Independent Digital Audit: The Icing on the Pancake for Marcel’s
“Managing our digital marketing in-house meant the audit was a wonderful opportunity to gain an outside opinion”
Zara Ryan, Senior Brand Manager, Van Dyck Fine Foods
About Van Dyck Fine Foods
Van Dyck Fine Foods is a NZ-based food manufacturing company, operating under the Marcel’s Pancakes brand.
They produce Marcel’s pancakes, crepes and blinis, frozen immediately after baking to retain optimal freshness for distribution across NZ, Australia and Singapore.
Marcel’s website is a resource to find stockist locations, product information and recipe inspiration. Marcel’s website and digital marketing are managed internally, with support from the sales and marketing team.
“We do monthly data analysis and reporting to monitor how things are tracking. We make tweaks behind the scenes based on our findings.”
Website : marcels.co.nz
Category
Food manufacturing
Size
Large
Region
NZ / AU
E-commerce
N/A
Website
WIX
Years in operation
23 years
Category
Food manufacturing
Size
Large
Region
NZ /AU
E-commerce
N/A
Website
WIX
Years in operation
23 years
Challenge / Goal
“We constantly find ourselves in a reactive mode. We would love more time for planning and executing a deliberate, big-picture strategy.”
As an in-house team, the company wanted reassurance that their approach was the right one and felt that an independent third party was the best way to gain trustworthy advice.
“As a marketer, we get all kinds of emails selling me something. It was refreshing to talk openly and candidly with someone, knowing that they weren’t trying to sell me anything, and have no ulterior agendas.”
Key Findings / Results
Van Dyck sought an IDA audit of Marcel’s online presence to clarify whether their digital marketing approach was on the right path and that their investments were paying off. The audit identified a number of technical issues on the backend of the website. Issues included missing links, broken pages and multiple metadata elements requiring changes. The company immediately commenced implementing the recommendations.
“So many things that the audit identified could be easily corrected. We are slowly working through the bigger items, in order of priority. The best part about IDA is the audit format. It is super easy for someone to understand. The summary of the recommendations and priorities list was so amazing because it just gave us a foolproof priority list to get on with.”
The great news is that these quick and minor changes have already started paying off for the company.
“A month after implementing these changes, we looked at our digital ad performance and there was a definite improvement. The tweaks really paid off, even after only 1 month. We plan to keep going with the implementation of the existing recommendations. We know we will see great results out of it.”
The audit has helped the company focus on its overarching and cohesive digital strategy and make decisions that work towards achieving its goals.
“We have improved a lot in terms of linking all the components and ensuring that our messaging is consistent with our overall strategy.”
Thanks to the independent review by IDA, Van Dyck can move forward with their digital marketing strategy with confidence. They are excited to monitor the impact of the changes and look forward to following up with a future audit to compare findings and review their growth.
“We think it is something companies should do now and again to have a sense check. That unbiased outside view looking in is totally valuable. Once the recommendations are all settled and running, we will be back for another audit to take us to the next level.”
