The Origin Story.
Scope
We had one month to prevent our friend’s small maple syrup business from shutting down.
Result
We helped generate the highest monthly revenue of 2023 amidst the seasonal sales decline. The results inspired us to start “Blitz Strat Digital.”
Overview
Maple Jack is an organic maple syrup business located in Westwood MA. The company’s founder (and our good friend), Jack Foscaldo, began the business out his backyard as a junior in highschool prior to the pandemic. Jack has since sold to customers across all 50 states, expanded to various retail stores, and even incorporated his syrup into local restaurant dishes.
As a small maple syrup business, Maple Jack’s product demand has been heavily influenced by seasonality. In fact, throughout the business’s history, summer has always yield the lowest demand out of the four seasons; more specifically, August.
The Challenge (1 month project)
While already faced with low demand, Maple Jack encountered an even bigger challenge during July of 2023 when two of his primary syrup production machines unexpectedly broke. Since Jack needed these machines to produce his product, he was preparing to shut down operations after selling out of inventory. In order to replace the machines, he needed to achieve record-high sales throughout the month of August. After hearing about Jacks predicament in mid-July, we decided to give it a shot and help our friend out for free.
Once our partnership was established, our team had less than two weeks to analyze and develop the appropriate strategy with the given circumstances.
THE PROCESS:
INNOVATE
We first began our process by understanding all aspects of Maple Jack’s business model and operations. This allowed our team to understand Maple Jack’s industry placement PRIOR to jumping into marketing strategy. Chiefly, we were able to uncover high marginal profit pockets within two of his products (important).
After understanding the business model, we dove into our comprehensive consumer analysis. Through a culmination of data analysis and primary interviews, we were able to confirm who the target market was.
It was time for our final step in our preparation process; mapping-out our reach capabilities. This first included finding all areas where we could reach our identified customer (digital and not). We then ranked the modes-of-reach according to various factors including message velocity, ROI on ad spends, audience density per media platform, organic reach, and the locations of various funnel stages.
Our first mock-up plan
BUILD
After laying out the foundation, it was time to start taking action. The majority of Jack’s customer’s where within a 30 mile radius and above the age of 42. To keep it simple- they were local parents willing to pay a premium price because of Jack’s young, entrepreneurial drive. So, what better way to start our campaign than by creating a video for FaceBook that transparently addresses the situation at hand? More importantly, when writing the script we focused on resonating with the parents on an emotional level.
Next, we set our efforts on creating a newsletter campaign. Every Thursday, Jack sent out emails to all of his contacts. These emails provided updates on his process of making the syrup, where + when he would be attending farmer’s markets, his new organic honey, and updates on Maple Jack was recovering as a business.
The final part of our newsletter strategy was to build a safety net for the end of August in the event that we didn’t achieve our revenue goal. As mentioned in the “Innovate” section, we identified two products which yielded higher margins than the rest. Furthermore, we leveraged these margins to launch a one-week promotional discount on them, allowing Jack to drive last-minute sales while still staying in the green.
Additionally, majority of Maple Jack’s customers grew up during the pre-social media era.
Grow
To help ensure Jack’s customer LTV continued to grow after our help was over, we also wanted to incorporate something special. Since the majority of Maple Jack’s customers grew up before social media, we knew that a non-digital form of communication would be of value; especially in today’s digital landscape. Therefore, we had Jack write a personalized “thank you” message to every customer who placed an order. This not only increased word of mouth, but after reviewing customer orders 10 months later we found a 85% repeat customer rate from those who received the personalized messages.
In the end, we helped generate the highest monthly revenue of 2023 amidst the seasonal sales decline. Maple Jack happily continues run it’s operations as of January 2025. These results inspired us, and ultimately fostered the foundation of “Blitz Strat Digital.”
