hinting that I should head back to the gym?! In this era of digital marketing ads are becoming more and more targeted to the consumer based on previous sites we have visited, searches we have done, hash tags we have used on Twitter, or posts we've put on Facebook. While technology advances to make it easier for us to find things online, it is also making it easier for people to find us. How secure is our private information really?

After watching the video "This is Digital Marketing: From Ad Men to Math Men" (see video below), all I could think about was how targeted ads are now and how much access marketing companies have to our personal information. Trust is becoming a huge issue, at least to skeptical people like myself. While reading through various articles on searchenginewatch.com I found an article (see link below) that questions these huge internet companies as to how much information they really are releasing.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo were all questioned regarding the amount of information they release to government agencies. All of them denied giving direct access to any government agencies to the extent required by law. Direct access? So indirectly they provide information? To the extent required by law? So when can the law determine that the government should have access to our personal information from these sites? This raised a lot of questions for me and didn't help with my scepticism.

I realize I may have asked more questions here rather then providing more answers, but honestly I think its time we did start asking more questions. While I'm a huge fan of social media and how easy search sites are making it for us to find information, I can't help but worry about how public are private lives are becoming.

Google,Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo Deny Involvement in NSA PRISM Spy Program

Losing my blogger virginity

Well here goes nothing....

Blogging is something I've never considered doing before, and am only starting to now for school. Why haven't I blogged before? I don't know truthfully. I guess I always felt like I didn't have anything important or interesting to say, or the things I would think to say felt too private. I feared my thoughts and opinions being judged by others, something I don't take well. But now that I've popped the cherry its time to take a real stab at this.

So, who am I? Well thats a loaded question in itself. On paper I'm a 26 year old female with blonde hair (at this moment anyway), brown eyes, who is vertically challenged (aka I'm short lol). I have a bachelors degree from the University of Ottawa with a major in communications and a minor in psychology. I'm just returning to school after being away from full time studies for 4 years, to do a 1 year certificate program with St. Lawrence College in Interactive Marketing Communications.
My two biggest passions in life would have to be photography and travelling. Two topics which I'm sure will be discussed often while blogging. I also have two babies at home that have me wrapped around their fingers, or should I saw paws?!lol Roxy, a 5 year old pure bred Border Collie and her 1 year old puppy Storm, who is crossed with an Australian Shepard. My boyfriend and I also live with another couple who own the one and only, Frank. Frank is a 200lb+ Great Dane with the biggest personality. But more to come about them later...

Well a heat wave has hit our area again and sitting here with this hot laptop on my lap in this non air conditioned house is really making it hard for me to focus. So I'm going to pour myself a cold class of white wine (another love in my life) and wait for this crazy storm they say is coming to hit. Hail? Damaging winds? Possible tornado watch?!?! May need the whole bottle of wine!

Cheers!
Joanna