Spring has most definitely sprung here in West Michigan (it’s fake spring, but we’ll take it) and our client, Bad Habit, opened their doors to the public after a year of planning and dreaming up extreme milkshakes.
Working with Bad Habit Grand Haven was a blast – from creating the brand, helping name shakes to planning the product photoshoot, we were brought in at the very beginning and we saw it through til the “end.”
During their opening week we were able to crush our goals for earned media and social growth exponentially. We knew they would be popular but we were blown away by the response.
So if you want a taste, keep reading.
Novelty Milkshakes Incoming
Bad Habit was set up for success with their novelty milkshakes but what really set them apart was a lot of preparation and relationship building leading up to opening week.
Our team at 8THIRTYFOUR worked hard behind the scenes to make sure they were covered from a visibility perspective. What exactly does that mean? If you haven’t been to their business yet, you would know that they are between, what we coined, “A Rock and a Hard Place” aka Planet Fitness and Fit Body Bootcamp…we made that work FOR them, not against them. They are now the “Sweet Spot” for an after workout treat – where calories don’t count and shouldn’t count.
The 8THIRTYFOUR team did it all, helping with branding, messaging, launch strategy, signage, menu, shake names, social media, influencer and media relations, and more.
*The support staff (aka family members) bought out all the vanilla and chocolate ice cream in Grand Haven, Muskegon, Wyoming and Holland during opening weekend!
All the Events
- Setting up Bad Habit for success starts with the following:
- Word of Mouth (Get the people talkin!)
- Social Media (It’s gotta look legit!)
- Wide spread news (Cough cough front page of the Grand Haven Tribune… ABOVE THE FOLD!)
Our goal was to grow Bad Habit’s small organic social media audience and get people in West Michigan into their physical space to give them a try.
We suggested Bad Habit do the following opening week:
- Friends and Family event (to let their harshest critics get to them first and get dialed in on how this operation would work with a full restaurant!)
- Community event (Inviting local officials, schools and other movers and shakers in the area!)
- Media event (Local media and influencers invited for an exclusive first taste before the chaos of opening began!)
- Ribbon Cutting (Getting involved with the West Coast Chamber shows the support as a new small business in the area!)
The Magic of Public Relations
Many people seem to think that PR just happens overnight. You go viral and bam everything falls into place. Well, we are here to tell you for the gazillionth time that it takes a LOT of preparation, planning and execution to make it really work! In the case of Bad Habit, the people were drooling with anticipation.
We held the media event on a Wednesday and overnight the social media following alone jumped over 200%. Media that attended the event included: WOODTV8, WOTV,
Grand Haven Tribune, MLive, ReVue Magazine, West Michigan Woman and more!
Foodie influencers (the cutest community of creators) gathered and ogled the extreme shakes, making Instagram Reels, posting stories for their followers to checkout and more.
Co-owner Bonnie Brown was up several mornings, including into the following week after opening with daybreak segments on WZZM 13 and Fox 17!
The Results
It’s all about the data.
We ended the campaign with:
- 52 Unique Articles
- 1,390,000 unique visitors per month (yes, this is local to West Michigan!)
- 778 new followers in a week (overall +193% jump in interest week over week)
- Reached 2,549 accounts on Instagram organically during opening weekend
Did we mention the line was out the door all opening weekend?
