Marketing
Red Rooster is an Australian fast food restaurant owned and operated by the parent company Craveable Brands since 1972. It’s headquartered in Balcatta, Western Australia and boasts of over 360 stores across the country. The first Red Rooster store was opened by the Kailis family in Kelscott, who later sold it to Myer Emporium in 1981. Eventually, Red Rooster changed its company owned stores to franchises. Since 2011, Red Rooster has been promoting its products as a healthier option since their chicken is oven-roasted, where the taste is roasted in and the fat is roasted out. This is paramount given that most Australians, according to research, considered whether a restaurant offered healthy choices (Holryod 2014). There has been a massive transformation and refurbishing of new stores (Chang 2017). In addition, Red Rooster launched its home delivery services in 2014 and currently delivers from over 220 of its restaurants.
Despite increased competition in the franchise industry, the traditional mainstay – fast food – is still one of Australia’s most popular fast food joints. The restaurants offer various options for its diners; take-away, dine-ins, drive-through and the newly introduced delivery services. The company’s CEO calls the delivery services a “silver bullet” given its massive contribution to the company’s revenue turnover of close to $500 million in 2017 (Chang 2017).
Social media has been a big part of Red Roosters growth. In addition to their website, Red Rooster also possesses accounts on Facebook, twitter, Instagram as well as LinkedIn. These social media accounts are used for various purposes such as marketing, dealing with customer complaints, recruiting, helping locate closest store among others.
With more than 285,000 likes and a following of close to 280,000 on its Facebook page, Red Rooster is able to introduce new menu items and services in a bid to create awareness to its huge following, using posts, photos as well as video clips. For instance, the Cheap Chips campaign has seen more customers visit the stores before 4pm, normally considered off peak hours, since the offer is only valid until 4pm.
The twitter handle however, does not seem to be as active as the Facebook account, with a following of about 4000 followers and little information on new products or promotions even though it has been active since 2012. On the contrary, the LinkedIn account provides clear information on products and services available to both customers and interested franchisees. The instagram account, though with a relatively low following of slightly more than4000 also regularly promotes new products through photos as well as video clips. In addition, the account provides a platform for sharing videos and photos by and with the customers, often showing customers enjoying their meals in various restaurants across the country. The company website is also rich with information and provides the option to ask for delivery services. Using notable people on social media adverts seems to create a sort of fanaticism by some consumers (Camacho 2016). These celebrity endorsements go a long way into marketing the brand as well as the products.
Handling Customer Complaints
In the recent years, social media has evolved as a strong tool of communication, especially to explain a bad ordeal for consumers more so because the chain of command is broken and the information can reach top executives. As a result, most social media accounts are managed by personnel trained on handling customer complaints to ensure the issues do not escalate and bring negative public vibe. A look at Red Rooster’s twitter and Facebook accounts shows just how much customers prefer to use social media to present complaints as opposed to having the issue dealt with at the specific store. Typically, the account administrators respond to these complaints by apologizing and asking for more specific information such as the store location and more details regarding the service or product. Customers are also encouraged to fill the Feedback Form which is consequently used to better their services. Each response is personalized and quick showing a genuine concern for the customer.
Social media has become one of the most popular means of communication between potential employees and employers. For instance, potential employees have posted tweets declaring their interest in getting employment with Red Rooster. Often, the response is that the same has been forwarded to the administrator as in the tweet in the figure below. Moreover, the LinkedIn account with slightly more than 4000 followers provides a brief history of the restaurant. In addition, there are employee posts highlighting their experience as Red Rooster’s Team Members or Franchisees as well as available job openings.
With the very efficient administrators of the social media account, customers can now efficiently get their questions answered about the closest stores for either home delivery or to visit for a dine in or take away. The Facebook page for instance has information about the stores’ location on a map as well as a search option. It also boasts of a “typically replies instantly” for its messages creating confidence in customers about getting quick responses to their queries. According to one report, Australians make 51.5 million visits to fast food restaurants every month hence the importance of ensuring the stores are accessible to customers (Holroyd 2014). The website is also very resourceful in locating the customer’s closest Red Rooster store and gives more details such as working hours and services available at the specific store identified such as delivery services.
