Life’s Abundance is a multi-level marketing type of company located in the United States which focuses on selling healthy dog food (WoofWhiskers). As it is a MLM company, it majorly relies on two aspects: proper communication among the selling parties and successful representation of the distributed product to the targeted audience. However, there is a significant difference from a traditional MLM strategy to their marketing perspective: within their vision, the customers majorly contribute to the process of marketing (Forbes). Thus, the business relies on intercommunication as well as diverse marketing strategies in order to improve the overall revenue.
Life’s Abundance represents a successful SME project with an effective marketing strategy which proves to bring enormous revenue compared to the number of employees. Hence, in order to develop an efficient marketing plan for this company it is crucial to evaluate their current strategy and find specific ways to improve its productivity.
Situation and Key Opportunities
Internal Environment
The company is majorly focused on the development of the idea of customers’ beneficial contribution to the process of marketing. They have a specific field of internal marketing strategy which is actively displayed to the public. This way, it might be beneficial in a long run to put a precise focus on a key unique aspect of their marketing strategy within social media platforms. As they do not completely follow the principles of MLM companies, displaying the innovativeness of their approach can become a productive take to their promotion online.
When it comes to Life’s Abundance corporate culture, they focus majorly on developing an ongoing income for the employees. That being said, their intercommunication key principles generally apply to the long-term commitment and gradual building of the income through operated orders from the customers (Life’s Abundance Advantage). Thus, employees’ time is considered one of the main contributions to the development of the business.
Since the principles of intercommunication have an evident significance within the company, it is prompt to the decentralised dynamics within social media promotions. The distribution of targeted customers and orders among the employees signifies that all of them have an important impact on the business progression. Therefore, in application to the social media platforms, the similar responsibilities dynamic would be natural to proceed with.
As the main purpose behind the enhanced social media marketing is the development of general revenue of Life’s Abundance, the online promotion has to focus on the various aspects which would justify why their products are competitive within the market. Thus, despite focusing on the innovativeness of interactions with the customers, it is equally significant to point out the particular features of the product which makes it beneficial to purchase (Li et al., 2021). Within the given field of pet food, it is necessary to bring detailed focus on the aspects which guarantee the healthiness of the promoted products and its benefits to the animals consuming it.
In terms of the organization’s readiness to the social media promotion, there are already social media accounts on influential social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Their major focus centers on the topic of self-care and health, which is relevant to the main features of presented products. Moreover, their social media accounts contain interactive content for the followers, which includes self-care tips, healthy recipes, principles of healthy lifestyle and mindfulness, and more. This way, their present social media promotion strategy is primarily focused on the interaction with the followers, maintaining their interest and encouraging the engagement.
External Environment
As for the external environment, the main factor for the company’s progression is their targeted audience. In this case, it is mainly the owners of pet animals, since life’s Abundance sells pet food. However, based on the examination of the company’s current social media marketing strategies (Instagram), it is evident that they are targeting people who support the idea of a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, the factor of owning a pet becomes somewhat secondary within their social media image.
Although the informative and useful content stimulates the audience’s interest to the webpages specifically, it does not significantly contribute to the rates of interest towards the product on its own. Thus, appealing to the areas more closely related to the pet food within the social media platforms of the company can be beneficial in terms of increasing the revenue, as it would contribute to the increase in the percentage of pet owners among the followers. As for this group of targeted audience, owning pets does not necessarily affect the active use of social media, which means that there can be a lot of potential customers of pet food online.
The competitors for Life’s Abundance would be any companies selling similar products and targeting the same kind of audience. An ongoing competition is traceable between Life’s Abundance and such organizations as Halo, Crave, or ACANA (WoofWhiskers). Mainly, these companies use social media in order to promote food for dogs, and their area of focus within online promotion is centered on the product itself. Hence, in the social media publications, they explain the benefits for pets’ health which their products promise and share various aspects related to the producing and selling processes of their products.
Within the field of pets’ food, the omnipresent trend is the healthiness and benefits for a pet. Thus, even though Life’s Abundance social media is currently focused on the exploration of the themes of healthy lifestyle, self-care and care for the pets in general terms, it would be strategically beneficial to expand the area of content. Essentially, the interactive content provides an engaging base for the social media platforms to attract more followers and maintain their interest in the page, yet for the purposes of beneficial social media marketing development it is necessary to include more entries about the product itself.
Based on the aspects discussed previously, the main weakness within the company’s social media approach is the lack of focus on the benefits of the product itself. However, it is contradicted by the obvious strength shown through a creative and inclusive approach directed towards audiences interested in the content covering healthy lifestyle principles. This contradiction creates a strong opportunity to combine both approaches to the social media content, creating publications both about healthy lifestyle and the promoted product. However, a major threat within the process would be a requirement for balanced combination of content, since the lack of links between the topic of health and promoted dogs’ food would create a messy social media appeal and potentially repel some of the followers.
