-  Agency recognized for work with California Avocado Commission, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corporation; initiatives resulted in increased visitors, sales   -

SAN DIEGO – April 13, 2011 – Red Door Interactive, a premier Internet Presence Management firm, recently received two Bronze ADDY awards from the San Diego AD Club and two Silver ADDY awards in the District 15 Competition for its work on behalf of Garden Fresh Restaurant Corporation and the California Avocado Commission.

The ADDY Awards are the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition that recognizes and rewards creative excellence in the art of advertising.

“We worked extremely hard on both of these client projects and not only provided fresh new looks and content, but implemented crucial tools needed to help drive additional business,” said Reid Carr, President of Red Door Interactive. “We’ve seen significant increases in a wide range of metrics, including social media fans and – more importantly – sales. We’re honored by this recognition for what it means about our commitment to helping all of our clients profit from their online initiatives.

The California Avocado Commission’s redesign entailed leveraging the marketing campaign theme while creating a fresh look with appealing content. The new site is engaging, easy to navigate and has resulted in increased visitors, more returning customers and a lower bounce rate. In addition, the agency incorporated new information into a social media campaign, redesigned regular distribution of a monthly e-mail recipe newsletter and provided fresh content for seasonal messaging and promotions.

Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes Restaurants was looking for a fresh makeover and enlisted Red Door Interactive to help with a range of tasks, including keeping the site exciting, implementing a blog, developing a shopping cart for online gift card purchases, boosting sales through a fundraising-booking tool, adding a “Sprouts Only” kids page, creating an active Facebook and Twitter environment, and increasing customer loyalty through various campaigns. As a result, the agency has seen a 17 percent uptick in overall visits and a 220 percent rise in returning visitors. Additionally, Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes witnessed a 20 percent lift in gift card sales, 400 percent increase in Facebook fans and 70,000 new member subscribers – doubling its base.

“The redesigning of the websites and the other areas we helped improve really give our clients something to be proud of and share with their customers,” said Carr.

About Red Door Interactive, Inc.
With offices in San Diego and Denver, Red Door Interactive, Inc. manages clients’ online presence by analyzing their unique challenges, advising them on Internet-based solutions and implementing online marketing strategies to help them profit from their Web initiatives. Clients include Overstock.com, Cricket Communications, PETCO, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill, Charlotte Russe and Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Restaurants. Find out more about Red Door Interactive at http://www.reddoor.biz.

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© 2011 by Red Door Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved.

Web Marketing Association
Jeannie Fratoni

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!

Read this article on Web Marketing Association’s website HERE

RanchoBernardoPatch
Tom York

~Michael Mack turns to a social media campaign and smaller restaurants to maintain growth in business~

There’s an old saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

The adage certainly applies to Michael Mack, CEO of Rancho Bernardo’s Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., parent of the popular Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes chain of family-oriented eateries.

The stores features fresh salad items, along with soups, pastas, breads and desserts, each dinner for under $10.

Since acquiring the original two Souplantation restaurants in 1983 (The Sweet Tomatoes name is affixed to stores outside California), Mack has grown his business into a $300 million-a-year operation involving 115 restaurants nationwide employing close to 6,000 workers, including 65 workers in the corporate offices on Bernardo Center Drive.

Nevertheless, the fast growth he experienced for years came to a halt in 2008 as the economy took its steep nose dive. Mack said he knew that he had to act immediately to stave off a huge drop in sales. Same-store sales were flat, and falling.

“It was a crisis, and I just knew that it wouldn’t be short term, but it would last a long time,” Mack said. “We had to act.”

And act, he did.

One of the first steps he took was to join the social media explosion then just emerging online to better stay in touch with customers.

With the help of digital marketing firm Red Door Interactive in San Diego, Mack moved aggressively into new “channels” such as e-mail, Facebook and Twitter to “start conversations with our guests.”

Full Story >>

- Web Marketing Association recognizes firm with Restaurant Standard Excellence award -

SAN DIEGO – October 18, 2010 – Red Door Interactive, a premier strategic Internet Presence Management firm, recently received the Restaurant Standard of Excellence award for its achievements in creating the Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes website.

The Web Marketing Association noted the company’s exceptionally high scores for the restaurants’ site design, innovation, content, copywriting and ease of use compared to similar ones in the industry.   

“This acknowledgement really speaks highly of our team and their ability to work collectively to produce a site that fulfills the client’s online goals,” said Reid Carr, president of Red Door Interactive. “As we continue to achieve these awards, it only validates that we can use our creativity and experience to assist customers in various industries and provide solutions that best fit the needs of the company and their customers.”