The use of vibrant colors and photos goes a long way in creating a fresh and entertaining artistic imagery of the menu items often prompting clients to try out the menu items. According to Kershaw (2017), the right photo can fill up a restaurant or make a menu item famous with just a single snap. Granted this, Red Rooster’s social pages are filled with photos of the roast chicken, the rolls, and mash & gravy balls as well of diners enjoying their food at the restaurant with comments from potential customers wishing to be there and taste the food. The red color used on the social accounts, packaging and as part of the uniform is a notable feature that makes the images pop with color.
Recruitment
Red Rooster is looking to increase its current 360 stores to over 500 stores in the coming years and is therefore looking for franchisees. It has used social media channels such as the company website and LinkedIn to provide information about the franchising business as well as answer questions in the FAQs segment.
The call for investors has seem interested candidates take to social media channels to find out more about the business as well as get a look at what customers are saying about the brand and products.
As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Red Rooster has been involved in various charity programs and has shared photos and clips of the same on its social media platforms. Consumers are loyal and willing to spend more on companies that support charity work (Ross 2017). In a post on Facebook dated November 2016 for instance, Red Rooster partnered with Foodbank charities to provide food to children and their teachers in various charities across the country.
As evidenced by various posts on the Red Rooster’s social media channel, there are a number of faithful and loyal customers true to the brand who enjoy the various healthy menu items available. Red Rooster has come up with brilliant ways of rewarding these loyal customers such as the Red Rooster Vouchers for customers who provide feedback. The list of winners is posted on social media as in the figure below. The Red Rooster Royalty Program aims at rewarding new customers by giving a $5 voucher on registration, a free meal on the customer’s birthday as well as points that can be redeemed.
The analysis of Red Rooster’s Facebook page was done using the Likealyzer analytic tool. The front page got a 100% ranking and the about page had a 29% ranking showing room for improvement. User engagement was obstructed given that followers cannot post on the page. Activities were given a 36% rating with customers wishing for more activities. in addition to this, some important details such as operational hours, contact information and payment options were missing. Photos and videos were rated at 33% and 67% respectively whereas the average post length was 183 characters, a bit on the higher side.
Using the Foller analytical tool as well as Tweetreach, it was evident that twitter is a strong tool but there is still unutilized potential. Results from a ten-days analysis between 29th September and 8th October shows the estimated reach was 23,053 accounts with 26,478 impressions. A look at 100 tweets found that there were replies to 82% of the tweets and about 93% with mentions. On the contrary, only 3% had media or hasthtags.
Identifying Store Location
With slightly over 4000 followers on Instagram, since joining in 2012 and only 352 posts, Red Rooster seems to not have fully exhausted its potential. An analysis done using Collec.to shows that for the last 20 posts, there was an engagement rate of 41.42% with 1,680 likes and a total of 62 comments. The LinkedIn account with slightly over 4,000 followers provides background information about the restaurant, new and upcoming products and services as well as job opportunities available.
Google+ has gained its place among social media sites and is a must use for any small business. As of December 2015, Google+ had more than 418 million active users (Maina 2017). With the recent expansion of Red Rooster into more urban areas, Google+ would provide much needed presence to increase business and ultimately profit (Hogan 2017)
YouTube is the largest and most popular video-based social media website with over 1 billion website visitors per month. Fun, useful and informational videos are a great way to reach out to customers (Tice 2014). In addition, the social media trend of sharing videos on other social platforms that consumers feel are useful, funny or intriguing will consequently mean an even larger audience is reached.
With over 140 million visitors per month, Yelp is one of the most resourceful social media channels for businesses especially in providing reviews. Yelp users can submit a review of products and services using a start rating system whereas businesses can update their contact information, operational hours among other basic information. According to Sachs (2016) numerous positive reviews on yelp gives a much needed boost to the business.
Social media is rich with potential to grow the brand and the customer base consequently increasing profit. Red Rooster has massive unexhausted potential within the channels currently in place as well as the adoption of new social media channels. Clear objectives should be outlined for the new strategy to improve its social media presence and communicated to all stores. Each store must strive to ensure each customer has a great in store experience to minimize as much as possible the negative feedback on social media. Additionally, sharing tweets, posts or photos of favorable experience will create a positive impact among social media followers.
According to the analysis above, only 3% of the tweets used hashtags. O’hara (2015) advises against underestimating the selling power of a hashtag pointing out that hashtags are a revolutionary way of relaying product information and availability to customers. The same can also be applied on the Facebook page with massive and detailed campaigns on new and upcoming menu items.
