Situation
DecoPac, Inc., located in Minnesota, is the world’s largest cake decoration supplier and marketer. Their business is in marketing cake decorations that are sold in supermarkets, bakeries, ice cream shops and bakery distributors to cake decorators. They came to Cazarin Web Group with a need to market online but little else. Cazarin Web Group’s task was to find a creative way to market DecoPac better using the Internet.
Decopac products are sold to bakeries and must be sold only to bakeries or related businesses since the products are licensed. The bakeries are very low tech the high-tech bakery had a fax machine 5 years ago. So access to the Internet was very unlikely. The largest bakery had 200 of Decopac's designs in stock. Decopac has over 1000 designs available. The question from the executive team was: How can we increase sales using the Internet?
Research
Research was an important part of this process. Market research was conducted to better understand who the audience for cake decorations and cakes was. Cazarin Web Group discovered that mothers who have children at home between the ages of one and fifteen were the primary audience for buying cakes and cake decorations. They purchased the cakes to celebrate a birthday since over 70% of the time of purchasing a cake is to conmemorate a birthday. This valuable information would shape the basis for the future marketing strategy.
Planning
The experts at Cazarin Web Group took this research information and used it strategically in their brainstorming and creative design processes. They planned to launch websites for the company that spoke to the target audience of mothers with children ages one to fifteen years of age. The website would have to be easy to navigate, offer valuable information and resources to mothers and other users, make it easy to step from looking for cake online to picking one up in a store and be visually appealing.
Execution
Cazarin Web Group launched a website for DecoPac: www.cakes.com. Cakes.com featured links and tips to help mothers and other users easily plan parties, review all of the cakes available from Decopac and find bakeries in their area as well as browse through age-appropriate cakes made for almost any theme. The website contained all of the designs of Decopac and the ability to find a bakery in their city or close by.
A search engine optimization campaign was also executed to increase exposure of the website. Extra links and ease of use created value for customers who were busy people that needed to not only find, order and pick-up a cake, but also plan an entire party.
Evaluation
The website immediately established a useful tool for the sales force at DecoPac to refer to. More importantly, the company saw a significant increase in sales, thanks to the efforts of Cazarin Web Group. The website launch was a great success and the goal of bettering the marketing for Decopac was certainly achieved.
Once this success was achieved Decopac asked Cazarin Web Group to build a website so bakeries could order cake designs online. The website was complex and had to protect licensing and pricing exposure. Only bakeries after they entered their user name and password could view the prices.
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