Company: Moe's Southwest Grill
Entry submitted by: Daley Michael (Moes) PR & Communications Coordinator
Klout Perks Customer
Lithy category: Marketing Champion
Welcome to Moe’s!® Founded in 2000 in Atlanta, GA, Moe’s Southwest Grill is a fast-casual restaurant franchise featuring fresh, handmade, customizable southwestern food in a welcoming environment that rocks. Moe’s is committed to serving only the highest quality ingredients 100% of the time at all of our locations in the U.S and abroad. While Moe’s is best known for its burritos packed with a choice of more than 20 fresh, flavorful ingredients, the menu also features kid’s, vegetarian and low-calorie options, all served with free chips and salsa. Check out Moe’s online at www.moes.com.
As a growing brand, we don’t have the biggest budget when it comes to social ad buying. And no matter how you’re utilizing social ads, it always seems like content is being force-fed to viewers on a social news feed. People trust what their friends are doing and will follow that versus an ad. That’s why we felt Klout was perfect. As it relates to this particular campaign, we needed to hit a specific demo at a specific location at a specific time with influencers who had a Klout score of 50+ and loved burritos and spicy food. With Klout, you can really drill down on the exact audience you’re trying to reach. A lot of vendors can’t do that.
Klout’s network of influencers was the ideal fit for our brand because we value direct interaction with our biggest fans. Instead of a blanket campaign, we really appreciated the ability to carefully select a curated audience that we could directly connect with.
Our Klout Perks campaign
We implemented a campaign specifically for one of our biggest promotions of the year – Cinco de Moe’s. The goal was to build buzz around our new Spicy Guac and drive engagement by using Klout influencers to spread awareness and anticipation of our annual Cinco de Moe’s event, thereby extending overall reach and creating brand ambassadors.
By partnering with Klout, we engaged influencers in the U.S. East Coast who produce related content on social media channels about burritos, Mexican food, and spicy food topics. We surprised and delighted them with Spicy Guac kits filled with branded Cinco de Moe’s items, including: t-shirts, sports bottles, headbands, and a stack of Moe’s gift cards to share with friends and family. We then encouraged influencers to visit a Moe’s Southwest Grill location on May 5th and share their positive experiences on social channels (i.e. tweet, Instagram and post on Facebook about their #CincoDeMoes experiences).
Our Perks campaign results
The campaign was a huge success. We achieved our goals of increasing reach and creating Moe’s brand ambassadors. Our unique reach was 8.48MM. Compared to Cinco de Moe’s 2013, we saw a 117% increase in social impressions and a 30% increase in Twitter mentions. In addition, we saw a +17.5% comp sales increase on May 5, 2014 versus May 5, 2013. Of the 10K+ content generated, 33% came from Twitter, 32% from Facebook, and 35% from Instagram.
We also saw an immediate lift in overall engagement on Instagram and Twitter, and we were able to give our influential customers a sense of exclusivity and empowerment. For example, many people noticed our influencers walk in with branded Cinco de Moe’s supplies, tweeting in-the-moment pictures to show off their exclusive gear. They were asking how they got their limited-edition Cinco de Moe’s items and commented that it was a cool gift. In turn, that unique exchange encouraged those customers to visit our social account asking how they, too, could become a Moe’s ambassador.
