Enhancing Quiznos' Digital Marketing Strategy through Social Media Marketing

This report discusses the reasons behind Quiznos' unsuccessful digital marketing strategy and provides recommendations for enhancing their social media marketing. It includes strategies for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, as well as tips for engaging with target customers.

Digital Marketing
Digital strategy portfolio

Reasons why the brand was unsuccessful
Digital marketing plays a critical role in the success of any organization. With the advent of
technology and increasing use of social media across different platforms, there is enhanced
communication between business and its customers (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). This
creates a perfect opportunity for organizations to reach out to their customers and set the right
positioning of their products. It is imperative that organizations leverage this opportunity and
effectively use digital media to communicate with customers. Quiznos’s digital presence has
been ineffective in terms of their SEO, SEM or social media marketing.
Ineffective SEO and SEM makes it difficult for customers to search for the brand on the internet
leading to reduced presence (Wilde et. al., 2012). Lack of SEM strategies make it difficult for
businesses to reach out to their customers via search engine tools which results in condensed
reach of the brand. This is the exact problem that was faced by Quiznos.
The brand’s social media platforms have not been active. Social media platforms including
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter allow these brands to communicate with their customers, gain
honest feedback and address their grievances (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). However, Quiznos
could not effectively utilize these platforms to reach out to their customers and establish their
presence.
Target customers
Target customers of a particular business refers to those customers whose needs the business
aims to fulfill (Kotler, 2015). Quiznos targets youngsters between the ages of 18 and 34. The
primary target market of Quiznos includes white collar employees. Besides this, Quiznos
introduced healthier snacks in their menu and have been targeting health conscious customers
who are looking for diet, gluten free or vegan snacks. The toasted sandwiches offered by
Quiznos can serve the purpose of a quick snack and hence the brand also targets office goers and
college students who need a ready to eat filling meal for their breakfast or evening snack.

Social media platform 1: Facebook
Facebook has been used effectively as a marketing tool by organizations in order to address their
customers. Unlike traditional forms of media, social media allows a two way communication
between organizations and their customers.

The brand has merely 1.3 million followers on Facebook at the moment. Facebook can be used
as an effective tool by Quiznos by adopting the following strategies:
1. Frequency of posts play a significant role in the effectiveness of digital marketing
strategy of the firm. Therefore Quiznos must ensure that their social media marketing
team posts at least four to five times a day.
2. The relevancy and creativity of content is the biggest factor that grabs customer attention
(Kilgour et. al., 2015). Hence, in order to enhance chances of customers noticing the
posts, it is essential that the posts on Facebook depict content which is creative and
relevant to their target audience.

3. Using features like Facebook stories and Facebook live for the launch of a new sandwich
or to market any event organized by the brand can effectively enhance awareness among
customers.
4. Customer engagement is highly essential to ensure the success of any marketing strategy
(Dessart et. al., 2015). Quiznos could create weekly quizzes and other such activities
which would engage customers. The winners could be offered discount coupons and
other promotional benefits.
5. Responsiveness is also significant in ensuring customer engagement. Therefore, Quiznos
must ensure that it responds to customers’ comments and share posts written by
customers which hold positive reviews.
Social media platform 1: Instagram
Instagram has recently become a tool for effective marketing of an organization. Instagram is
ideally used as a means by brand to provide a visual of the information that needs to be

