Q: What was the main reason that you started working with Social Nature?
A: We needed to drive sell through at retail and increase brand awareness – to get our products into the hands of consumers for trial.
Q: What marketing challenges has Social Nature helped you solve?
A: 1. The biggest challenge that it helped us solve was awareness and education. Manuka honey needs more education than your everyday household foods. We sell at a premium and we need the right audience to be receptive to our mission, story and product quality.
Social Nature has been a key part of our education and consumer acquisition strategy: It has helped consumers understand what our product is, why it’s different from regular honey, try it and learn where it is in store.
2. Another challenge is getting the validation we need for our products and consumer insights to support retailer buyer meetings.
We need to help our retailers understand the consumer profile who buys our products and make the case for them to carry us. Being able to collect thousands of authentic reviews from Social Nature to build social proof for buyers and put them on our website as well has been a powerful way to build trust and win new customers.
Q: What is an example of how Social Nature supported a positive impact at retail?
A: Social Nature definitely helps with sell through and getting on shelf with some of the retailers. When we talk to retailers we run through a large pitch deck, including a couple slides just about Social Nature (what it is, why we invest in it).
We show them how we are able to go in and filter to a particular store and segment shoppers of that store. The feedback is that they are impressed with the scope of data we can provide.
The sales team points out to the retailer how this program helps increase basket size when we drive members into their retail store
Q: What is an example of how you have leveraged the product reviews from Social Nature?
A: We use reviews on our website and in pitch decks. The data, for instance – 80% want to try an upcoming new product – are great for boosting retail sell-in. Using some of the questions + reviews, showcasing certain key attributes that would make people buy again helps inform key business decisions for us.
Q: What is an example of how you have applied consumer feedback & insights from Social Nature across your business?
A: It’s been helpful for retailer conversations. The custom questions we choose to ask such as, “what products would you want to try next?” are also super helpful. We used that data to see which flavor outwins others should we pick one to execute on.
This kind of data helps us launch and go to market quicker without the need for a longer study. Having that tool to get early feedback is great to go to market quickly and design a great product.
Q: If you could only say one thing about Social Nature, what would be the biggest impact of your working relationship with us?
A: It’s a toss up between awareness, trial & sell through. I know it’s helping based on the stores we choose to focus on. We can geotarget our store list and drive targeted trial at those specific stores which is very hard to do any other way.
We can see lift at the retailers we focus on with each campaign. The sell through data is great. Being able to get the word out, and provide education as well has a lot of impact for us.
Q: Compared to other marketing programs that you have tried – what stands out as the most valuable with Social Nature?
A: Obtaining focused and direct information from actual consumers interested in our product. It is very targeted and narrow. We are able to get feedback directly on a particular SKU that informs our product development and design. It’s very specific and it’s great to have that direct connection with our consumer through the platform.
