Listen to your Audience



“Chick-fil-A puts sweet potato fries on?Trial”Chick-fil-A, the quick-service food chain out of?Atlanta, is running a trial balloon – testing?new products on their raving fans. Chick-fil-A?offered sweet potato waffle fries to customers in four central locations, hoping to generate feedback that would help them market their new item. Select stores in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania gave out free medium fries to promote the new product. The product was only available to try through August 31.As more people are trying to eat healthier, consumers are asking for higher quality food?from restaurants, and Chick-fil-A is no exception. Sweet potatoes are rich in beta-carotene and antioxidants. They also have a high amount of iron and calcium, ranking them at the top of the nutritional scale. According to Chick-fil-A’s senior public relations consultant, Mark Baldwin, and the Access Atlanta?blog, sweet potato fries are a reoccurring customer request.By testing their new products in different states, Chick-fil-A is able to connect in different areas and test the marketplace across the nation. Giving customers an idea of what is to come, Chick-fil-A stimulates the suspense and, hopefully, will generate more fans willing to buy the product when it is released.Chick-fil-A is also in the process of testing spicy chicken nuggets. Their flavorful nuggets are at the top of Chick-fil-A’s selling list and making the nuggets spicy will only increase their popularity. Chick-fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich came out in 2009 and ever since then, spicy nuggets have been high in demand. The nuggets, 100 per cent white meat, are fried in pure peanut oil.Chick-fil-A has not yet announced a release date for the waffle fries or spicy chicken nuggets. Fans of the quick service restaurant should follow the Chick-fil-A Facebook page to stay up-to-date on their latest promotions and newest items.“Using Social Media to Do Market Research” More and more brands are using social media as a communications and advertising channel. However, companies may overlook the fact that these platforms can also be used as a great data source for marketing research. We’ve brought you some tips on how to effectively conduct research through social media.Listen to your AudienceThe way in which you communicate and advertise your business or product may not always align with what customers find most important. By observing and analyzing how your fans are speaking about your product or service, you can determine which factors are most important within your own strategies, and make adjustments accordingly. You can also engage your customers on social media, creating a dialogue about your product, in order to find out how best to cater to their needs. By understanding how your audience views your product, you can create customer-centric campaigns that will bolster a brand philosophy that your audience will support.Monitor Your Competitors CloselyIt is important to keep an eye on how your competitors’ social media efforts?– our?Analytics PRO?provides you with in-depth statistics on both you and your competitors’ social performance. Once you have determined which competitors you will monitor, follow their Pages and feeds to observe how they engage their audience, what types of posts they create and when they decide to post, what offers they may provide, and any other marketing activities they carry out. By monitoring their Pages, you can learn how to target your audience more effectively or generate new ideas on how to communicate your brand to social media?users.Track Trends Through Social MediaYou can track trends through various social media platforms by determining the most current popular posts or topics. After identifying these popular posts, you can gain insights into trending topics in real-time. You may want to consider incorporating these hot topics into your social media efforts in order to raise brand awareness and build a bigger audience.Twitter allows you to find trending topics by monitoring hashtags or mentions. You can create hashtag searches that are relevant to your product and receive notifications once a Tweeter uses these terms in their?posts.McDonald's Tests Selling Coffee In SupermarketsMcDonald’s Corp. already is test marketing its McCafé bagged coffee in U.S. supermarkets. And the test goes well beyond the ground Premium Roast coffee it has sold in Canada since late 2012.. McDonald’s and Kraft Foods Group said last year that testing would begin in 2014. But I have since learned that retail sales already have quietly begun in selected locations.McDonald’s is testing bagged coffee, as in Canada, plus single-serve cups.One is the?Wegmans supermarket in Mechanicsburg, Pa., near Harrisburg, where McDonald’s McCafé brand is currently well represented on the coffee aisle. But in addition to ground Premium Roast McCafé coffee, ground Breakfast Roast, French Roast and Decaf Premium?coffees are offered. For those who like flavored coffee, aVanilla-flavored Premium Roast is available.These bagged coffees—all ground—are priced at $7.29. That’s slightly higher than the CAN$6.99 (now roughly US$6.32) at which a 12-oz. bag of McCafé was priced when introduced in?Canada.But McDonald’s also is testing interest in?single-serve cups, too. Premium Roast, Decaf and Vanilla McCafé blends are offered at Wegmans in K-cups?. At the Wegmans in Mechanicsburg, 12-count boxes of single-serve McCafé cups are priced at $7.49. As reported here previously, researcher?Mintel?says the single-serve-pod market was worth $3.1 billion in the U.S. last year and could account for 50% of coffee sales by 2018. The total coffee market was valued at $11.7 billion, according to? HYPERLINK "" MarketWatch.McDonald’s Corp. did not respond to a request for comment on McCafé testing, so I can’t say in how many markets or at what price points McCafé currently is being offfered. It is not available in all Wegmans markets, according to sources, but other grocery chains and other cities no doubt are involved.In 2010, McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson said coffee accounted for more than?6%?of its U.S. sales. That share may since have increased, but even 6% of the chain’s 2013 domestic sales would be?$2.15 billion. Coffee is an important product to McDonald’s. ................
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