Customer Profile: The creative design of independent Charleston photographer Joanna Biondolillo, The Kitchen Fork features inexpensive, quality photographic kitchenware products perfect for everyday use. Joanna has been creating photographic merchandise for over twenty years. The Kitchen Fork features handmade oak kitchen accessories, including serving trays, lazy susans, utensil boxes, wine racks, and coaster bases.
Challenge: The company launched late October 2009, and the challenge was to gain exposure as quickly as possible to use the holiday season to their advantage. In order to do this, The Kitchen Fork needed to establish a brand identity among consumers and key influencers as well as locate these groups online. In addition, we had to work quickly to create a strategy and campaign plan that would take us through the holiday season.
Solution: With less than six weeks to promote The Kitchen Fork products as the perfect holiday gift, Sūmèr created and implemented a series of PR campaigns targeting key influencers. We began by individually pitching to and connecting with prominent food, craft, and mommy bloggers—those with a large network and powerful influence over that network—whose readership was The Kitchen Fork’s target audience. Sūmèr also put together a strategy to connect with key people at the Food Network and craft and parenting magazine editors, and began engaging these people on Facebook and Twitter to prepare for our January campaign.
Results: In December, we were able to obtain media coverage on four key blogs—blogs where The Kitchen Fork’s target audience interacts. In addition to reviews of the company and products, two prominent bloggers held contest giveaways for The Kitchen Fork’s holiday cutting board. These blog appearances significantly increased website traffic and in one week, The Kitchen Fork received 16 newsletter sign-up requests. As a result of building relationships with key influencers on Facebook and Twitter, mention of The Kitchen Fork was up 83% on social media platforms during the week of December 14 compared to the previous week.
The Client’s View: “Working with Sūmèr has given me peace of mind and saved me a ton of time. Michelle and her team are awesome to work with—I love their out of the box thinking, their ability to plan and implement a strategy, and their energy. They are always in communication with me, sending me tracking reports and offering suggestions on how to better my websites and blog. I’ve never found a firm who is able to listen to my needs and work to create a plan based on those needs.”
Joanna Biondolillo, owner