conveyed. As it can be seen that Quiznos has only been able to garner 13.6k followers. There is a
gap of 3 to 4 days between every post. In order to promote the brand, Quiznos must adhere to the
following ground rules and apply these strategies for effective marketing:
1. It is essential to engage audience with Instagram posts. Therefore Quiznos must try to
engage its customers through its Instagram posts. This could include introducing offers,
attracting influencers or creating contests in which customers can participate.
2. The frequency of the Instagram post will also make a huge difference in becoming
noticeable and gaining attention. Quiznos must attempt to post over three or four times in
a day. They must also frequently post stories which are visible to followers for 24 hours
only.
3. The relevancy and the appeal of Instagram posts will also largely help the brand in
gaining attention from customers. The pictures posted must be relevant, interesting,
creative, high resolution and real. The brand must post pictures of people enjoying
Quiznos subs and the brand’s outlets. When people see other people having fun while
enjoying Quiznos, they will also tend to be attracted towards the brand.
4. Instagram largely revolves around hashtags. Quiznos must use interesting and creative
hashtags in order to attract customers. These hashtags will make it easier for users on
Instagram to search for and follow Quiznos. For example using hashtags like #Instafood
#Foodieforlife or #Foodgasm which are frequently followed by people will make it easier
for these users to reach out to the brand.
5. Influencer marketing can also help Quiznos in reaching out to a large number of
customers. They must reach out to celebrity influencers by offering them free goodies
and tying up with them so that they can promote Quiznos on their own pages.
6. Lastly, Quiznos must ensure that they are responsive to people’s comments or tags. This
would help in keeping followers engaged. Customer engagement eventually leads to
positive positioning of the brand.

Social Media Platform 3: Twitter
Twitter has been effectively used as a marketing tool to communicate with customers and
enhance brand awareness as well as set the right positioning for the organization. Currently
Quiznos has 130k followers on Twitter.

It can often be seen that despite 130k followers, user engagement is so limited that hardly 20-30
people are liking, sharing or retweeting the posts by Quiznos. Therefore, the brand must adopt
the following strategies in order to enhance their engagement with users and enhance brand
awareness:
1. The total number of posts by Quiznos must increase and the frequency of posts must also
be enhanced.
2. Quiznos must also put efforts in engaging customers by introducing contests, offering
discounts, asking interactive questions and curating creative content.
3. The use of hashtags is also not entirely effective by Quiznos. The brand is hardly using
two or three hashtags per post. Quiznos should increase the use of hashtags and also
create innovative hashtags in order to gain customer attention.
4. Quiznos must also refer to influencers and celebrities in order to reach out to more
customers.
5. Quiznos must also make sure that as a brand it is responsive and retweets posts by fellow
users, comment on twitter mentions and respond to comments. This will make sure that

customers are engaged and it establishes a two way communication between Quiznos and
its customers.
Conclusion
Digital marketing plays a critical role in the success of any business especially with the
increasing usage and advent of technology in everyday lives of people (Armstrong et. al., 2015).
This specifically enhances the need for brands to resort to social media marketing. Social media
marketing refers to the process of marketing a product or service with the help of social media
platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter etc. (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). This report
has highlighted upon various strategies that can be used by Quiznos fast food chain in order to
effectively reach out to its customers and enhance brand awareness. Social media marketing can
also be used by the brand in order to set the right positioning in the minds of customers.
Positioning is the image of the product that exists in the minds of its consumers.
Social media marketing relies heavily upon customer engagement strategies adopted by the
brand and the relevancy of the content shared on these platforms. Therefore it is recommended to
Quiznos that the brand will not only enhance the frequency of their posts and become more
active on these platforms but also the brand will ensure that the content shared by the social
media team is aimed at engaging customers. Influencer marketing strategies can also be used via
social media marketing. The recommended strategies will help the brand in gaining awareness
among customers and also lead to improved positioning of the brand.

References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education. India.
Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2016. Digital marketing. Prentice Hall.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C. and Morgan-Thomas, A., 2015. Consumer engagement in online
brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand
Management, 24(1), pp.28-42.
Hoffman, D.L. and Fodor, M., 2010. Can you measure the ROI of your social media
marketing?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), p.41.
Kilgour, M., Sasser, S.L. and Larke, R., 2015. The social media transformation process: curating
content into strategy. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 20(3), pp.326-343.
Kotler, P., 2015. Framework for marketing management. Pearson Education India.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage. United States.
Wilde, T., Morton, K.D., Lobacheva, Y., Zinovieva, N. and Meteer, M., Ramp Holdings Inc,
2012. Search engine optimization. U.S. Patent 8,312,022.