Objectives
Within the process of building a company’s social media image, a proper and accurate promotion of products and services, as well as the insight on the working conditions and the business’ accomplishments are all important in order to attract the customers. Specifically for service objectives, the social media marketing has to provide a gentle and holistic overview of the business’ service resources and subtly appeal to the customers by displaying various interactive possibilities. For instance, effective social media marketing would lead to the increased demand on delivery service, which would require it to improve and get inclusive and beneficial for the customers. At the same time, relevant and appealing promotion of the service itself would attract more customers to use it, which would create a stable demand on the service.
Additionally, as Life’s Abundance uses the general marketing strategies which differ from a regular image of an MLM company, they have to strengthen the marketing focus on this unique detail. Thus, an objective related to retail would be to involve more customers to the process of marketing. Finally, one of the most influential objectives is to improve the research capacities related to the business. Thus, its online presence has to be solid enough to attract the exact target audience which searches for pet food online. This objective can be met by effective online advertising and replenishment of social media accounts’ followers.
Target Audience
As mentioned previously, the main target audience of Life’s Abundance is people who own pets. Therefore, while pursuing the development of social media marketing, it is essential to determine the ways to appeal to this specific group of people (Li et al., 2021). General appeal must be structured from the tendencies related to the target audience. As an example, on Instagram people who own pets tend to create accounts designated specifically for them. Then, one of the effective ways to appeal to the target audience would be to follow such “pet” accounts in order to attract the attention of this specific group of people.
As there are pet owners all around the world, it is important to place a focus on the opportunity of international delivery of the products. This way, the company will be able to further increase the sales beyond the nationwide level. Additional factor related to the appeal to the target audience is the continuous use of the images of pets in order to win visual attention and increase the extent to which the followers emotionally relate to the publications, as the pictures of animals tend to evoke distinctive sentiments among people.
Social Media Zones
Key approach to the developing of a company’s social media representation is to focus on positively modifying the content in order to appeal to the audience and attract more customers. Hence, as mentioned before, it is important to include specific characteristics of the products among the publications about the healthy lifestyle which already exist. Moreover, in order to maintain the coherence and contribute to the public’s interest, the most efficient way to include more descriptions of the products itself would be to highlight the links which connect it to the concept of healthiness. As Life’s Abundance promotes a healthy food for dogs, the beneficial approach would be to keep posting about the general healthy habits and to specifically explain how the food which the company sells can contribute to the further pursuing of a healthy lifestyle and efficient care for the pets.
As for a specific form of social media publications, it is important to develop diversity in order to inclusively appeal to different types of people within a major target audience group (Li et al., 2021). Thus, on Instagram it will be sufficient to publish more positive pictures of animals with the accompanying texts related to the healthy habits. This way, the company will be able to visually appeal to the pet owners. Additionally, posting more interactive content on the Instagram stories will increase the sense of engagement among the followers, which will contribute to the level of satisfaction and interest related to the products.
At the same time, Facebook can be dedicated more to the blog format. Hence, this approach will affect the customers’ interest by directly providing interesting and relatable content. Moreover, within the textual form the company will be able to communicate more detailed information related to the benefits of the offered products, which will make it more trustworthy for the customers.
An efficient side approach related to the entertainment and raising of the brand’s popularity will be to use the advertisement within the segment related to animals. A decent example could be videogames about taking care of the pets. If the company decides to purchase an in-game promotion, such as the brand’s name on game items, for instance, the number of potential customers will potentially increase.
As for an effective communication with the customers, it is important to create a chance for them to express their opinion about the product. It could be done by including an Instagram highlight dedicated solely to the customers’ reviews. This way, the company will be able to increase the level of followers’ trust towards the brand.
Activation Plan and Performance
In order to activate the plan related to the social media promotion, it is important to hire specific teams responsible for each social media resource. One could be dedicated to manage Instagram and Facebook posts, while the other could focus on the promotions and advertisement. The timing has to be gradual, and the changes within the social media platforms approach have to be implemented step by step, in order to preserve the authenticity and coherence of the brand’s publications. As for the budget, it has to be majorly dedicated to the paid promotions online, while a part of it has to cover all expenses related to the creation of appealing social media publications. Finally, the consistency of the plan in relation to other marketing aspects of Life’s Abundance has to be ensured by the constant mentions of the company’s core values. Throughout all of the stages of the social media promotion plan, its performance and success can be measured through reviewing followers dynamics on the active accounts of the brand and comparing it to the actual sales.
References
Forbes. (2019). Life’s Abundance. Forbes Small Giants. Web.
Instagram. Lifesabundance. Web.
Li, F., Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L. C. (2021). Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(1), 51-70.
WoofWhiskers. Life’s Abundance Dog Food Review. Web.