Sweet Heat Gourmet

AE: Neena ZonaAA: Amy Walker, Asharae Jones, Gabby Tesoriero,

Rachael David and Skylar Beatus

Client SummarySweet Heat Gourmet is a locally owned business by Shellie Mierwald. Her slogan

is “Meet Your Farmers” because all of her sauces are made from local ingredients

from local farmers. Shellie has won numerous awards for her sauces including

the most recent, Best Hot Sauce by the State College Magazine in their 2015 Best

of State College article.

Needs● Increase Shellie’s understanding of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

● Make a list of places we could sell her sauces out of

● Write a press release and pitch letters to the media to promote charity hot sauce

● Research competitors

● Create a media kit that she can take with her to festivals

Target Audience Family owned and operated business

Targets adults in the State College area

As well as “Chilli Heads” all over the country with her online sales

Strengths ● High quality product ● Satisfied customers ● Actively attending hot sauce competitions around the country ● Has won about five first & second place prizes for various hot sauces● Popular in remote locations around the Northeast / Midwest● Promotes that Sweet Heat only uses fresh

ingredients from local farmers● Partnered with the Future Farmers of America to

make a hot sauce with 100% of the sales benefitting charity

Weaknesses ● Unknown in State College and surrounding area ● Not sold in popular stores in State College (aka no retail location) so customers

could only get sauces through shipping● Shipping was almost the same price as one bottle of sauce ($6.50 for a bottle, $6

shipping)● Active Facebook page, but Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest sites were lacking

relevant engagement● Wasn’t very willing to improve the less popular social media accounts● Away from State College often for sauce competitions, so it was difficult to follow

through on ways to make Sweet Heat’s presence in the community more prevalent

Opportunities ● The owner of Sweet Heat is friends with many other small business owners and

could partner with them for some promotions● Creating quick “How To” videos for recipes to go with her hot sauces would

engage more Facebook users ● Having samples/taste tests locally● Promoting Sweet Heat’s gift box BBQ and Hot Sauce sets during the

Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons ● Local Farmers Markets available during the fall months to sell at. Students

frequent these places often and enjoy buying fresh/local● Promoting sauces to a new demographic (students) in the local area

Examples

Threats ● There is another local Hot Sauce/BBQ maker who sells his products at the

Downtown Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays ● During the winter months, State College Farmers’ Market relocates to an indoor

building on Atherton Street which many students do not drive to● Buzzfeed Foods has very professional/high quality videos. If Sweet Heat doesn’t

match their tutorial videos to that level of quality, they might be ignored by Facebook users

● If people see Sweet Heat’s Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest accounts, a potential customer might not take the company seriously because not all their posts are relevant, recent, or interactive

SWOT Analysis of FacebookStrengths:❏ Relatively consistent posting❏ Share frequent updates and achievements❏ Promote local events and the community❏ Interaction with customers

Weakness:❏ Profile picture is unidentifiable❏ Much of the content is the profile picture

changing❏ Relatively low engagement (but improving)❏ No posts with site links or information on

how to buy

Opportunities: ❏ Share content relevant to brand values❏ Incorporate more links to site and where

to buy❏ Create profile picture incorporating

brand logo to make it instantly recognizable

Threats:

❏ Relatively low engagement ❏ Low incentive to follow❏ Content not relatable to audience outside of

State College

SWOT Analysis of Twitter

Strengths:❏ Utilize image posting❏ Interacting with fans❏ Sharing achievements❏ Sharing event information/updates

Weakness:❏ Infrequent posting (less than Facebook)❏ Reposts from brand advocates too often❏ No links to site ❏ No information on how to buy them

Opportunities:

❏ Continuous link sharing could increase online sales

❏ Ability to share multiple images and/or videos already utilized on other platforms

❏ Very vocal brand advocates

Threats:❏ Hardest platform to break through the

clutter❏ Consistent content is absolutely

necessary to stay relevant

SWOT Analysis of InstagramStrengths:❏ Most posts get more than 20 likes❏ Product & food posts do particularly well❏ Use of hashtags❏ Promotional pictures are relatively good

quality

Opportunities:❏ Completely separate personal and

brand accounts to avoid confusion ❏ Promote account more often and

include icon on website ❏ Take advantage of platform’s

popularity ❏ Craft vibrant visuals

Weakness:❏ Managed as her personal profile as well

as Sweet Heat’s ❏ Could make better use of food popularity❏ No social icon for Instagram on their

website

Threats:❏ Stiff competition with food images ❏ Potential to lose followers due to personal

use

List of Potential PartnersWe found over 50 different local stores/restaurants that Sweet Heat could potentially sell its various products at. As well as places where Sweet Heat could sell its charity hot sauce.

Sweet Heat and FFA❏This semester sweet heat gourmet was working with the FFA, Future Farmers of

America, and State College High School to create a charity hot sauce

❏We wrote a press release to generate news for the charity hot sauce, but also to

promote Shellie’s brand

❏We all crafted the media list in order to find suitable places to send our press

release to

❏We researched an array of various media outlets around the Centre County

region

❏We collected a list of newspapers, magazines and online publications that

targeted various age groups in the area

Examples

End Results

As a result of our media pitch, we heard back from Spoon University. We were able to

create an event with them where Spoon University wrote a promotional article

beforehand; the event was held at Herwig’s Austrian Bistro and was a tasting of

Sweet Heat’s charity Peachy Sweet & Raspberry Heat Hot Sauce.

Media Kit❏The purpose of the created media kit was to create an overview of Sweet Heat

Gourmet and its owner, Shellie, by summarizing her story, her business, her accomplishments and her achievements

❏The media kit will serve as a promotional tool for Shellie to distribute to businesses and consumers at farmer’s markets, competitions, exhibitions, and more. It will provide people with a keepsake to increase knowledge, awareness and recollection of Sweet Heat Gourmet

❏Our Media Kit Includes:❏ Simple Backgrounder❏ Bio about Shellie❏ Fact Sheet❏ Press Release ❏ List of Awards

Simple Backgrounder and Bio

Fact Sheet, Press Release and List of Awards

Thank you! Questions?

nzona5511@gmail.com