Souplantation.com—an Online Revenue Center & Social Playground

Over $1MM in Sales Booked Through Online “Fun-raiser” Application

Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Restaurants (www.souplantation.com) (www.sweettomatoes.com) is an all-you-care-to-eat dining experience where you can enjoy the freshest ingredients and a meal that is your own creation. The freshness and unique experience needed to be a mirrored online. Red Door Interactive recommended building a web-based fundraiser application to make this fundraising more visible and available to the guests, as well as to streamline the booking process. The foundation for this application was solid with Souplantation.com being built by Red Door Interactive in the latest .NET platform for increased security, stability and sustainability.

Before the implementation of this web-based application, store managers were responsible for coordinating and promoting fundraisers in-store. During planning, our goals were to increase efficiency in the booking process both at a store and guest level, to drive awareness of the fundraising program, drive customer counts and ultimately sales as well as create opportunities for new guests to visit Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes locations. The tool even allows store managers to create a custom branded flyer to promote the event as pictured here. Within six months of launch, these fundraisers generated over $1MM in sales. In fact, within the first month, over 200 fundraisers were booked which solidified a 100% ROI. Additionally, the fundraiser conversion rate has been steadily climbing, reaching a staggering 8.93% in September.

Fundraiser Tool Results Highlights

• First Month of Launch: Over 200 Fundraisers booked providing 100% ROI
• Six Months Live: $1,060,352 in sales based on an AOV (Average Order Value) of $8
• Conversion Rate: Steadily increased to a staggering 8.93% in September

Around The World in Eight Weeks

The Passport Promotion let guests enjoy world culture and cuisine without leaving home—Italy, Asia, Greece and Mexico!  The Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Restaurant’s guests are a highly engaged online audience, with a 1.4MM email list, over 58,000 Facebook fans, 14,000 Twitter followers and 13,000 blog readers each month. With a following like that, we knew the Summer Passport Promotion deserved a home page take-over.  We created an interactive feature to unpack the story of the Passport Menu, and entice visitors to dig deeper into the site.  The goals of the Passport Promotion were to increase in-store sales and traffic, awareness and trial of the featured menu, traffic to the landing page and brand engagement.

We designed an interactive feature where users were able to choose a postcard from the country of their choice and send it to a friend inviting them to join them at the restaurant. We also designed a landing page with fun facts about the countries, downloads with kids activities and savings, Club Veg sign-up and a find a location call to action.

Passport Promotion Results Highlights 

• 383,528 total unique page views

• 65,415 total visits to the Passport landing page

• 19% overall postcard creation conversion rate

• 50 postcards sent per day throughout the campaign

Lessons Learned

Higher Value Offer: While 10% off is a good discount, the users expected a bigger discount on a promotion like this. Also, changing the offer as the menu changed might have sustained interest and this is something we will consider for next year.
Sustained Awareness: We promoted the Passport Menu through email and social media and there was very good performance at launch, which gradually tapered off during the course of the promotion. Perhaps more consistent participation would have been seen if we kept the awareness of it promoted better over the two months through all channels.

Testing Takes Time: A good rule of thumb is whatever time you think you need for testing, double or triple it. We had a few days for both internal testing and client testing to work through any defects. Ideally, we should have planned for one to two weeks.

Where Do We Go from Here for Souplantation.com?
Optimize: Continue to evaluate and act on our analytics results to optimize the site.
Keep it Fresh: Give users a reason to keep coming back for more through fresh and relevant content.
Grow Club Veg: Focus on acquisition tactics in addition to maintaining customer loyalty.

Souplantation.com has been an amazing success. We always knew the fans were loyal to the brand, and we couldn’t wait for the opportunity to provide them with a robust site and online experience. Now users have a reason to indulge in Souplantation.com and return for seconds, and even thirds!

Jeannie Fratoni is Creative Director and Co-Founder at Red Door Interactive.