Frozen dessert shop Tasti D-Lite has been heating up the social space over the past few years, introducing a series of innovative digital programs and campaigns, including the introduction of social tie-ins with its TastiRewards loyalty program and in-shop iPads that serve as customer information kiosks.
We spoke with Chief Marketing Officer Bill Zinke to get a taste for what the company is up to lately and what digital and social projects it’s working on next.
How much focus does Tasti D-Lite put on digital and social marketing, as opposed to traditional marketing?
We started getting into our social media efforts about two to three years ago, and the amount of dollars, time and pure human capital that we’ve invested in social media and digital marketing have grown fairly significantly each year. The fact that we have not only a head of marketing at our company, but also BJ Emerson, who is head of technology, shows that we put more and more into digital.
Social media is an area that we want Tasti D-Lite to be a leader in. We will be looking very aggressively and progressively at ways that we can continue to show to our customers, to our franchisees and to the world that Tasti D-Lite is really a brand that is not just up with the modern age of technology, but hopefully out on that leading edge.
We as a company — up to our CEO — really believe that this is where a lot of customer relationships and overall marketing are evolving toward, to more one-on-one relationships. There is still plenty of room for more mass market or broad campaigns, whether that’s through print or other ways — those will not ever go away. Mainstream messages are important, but the ability to build one-on-one relationships now with social media is changing marketing for good and in a very good way, as long as you’re willing to let go a little bit and realize you can’t control everything that is said about your brand. If you have a lot of faith in people and customers, out comes a lot of mostly good things. Some things may be critical, but those things will help us become a better company and better serve our customers. So, even whatever negatives may come, end up becoming positives.
Read the full q&a here.