Case Study: Grocemania
It’s safe to say there’s never been a better time to be in the food delivery business. As lockdown set in across the nation, demand for supermarket deliveries met an all-time high and takeaways became the sole option for eaters seeking their favourite restaurant dishes.
Given this hive of activity, City Road Comms was excited to work with Grocemania back in May. A new player on the FoodTech scene, their unique method of working with independent grocers meant they could offer food deliveries with impressive speeds (often within an hour) — all while supporting local, independent businesses.
The market demand was there, but Grocemania needed to get its name in front of potential users. For CRC, given the amount of media attention surrounding panic buying and food shortages at the time, our challenge was to cut through this noise and secure amazing exposure for our new client.
Yet, in the space of this highly targeted one-month PR project, we secured 22 different pieces of media coverage for Grocemania in a variety of publications. (Click here to have a look of the coverage we achieved for them in May)
Our PR strategy was built around establishing the Grocemania brand as a safe, reliable and speedy alternative at a time when established food delivery services (namely the supermarkets) were failing to successfully meet demand. And we had to achieve this in a short amount of time.
We were given two target audiences: the independent grocers that Grocemania was seeking to partner with and the consumers seeking food delivery services. Developing and executing both a B2B and B2C strategy in a short time frame was a tall order, but here’s how we achieved it…
Firstly, we targeted consumer-facing websites that had published online lists of food delivery services during lockdown, of which there were many. By encouraging them to add this newcomer to their lists, we successfully secured multiple backlinks to Grocemania in a number of established publications, including TimeOut!
Secondly, we targeted regional media outlets to get Grocemania in front of local businesses and consumers simultaneously. Grocemania was only available in London, Brighton and Bristol at this point in time, so we ensured its launch was covered in all the prominent publications covering these areas. Not only did we get Grocemania into several prominent local newspapers, but the business also featured on the airwaves; we secured interviews for their CEO Askar Bulegenov on both BBC Radio Sussex and Hoxton radio.
And thirdly, complementing these efforts, we were in constant communication with our contacts in B2B tech publications. Grocemania were keen to be profiled as an innovative and disruptive new presence on the Foodtech scene; mainly in order to attract more potential investors and grocery partners. To this end, much of our work was spent identifying which outlets had an audience best suited to this aim and crafting the exact right wording to get across this message.
Ultimately, City Road Comms were tasked with establishing the Grocemania brand in the highly competitive FoodTech and food delivery space — and in this we were remarkably successful, if we may say so ourselves. Don’t believe us? Here’s what the client had to say…
Askar Bulegenov, CEO and Founder of Grocemania, said: “I loved working with the CRC team and the results they achieved were outstanding! The CRC team was keen to understand the business positioning and the roadmap in order to reach out to the right media outlets, which increased the number of articles secured and the effectiveness of these articles. But, for me, the best thing about the team was their flexibility of work; I could rely on them for round-the-clock communication. You have an idea — tell them and they will quickly do all they can to secure you some great media coverage for that!”
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Get in touch with our director, Dominic Pollard, if you want to learn more about how City Road Comm’s services could work for your organisation: dominic@cityroadcomms.co.uk
