Account Executive,
The Blonde Italian
During the last two semesters of college I worked with The Blonde Italian as a client through the Digital Marketing Center at Baldwin Wallace University. The Digital Marketing Center works with numerous clients in the Cleveland area and gives students the opportunity to work on digital marketing projects for these clients. I served as an Account Executive with The Blonde Italian as my client. The Blonde Italian is known for its premium sauces and seasonings sold in major retailers like Walmart and other local stores, and owner Lauren Falcione was a finalist for ABC's Shark Tank.
Overview
As an Account Executive I managed a team of students by organizing weekly meetings and overseeing campaign planning and content creation for organic and paid social media, email, and the website. I was also responsible for leading team meetings with the client. To prepare for our first client meeting, I lead the team in completing an audit of The Blonde Italian's online presence, looking specifically at their social media accounts, website, and use of email. From this audit I compiled a list of detailed questions that we asked the client to identify the digital marketing goals of the The Blonde Italian.
Account Management
Another takeaway from the client audit was the overall lack of social media content and little attention to food trends on social media. We aimed to improve The Blonde Italian's social media presence by setting goals for how much we should post each week and thinking of creative and relevant social media campaigns to drive engagement.
To manage the team's work and stay on top of frequent posting, I implemented a team workflow that played to each member's strengths and clearly delegated writing and graphic design responsibilities for content creation. As the Account Executive, I was responsible for managing the content calendar and scheduling all posts in Meta Business Suite. I would also fill in any gaps in copy writing and content creation as needed.
Content Curation & Branding
As the Account Executive I helped curate ideas for our content on all platforms. National and international food days were a major source of content in addition to trends like the baked feta pasta made famous by TikTok. We also ran campaigns for major holidays that involve food, like Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl, by adding an Italian twist to classic recipes.
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A challenge we faced in our social media posting was keeping the branding consistent. Lauren co-managed the Facebook and Instagram accounts, so we had to adjust our copy to match the brand voice that Lauren had established on these platforms. After making changes to keep the brand voice consistent throughout the page, we noticed that our Instagram reach gradually increased by 61%.
Paid Social
I lead the team in developing ads for Facebook and Instagram. The content of each ad varied, but the overarching goal was to drive traffic to local retailers either with exclusive products in stock or limited discounts. I gave the team direction in deciding which ads would be single-image, carousel, or video and editing down copy for the primary text and headline. Our ads performed well and resulted in a 643.9% increase in reach on Facebook and a 962.8% increase on Instagram.
The Tools I Used
