ITALIAN FOOD,
DONE RIGHT

With several thriving London restaurants, 2020 led Scarpetta to make some big decisions. With their normally busy restaurants unable to open for a significant portion of the year, they wanted to diversify – offering customers the chance to purchase their favourite dishes online. And they wanted it fast.

We’re a nimble team at Tribe and able to react quickly to client briefs with the agility to invest the time and resources to deliver the client’s vision. This has been vital during the pandemic. Our clients have to be agile. They have to react quickly. And their digital partner must be able to keep up.

Our design and development teams worked together to create a modern, clean Shopify site tailored to Scarpetta’s needs. Avoiding off-the-shelf themes, we built a custom solution that stands out in the D2C food market and ensures ease of use for customers. The bespoke build also future-proofs the site, supporting potential growth and diversification.

Mobile users often experience simplified versions of desktop websites, but for Scarpetta, mobile functionality was prioritised. We designed and developed seamless navigation, including full access to account login, creation, and product categories, matching the desktop experience. Additionally, we implemented an order summary feature, allowing customers to easily review and amend their selections before checkout.

Why save your best offers for new customers? Tribe Digital implemented a customer loyalty and rewards system that is designed to maximise engagement and increased lifetime value. For every £1 spend on the mechanism, £3 was generated in additional revenue.

When planning how to grow ecommerce businesses, we know referral mechanisms work. Integrating this for Scarpetta means that they can reward loyal customers, while avoiding steep discounting. By making it mutually beneficial (i.e. the existing customer gets a discount, as well as the new customer), the existing customer is more likely to stick with Scarpetta, and the new customer is incentivised to buy. This potential new customer is also likely to be a friend or family member of the existing customer, meaning they’re probably a genuinely good lead.

The design work behind this project was incredibly varied, spanning digital media right through to menu cards and packaging. And it’s ongoing – as new recipes appear on the site and new creative is added to performance campaigns on a weekly basis.

To structure a performance media campaign that works for Scarpetta, we considered a number of channels. It’s crucial that we reach people on different platforms and with different levels of intent.

When we talk about high levels of intent, we’re referring to people who are actively searching for Scarpetta or for the product and service that Scarpetta can provide. We can capture these people through search marketing (PPC).

Our objective here is to not only appear for branded search terms (an easier win, usually), but also relevant search terms such as ‘pasta meal kits’ and ‘order fresh pasta’. Through a process of keyword research, building and optimisation, search marketing is a perfect way to assist a curious prospect.

A Google Shopping campaign also captures actively searching customers and prospects. These ads show the product and pricing, and are listed above paid and organic search results.

Google Shopping has recently upgraded its relationship with subscription brands, which is great news for Scarpetta and allows us to work in an even more targeted way.

Instead of reaching prospective customers using search terms, social ads allow us to create audiences. Audiences that are likely to be interested in Scarpetta’s offer and convert.

For this brand, we’re focused on Facebook and Instagram ads in order to not only custom build audiences, but create lookalike and retargeting audiences that allow us to work more intelligently with the data at our disposal.

Lookalike audiences use Facebook’s AI to find the people most likely to convert with Scarpetta. They look at users’ interests, online behaviours, content they’re engaging with, demographic information and tonnes more to work out if they’re valuable to Scarpetta.

Retargeting audiences help us to reach people who have visited the website before, have added to cart but not purchased, or have shown a high level of interest around a product. We can then serve very specific ads to them, encouraging them to make or complete a purchase.

Content underpins basically everything online. For Scarpetta, this means photography, motion graphics, video, content-rich landing pages, keyword-rich blog content, product reviews, and more.

In terms of retention, email marketing is a fundamental part of the strategy.

Once people have subscribed, we have to engineer new ways to keep them faithful. Email marketing is a handy way to get messages to customers quickly. And when email lists are correctly segmented, these messages can be intelligently targeted at every step of the customer journey.

It’s also a great method of hamming home the aforementioned referral scheme, promoting new products, encouraging customers to engage with content, and advertising new offers.