Promoting Products
The importance of responding to reviews and feedback efficiently and effectively cannot be overemphasized. Equally important is providing a clear platform for customers to talk about their experiences. The Red Rooster Facebook page for instance does not provides followers with the option of posting on the wall hence 0% engagement according to the Likealayzer analysis. By creating such a platform for feedback, customers will fell that Red Rooster is willing to talk about and improve on any flaws consequently improving customer service (Austin 2017). A personal approach while engaging customers in dialogues results in loyal, long-term customers as it creates a genuine connection (O’hara 2015).
The existing channels should be upgraded to provide much needed information about location of various stores, operational hours, contact information, payment methods, an up to date menu as well as pricing. A single visit to any of the social media channels should provide the customer with all the relevant information.
With the improvement on technology, making a short video clip can be done quick and easy, even using a mobile phone. With its huge following, YouTube offers a good platform to share videos to amuse and inform customers of new products, improvements and even show how they are made. Red Rooster could for instance make video clips on how the Rolls are assembled creating confidence in the consumer (Tice 2014). In addition, video clips can be used to restore faith in the Red Rooster standards where a customer may give negative feedback on the same, showing that the company is transparent putting to rest any concerns.
More active and engaging participation on the social media channels available is paramount not only in informing customers about products but also in finding out what they think and want, and most importantly how you can provide it to them (Roy 2016). The LinkedIn account for instance has posts so spaced out, sometimes months apart and this potentially discourages customers from visiting the site more often.
Social media contests are also an active way of engaging with customers and rewarding loyalty. Red Rooster should hold contest aiming to promote its menu items or invite more likes and followers (Roy 2016). By asking customers to post their favorite menu item, for instance and getting friends to like, there will be creation of awareness. The post with the most likes gets a prize, preferably a new menu item in a bid to promote it.
Conclusion
The internet and social media channels as such have given consumers unprecedented power and access to know what companies are up to. Both negative and positive information has the potential of getting out and creating a huge impact on the consumer (Bailey and Wenzek 2005). Transparency is thus important. Red Rooster should therefore use these social media channels to expose themselves in good light to the large social media audience hence keeping confidence, honesty and accountability.
Ultimately, the performance of each channel needs to be analyzed regularly to measure its effectiveness and improve as needed. Moreover, each channel should have trained personnel managing the account, who is conversant with customer service and relations to engage the customer in a fun and informational manner. Other social media channels should also be explored while ensuring an improvement of the existing channels. Social media is unarguably one of the most important tools that will steer Red Rooster in the right growth direction.
References
Austin, K. (2017). 10 Examples of Awesome Restaurant Social Media Marketing.
Bailey, G. and Wenzek, H. (2005). Irresistible! Markets, Models, and Meta-Value in Consumer Electronics. IBM Press.
Camacho, J. (2016). Business 2 Community. 5 Powerful Social Media Practices From The Fast Food Industry Read more at https://www.business2community.com/social-media/5-powerful-social-media-practices-fast-food-industry-01502953#lppVUk6siSSDoTex.99.
Chang, F. (2017). FAR from the daggy takeaway of yesteryear, Red Rooster has overhauled its stores in a big transformation. Red Rooster says home delivery a ‘silver bullet’.
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Holryod, J. (2014). Average Australian eats fast food nearly every week.
Kershaw, M. (2017). How to use Instagram to promote your food & drink event.
Likealyzer. (2017). [online] Available at: https://likealyzer.com/report/RedRoosterAU [Accessed 9 Oct. 2017].
Maina, A. (2017). Small Business Trends. 20 Popular Social Media Sites Right Now.
O’hara, J. (2015). How Your Small Business Can Use Social Media to Boost Sales. Entrepreneur.
Ross, D. (2017). A research-informed model for corporate social responsibility: towards accountability to impacted stakeholders. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility.
Roy, J. (2016). Using Social Media to Improve Your Business.
Sachs, J. (2016). The 7 Best Social Media Channels for Business Marketing.
Tice, C. (2014). How Restaurants Are Building Customer Loyalty On YouTube.
TweetReach. (2017). [online] Available at: https://tweetreach.com/reports/19945057 [Accessed 9 Oct. 2017].
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