Case Study – Specialty Food: Balsamic Vinegar

This campaign involved creating content across both blog and social media accounts to educate the target audience on a specialty food brand. The target market were grocery shoppers in the U.S. who tended to seek out specialty and gourmet foods. Part of the campaign included traveling to the home of Aceto Balsamico di Modena PGI in Modena, Italy to learn about their balsamic vinegar production in person.

The primary goal of the campaign was to educate the target American audience about authentic Aceto Balsamico di Modena PGI through a blog post.

Secondary goals included sharing where people could buy the product, and helping them identify authentic bottles by their labels.

• 4 Instagram feed posts: 1, 2, 3, 4
• 1+ Daily Instagram stories for 5 days
• 1 Blog post: Balsamic Vinegar of Modena
• 1 Pinterest Pin:

Pre-tour: Client sent press release sharing MK Library blog and social media information.

Week One – 5 days: Toured the Aceto Balsamico di Modena PGI production site to gather information, photos and video for content creation. Shared stories on Instagram daily during the first week.

Week Two – 4 days: Organized information and consolidated into easily-consumable content. Reviewed and edited over 2500 photos taken for different social platforms and formats. Researched marketing strategies for presenting the blog post and creating a platform for success with regard to search engine optimization.

Week Three – 2 days: Wrote a detailed blog post about balsamic vinegar.

Week Three – 2 days: Selected final photos to be used across channels. Delivered all content for review.

Week Four – 5 days: Published blog post and shared photos and video across all social media channels. Boosted where applicable.

Week Five – 3 days: Outreach to other bloggers and network to help amplify post.

Week Sixteen – 1 day: Reevaluated blog post for long term search engine optimization considerations to stay competitive and continue to receive traffic.

Year 2 – 1 day: Reevaluated and adjusted for SEO and continued success in audience reach. Created new round for Pinterest marketing.

Despite being published in 2018, the post has served as evergreen content and has been a continual source of education for the consumer. The blog post and Pinterest Pins continue to receive monthly traffic to this day.

According to an August 2019 survey of over 1,000 people, 84% of consumers prefer to purchase packaged food and beverages in store. Only three percent of people solely shop for these items online, and 13% of people use both retail and online. Source. By applying the 84% shopper statistic to tracked online purchases, the estimate for in-person grocery shopping purchases is around $70,000 over a two-year period.

• Tracked purchases brought in $220 of revenue for a product, which averages $20/bottle during the first few months of publishing content during 2018.
• 2019 yielded $1408 in trackable purchases through the blog content.
• 2020 through September brought in another $875 in trackable balsamic purchases through the blog post.

Considering most consumers will purchase balsamic vinegar at a grocery store, this campaign was an incredible success.

A significant contribution to the success of content created by MK Library around balsamic vinegar was the amplification provided by the brand. The client published a press release, assisted in paid advertising across a multitude of channels, and provided swift answers to any questions in order to ensure accuracy.

• Word count: 1821 words.
• Photo count: 38 blog images.
• Verified purchases: $2503.
• Average time on blog post: 6 minutes 28 seconds.
• Top audience metros: Sacramento Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Tampa, Philadelphia.
• Top affinity categories: Value shoppers, cooking enthusiasts, travel buffs.
• Gender breakdown: 51% female / 49% male.
• Acquisition breakdown: 51% search, 15% social, 8% referral.
• Devices used: 72% desktop, 15% mobile, 13% tablet.