“Count Your Colors” — Making vegan easy

Goals

• To show how easy and delicious vegan cooking can be, with a focus on family recipes.
• To initiate long-lasting healthful behavior change that benefits animals too.

Note: impact stats based on one month (November 2018) of campaign metrics.

Approach

Count Your Colors thrives on a strategic marketing approach that targets audiences based on demographic data and uses powerful online promotional tools. Today, Count Your Colors is reaching and engaging with a growing global audience.

Count Your Colors is active on the following media platforms:

• Website
• YouTube
• Facebook (including a public group)
• Instagram

Goldfarb used part of her VegFund grant to employ the work of a marketing expert to push her video series to a wide audience via sponsored posts on social media and Google Ads — “45,000 views to one of our vegan cooking videos alone!”

This online campaign’s messaging is positive and aims to inspire: “Try vegan, get healthy, and feel great!”

The campaign targets ads to participants based on the following parameters:

• Geographical area (Facebook: U.S., Canada, UK, Australia / Google Ads: worldwide)
• Age (various)
• Gender (mixed)

Age targeting is broken down into the following categories:

• Children up to 16 years old
• Adults (male and female), 17–30 years old
• Adults (male and female) 31–45 years old
• Adults (female) 46–70 years old

The following key metrics were used to measure the effectiveness of the campaign ads:

• Cost-per-click (CPC)
• Landing page views
• Ad impressions
• Conversion: Sign-up for vegan challenge or download vegan “cheat sheet”

To improve the ad content and effectiveness, Goldfarb developed short (1- to 2-minute) recipe videos, a downloadable easy-vegan “cheat sheet,” and hosted a program called the “75% vegan challenge,” which encourages participants to kick-start their vegan journey by “veganizing” three-quarters of their food intake.

Results

A strategic marketing approach, using primarily social media and email, has helped Count Your Colors to cultivate a diverse and global audience.

Online campaign insights for a one-month period – November 2018

A total of $820.45 (USD) was spent on campaign ads during this month.

That spend enabled the following levels of reach and engagement:

• 130,064 total monthly Impressions (number of scrolls, ad exposures, views, etc.)
• 108,751 total monthly Reach (number of unique people reached)
• 20,338 total monthly Engagement (Facebook – Total number of actions people took involving the ads, including post likes, comments, shares, and clicks / Google Ads – Total number of video views lasting 30-seconds or more)
• 1046 total monthly Conversions (vegan-easy “cheat sheet” sign-ups)

During November alone, the campaign garnered 1,000 more email sign-ups, 1,000 more followers on the Facebook page, and 1,000 new members in the Facebook group.

Through daily Facebook Live sessions and regular resources (including sample shopping lists, recipe ideas, and helpful tips), the free vegan challenge brought in an additional 200-plus people from across the globe! This challenge ended with a well-received and compelling presentation that provided participants with further guidance on healthful and colorful plant-based eating.

Count Your Colors has also generated media attention through former CNN talk-show-host-turned-animal-activist, Jane Velez-Mitchell on her Lunchbreak Live Show: “After the interview, Velez-Mitchell asked if she could start using our recipe videos for her weekly Lunchbreak Lives to share with her 900K followers!”

Goldfarb has plans to generate further media attention through educational talks and resource development, which will assist in growing the visibility of the campaign.