DIGITAL OVERHAUL: MARJORAM CUISINE
Marjoram Cuisine is a small business owned and run by Chef Mari Jo Ramie. She is located out of Charleston, SC but travels all over the regional area hauling her open-fire rotisserie. I had the delightful opportunity to personally work with Chef Mari to develop her digital presence with a key focus on branding her website and expanding her Instagram account. I spent 3 months researching, reviewing, and developing strategies that were then implemented to set her up for current and future success!
goal of digital overhaul
This project was important to Chef Mari because she was coming into an expansion in her business due to an influx of new leads. She came to me wanting to ensure her marketing strategy and website could sustain slow growth for the end of the tourism season. The goals we decided on were to reimagine her branding and to implement these changes on her website as well as her Instagram account. I not only implemented my graphic design experience with Marjoram Cusine but was able to complement it with proper digital marketing efforts as well.
the strategy
new branding approach
Branding was a key component of the strategy I developed for Chef Mari. This was because the private chef/catering market is very personal. It was important that her branding not only represented Chef personally but upheld professional values and missions that will be a rule set for all future decisions concerning the company. The brand needed to encompass a professional voice, value system, and image while also being authentic to Chef Mari.
The review step was the longest step in my work with Marjoram Cuisine because I wanted to make sure all these aspects were set in stone before proceeding forward. The intention was to set Marjoram Cusine up for success not only the time I worked with them but for the future past my time with them. This is an important differentiation factor to any freelance work I do because every strategy I develop is centralized around the long-term success of the business.
instagram strategy
When approaching Instagram with the new brand guidelines set, we agreed to have a mix of professional posts and personal posts. This way Chef Mari's feed represented her and how she posts with a good mix of branded posts as well.
To the right is the final social strategy I presented to Chef Mari for the Instagram account showcased above. I emphasized the importance of content variety as well as the adjustment of branding when moving to social media.
the results
1,557%
new account engagement
634%
new account reach
406%
content interactions
340%
overall impressions
52.9%
website taps
34.9%
profile visits
Aside from these analytics, we saw an overall increase across all categories for Chef Mari's Instagram account. Her website did not perform any better than it was previously, but it did stabilize certain key points in her reports such as unique visitors, overall site sessions, and lead generation via social media.
If I had more time with Marjoram Cuisine, I would build Chef Mari a brand guideline document for future marketing efforts. I would also then dive back into her website and see if there was room in the budget for Google Advertising and other means of lead generation. Besides these additional actions, I believe I achieved the goals we originally set for Marjoram Cuisine.
instagram posts
programs used
