Alyssa Lagimoniere Courtney Peacock

Victoria Skinner

Emily Hood

Gabriela Aponte

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Table of Contents

The Team

Situation Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Target Audience

Marketing ProblemsMarketing Strategy

Tactics and Creative ExecutionSuccess Metrics

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3

4

5

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The Team

Alyssa LagimoniereAssistant Account Executive

Courtney PeacockStrategist

Victoria SkinnerAccount Executive

Emily HoodCopywriter

Gabriela AponteArt Director

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Situation Analysis

Treehouse Kid and Craft is a DIY center located in Athens, Georgia. The store, established

three years ago, features a wide range of well designed and responsibly made products.

Treehouse is known to carry organic products as well as designer diaper bags, artwork,

décor, crafts, and many items that are created locally. However, they are not only a store, but

also a place to learn and create. The shop offers a variety of classes including illustration,

sewing, and puppet making.

For owner Kristen Bach, creativity and imagination are top of mind. After moving from

Wisconsin and having her daughter Maypop, she decided to create a place for others to

express their creativity here in Athens. As a big supporter of local businesses, Kristen loves to

join other locally owned shops to hold events and to promote the unique Athens culture.

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SWOT Analysis

StrengthsNo other DIY centers in Athens

Unique product line

Eco-friendly products

Low priced classes

Offers baby classes

WeaknessesLow brand awareness

Semi-obscure location

High prices

ThreatsStores like Target and Walmart offer less expensive children’s toys

Michael’s and Hobby Lobby offer art classes and are better known

Similar online competitors

OpportunitiesOnline Sales

Classes attendance/events

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Target Audience

Treehouse products are unique, slightly expensive and therefore attract a niche market.

Most of the products are geared toward children but Treehouse also offers whimsical

products for adults and instructional classes for all ages. Many members from our customer

base care about the environment and take pride in buying products that are natural,

organic, and made locally. The majority of the local customer base is made up of upper-

middle class stay-at-home moms. Many hipster parents come into the shop and while they

do not purchase as many products as other parents, they have proven to be very loyal to the

store. All of the customers share a love for crafts and creativity. The Treehouse website is also

able to reach the upper-middle class, craft loving mothers who do not live in Athens.

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Marketing Problems

Though the store has a very loyal, local customer base, their biggest area of opportunity

was increasing online sales and attendance at their craft classes. Some months, the store

made no money in online sales. One contributing factor to this problem was that, while

Treehouse Kid and Craft is unique to Athens, there are many other national stores who

sell similar products, some of which are less expensive. The store needed more online

advertising support as well as a more unique online image. In addition to these issues, the

only quantifiable success metrics the client used were dollars in sales.

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Marketing Strategy

We began the semester by creating a unique brand personality that would differentiate Treehouse Kid and Craft from its online competitors. What set our client apart was her story. She opened her store shortly after her daughter was born and her daughter is often referred to as “Shop Baby” by her customer base. They all know her personally and love Shop Baby. We played off of this story by conceptualizing the idea, “The Adventures of Shop Baby,” which included a Shop Baby illustration to be used as a Treehouse Kid and Craft icon. Through “The Adventures of Shop Baby,” the client was able to showcase promotional products, her DIY craft classes, as well as special events.

After establishing branding, since we were trying to increase online sales, our strategy was to focus primarily on reaching our online audience. Our group devised several tactics to implement throughout the semester, focusing mostly on increasing website traffic.

In addition to these efforts, we placed more emphasis on success metrics, using social media insights and Google Analytics in order to see which of our efforts were most effective. Using these resources, during our second semester, we were able to shift our focus to concentrate on Pinterest, blogging, and blogger relations.

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Tactics & Creative Execution

RebrandingAs mentioned before, we began our campaign by inventing a

Treehouse character for the store. Because the owner’s daughter,

known affectionately by customers as Shop Baby, was already viewed

as the unofficial store mascot, we created the character based on her

appearance. We had a cartoonist from Cartoon Network design Shop

Baby and then placed the image on our website and other online

platforms. We also had a life-size 2-D Shop Baby created and placed in

the store so that children can take pictures with the cutout.

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Tactics & Creative Execution

Traditional AdvertisingAs part of our strategy to increase Treehouse’s online following,

we created a social media handout, given to in-store customers

with every purchase, as a reminder to follow Treehouse on our

online platforms.

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WorkshopMidway through the semester we were approached by

another Talking Dog group. Because their client, City Salon,

had a similar target market, the group suggested doing a

mutually beneficial workshop. With City Salon, Treehouse

hosted a Valentine’s Day Mother-Daughter workshop.The

mothers learned hair tricks to practice on their daughters

and their daughters learned a craft.

Tactics & Creative Execution

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Tactics & Creative Execution

OnlineOur first semester working with Treehouse Kid and Craft was spent increasing Facebook reach, engagement and likes by posting popular products to encourage traffic to the online store. We ran multiple holiday campaigns on Facebook that allowed the client to reach a national audience and significantly increase her fan base. To encourage class attendance, we also focused Twitter to remind customers about daily classes.

We used Google Analytics to gauge our progress so that we could see which online tactics were most beneficial. We noticed that most of our website traffic was directed from Pinterest, so during our second semester, we placed a stronger emphasis on Pinterest, pinning all of the client’s online products, linking each back to the website.

In order to further boost website traffic, we set up an AdWords account. We set up several AdWords campaigns based on products that Kristen specifically wanted to promote. We also created an instructional worksheet about AdWords so she could easily run the campaigns at the end of the year.

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Success Metrics

Since our focus for Treehouse Kid & Craft was generally online, taking over their social media and increasing efficiency, we believe that our increase in followers for all of the different platforms was one of our biggest measurements of success. Facebook likes increased by 20%, Instagram followers increased by 77%, Pinterest followers increased by 52%, Twitter followers increased by 18% and blog visitors increased by 284%! By restructuring their current social media methods and strategically scheduling posts, we were able to exceed our online and social media goals and, as a result, increase reach and engagement among her online audience.

As far as overall success as a business, we accredit this increase in social media attention to driving more traffic to her website as well as increasing class attendance. From October to March, we achieved a 24% increase in class sales. This is a direct result of our social media contests and events advertised and led to increased in-store foot traffic as well as increased traffic to the client’s online store.