Summary:
Dee Set Group is a retail insights business that sells its services to major brands to help them improve their retail performance, including optimising brands’ sales performance across the UK’s ‘big four’ supermarkets.
Despite a proven track record of success in helping FMCG businesses maximise sales, Dee Set Group lacked a distinctive brand profile. Having invested in AI technology to power its new data analysis and app, Reapp, it partnered with PR agency Smoking Gun to launch a content campaign based on data-led storytelling that would build reach, brand credibility and thought leadership within the FMCG trade.
The campaign resulted in 70 pieces of trade media coverage and an organic traffic uplift of 82% to the Reapp website.
Objectives and aims:
The campaign objective was to elevate Dee Set Group’s business profile and that of its C-Suite following the launch of Reapp. This would be achieved through quality media coverage, positioning the group as credible thought leaders in retail data and tech, and increasing awareness among other major FMCG brands.
The following KPIs were set for this objective:
- 50 pieces of quality trade media coverage
- Five pieces of national media coverage
- 30% of coverage to include backlinks
Implementation, execution and tactics:
The campaign ran from March 2023 to January 2024. The initial stage of the campaign strategy focused on preparing the groundwork for the launch of Dee Set’s AI-driven app, ‘Reapp’. This involved developing brand positioning, identity, tone of voice and a website, all of which was informed and tested by quantitative and qualitative research. Following Reapp’s launch, the next stage of the campaign involved proactive communications to position Reapp as an expert voice in the grocery market.
Establishing relationships with trade titles like The Grocer was key. Reapp’s analytics capabilities were used to perform data-led storytelling to inform content around important industry topics, with a focus on producing disruptive and insightful commentary, backed with original and timely data.
In a similar vein, relevant trends tied to key cultural and calendar moments were identified to gather insight on. These were developed into news stories to pitch to a variety of media, with the aim of achieving coverage in the retail and tech pages of national media titles to maximise reach and build credibility.
Angles for this content included:
- Easter, Halloween and Christmas buying trends, identifying the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ across FMCG
- Predicted sales trends around the King’s coronation celebrations
- Exploring the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on shoppers’ baskets
- Reporting on performance across alcohol, frozen foods and snacking around key Women’s World Cup and Wimbledon matches
- Exploring the shopping baskets and habits of different generations
Data-led storytelling was also used to create thought leadership pieces, further reinforcing expertise and building credibility. Different voices in the Reapp business were used to explore topics such as the impact of AI on the British shopping experience. All coverage was underpinned with mentions of Reapp’s capabilities and successes.
Supporting content was distributed across digital channels to increase engagement and support SEO. This included downloadable reports for link building and data capture, rich interactive graphics for social channels, and webinars to debate topics.
Finally, a collaboration with The Grocer led to Reapp launching its first creative mailer to generate intrigue and interest from potential clients. Replica front covers of The Grocer were designed, depicting the target brands’ success in the future if they were to choose Reapp to support their FMCG growth.
Results:
- 82% organic search traffic uplift to Reapp’s website
- 39% increase in engaged users
- 31% rise in engagement time per session
- 70 pieces of trade media and 20 pieces of national media coverage
- 35% of coverage included a backlink, aiding SEO performance and taking the website domain authority (DA) from 1 to 18