Since 1997, the WebAward competition has set the standards of excellence for website development. Judges reviewed sites in 96 industries and scored them based on seven criteria and overall comments.   

In addition to this achievement, Red Door Interactive was recently named to Inc. Magazines “Inc. 5,000” list and honored by Advertising Age as one of the “Best Places to Work in Marketing and Media.” The Web Marketing Association also recognized the firm in 2010 for “Best Internet Service Provider: Rich Media Online Campaign” and “Best Telecommunication Website and Mobile Application” while The American Marketing Association gave Red Door “Best New Media Marketing,” “Best Makeover Campaign” and “People’s Choice” awards. In addition, the firm received an “Addy” for “Best Social Media Web/Online Campaign” and was named one of America’s “Inner City 100” companies by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC).

About Red Door Interactive, Inc.
Headquartered in San Diego, Red Door Interactive, Inc. manages clients’ online presence by analyzing their unique challenges, advising them on Internet-based solutions and implementing strategies to help them profit from their Web initiatives. Clients include Overstock.com, Cricket Communications, PETCO, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill, Charlotte Russe and Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Restaurants. Find out more about Red Door Interactive at http://www.reddoor.biz.

iMedia Connection
Jeannie Fratoni

Article Highlights:

• Red Door Interactive built Souplantation.com to be a completely customizable experience
• The new site has seen a 220 percent increase in returning visitors, a 17 percent increase in visits, and a 20 percent increase in gift card sales
• The company plans to keep the content fresh and relevant to give the users a reason to keep coming back for more

Red Door Interactive was hired to build an entirely new site for Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Restaurants, a chain of all-you-care-to-eat dining experiences that focus on fresh ingredients. We formulated strategies and recommendations of our own, but we wanted to hear directly from the most dedicated fans — the more than 1.3 million members of the Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Club Veg, the company’s advisory board (the Kitchen Cabinet), and users of the site. Because of their loyal following and passion for the brand, we wanted to build a site for them, by them. So, we sent out surveys and incorporated those results into our design, a step that, in the end, allowed us to validate our entire process from discovery and strategy through design and implementation.

Full Story >>

The Morale and Culture Committee is pleased to announce Ron Hadler as the most nominated employee of the quarter for Mad Props.

Ron Hadler is Red Door Interactive’s Technology Supervisor. His role at Red Door includes managing a team of Web Developers and ensuring technical development runs smoothly. During the last few months, Ron has proved to be a huge asset to the Garden Fresh project team. He successfully launched the new Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Website including a new and improved gift card shopping cart. Ron devoted many late nights and weekends to guarantee the launch would be seamless. Ron’s teammates have recognized his dedication to this project and continuously praise him for a job well done.

Ron represents our Core Values by remaining 100% jerk free and inspiring others on his team. He’s been referred to as a rockstar, and if you see the new Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes Website, I am sure you will agree.

What is Mad Props?

Mad Props is a peer recognition program at Red Door where employees can nominate a fellow co-worker who represents one or more of Red Door’s Core Values. The employee with the most nominations each quarter is awarded an extra paid day off for his or her hard work.

Find out more about Mad Props.

Want to start building a community on Twitter and Facebook to give customers new ways to     connect with your brand? Have an e-mail marketing program? Here’s how Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes, a Red Door client, executed their foray into social media.

1. Souplantation knew that a great deal of their customers have created strong bonds on Twitter and Facebook. So it made sense for their brand to be there.
2. Souplantation knew that the majority of people subscribed to their e-mail list “Club Veg” would most likely be on social networks.
3. Souplantation set up a Twitter account and a Facebook Fan Page and began connecting with customers.
4. Souplantation promoted the ability to connect on Twitter and Facebook by adding callouts to connect on their website and as standard links in their email marketing templates.
5. Souplantation developed interactive promotional campaigns that were cross promoted through e-mail and social media to drive conversions.

The results: In the first month, Souplantation boasted more than 800 followers on Twitter and 450 fans on Facebook (now 2,600+ Twitter followers and 7,000 Facebook fans). Their Valentine’s Day promotional campaign, where individuals were invited to tell Souplantation via Twitter, just what made their “Sweetie so Sweet,” resulted in a 12% conversion rate, with people either purchasing a gift card, conducting a location search, or opting in for the “Club Veg” e-mail newsletter.

Are you integrating e-mail marketing and social media to give customers more ways to connect with your brand?