Bays English Muffins Increased Interactions By 47% With a Data-Driven Content Plan

Ian Culver from Culver Brand Design has been devoted to defining a unique brand voice since the start of the collaboration with Bays English Muffins from Bimbo Bakeries USA. His goal has been to find the perfect blend of artistic vision and deep data analysis to shape an unbeatable content strategy.

Bringing Socialbakers on board, his creative team has consolidated disparate data sources under one platform to quickly identify best performing content and trends. This instant data access puts audience engagement at the center of content creation, and helps drive key business KPIs – where creative and analytics yield consumption.

“Socialbakers is an invaluable partner and has helped us finish up one of our best quarters yet. One of Bays English Muffins posts has hit over 54 million impressions!”

Ian Culver, Director Of Client Services at Culver Brand Design

Note: reach was 21 million, impressions were 54 million.

“It’s all about effective collaboration between Culver Brand Design, Bimbo Bakeries USA, and Socialbakers. We all are committed to putting the best product out there. Not for us, but for our audience,” said Ian Culver.

Taking Subjectivity Out of The Creative Process

Diving into the data, Culver was at first surprised to discover that the best performing content pieces were different from what he initially expected.

“We always knew our posts had to be gutsy, but early on our two best posts were really artistic as well.”

Ian Culver, Director Of Client Services at Culver Brand Design

“Another surprise was our Bays recipe campaign. We expected ‘Make mini pizzas with your kids’ sort of content to resonate the most, but in fact, our best performing pieces were elevated meal experiences, which look like a work of art,” said Ian.

Bays Art

Why did the scarecrow get a promotion? He was outstanding in his field. #BetterWithBays

Posted by Bays English Muffins on Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Culver made data on audience engagement central to content ideation. He says it is all about taking the “subjectivity out of creativity.” This approach has allowed the Culver Brand Design team to replicate successes more easily, while still leaving ample space for new and bold ideas. As a result Bays has seen back to back category share gains and strong topline growth.

An Audience-First Content Strategy, Step by Step

1. To reach such impressive results, the Culver Brand Design team started with a meticulous analysis of key competitors’ top content. They grouped the best performing content into 15 different “creative buckets” that served as a data-sourced inspiration for their own content strategy.
2. Inspired by industry best practices, Culvers’ team applied the learnings to drive their own creative process.
3. During content execution, they leveraged data provided by Socialbakers, practically in real-time, to enhance their strategy and drive fast, tangible results.
4. Month after month, they reviewed content performance, tried out different formats, and moved forward with what was working the best to carve out their own social media identity.

“Socialbakers Content Hub drives what we do and makes our brand voice so powerful.

Instead of looking at macro data, we are able to drill into specifics and find what actually resonates with our followers.”

Ian Culver, Director Of Client Services at Culver Brand Design