Launching Pickle Haus

How our Fractional Chief Marketing Officer services positioned a new pickleball eatertainment brand for smashing success.

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bringing a vision to life

Pickle Haus, a Chicago newcomer to the fast-growing eatertainment industry, wanted to build a prestige brand from the ground up. They needed to develop a full, omnichannel marketing strategy and needed both a leader to manage it and a team to implement it.

Phlox Partners supported the development of the Pickle Haus brand by providing fractional chief marketing officer services, as well as outsourced marketing team support.

building a brand from the ground up

01

create strategy

Using competitive analysis and industry/market data, we created a brand strategy that positioned Pickle Haus as a fresh place to be active, spend time with friends and enjoy elevated food and beverage options.

02

build engaged following

Leading up to the grand opening, we used a variety of strategies, including media relations, social media, email marketing, community relations and digital advertising to build a following and create visibility.

03

focus on revenue

Our clients needed to position Pickle Haus as a brand with long-term potential, and to make sure people were immediately eager to visit and spend money at the facility. We built a plan focused on driving revenue and on building both short-term interest and long-term loyalty.

The Pickle Haus founding team had a vision for creating a premier facility that generated revenue from pickleball court rentals, private events  and from food and beverage sales. With Phlox Partners serving as the fractional chief marketing officer, we built out the resources and technology needed to create a full-service, data-driven marketing program.

We started by defining the brand’s mission, vision and values, and building a strong messaging architecture that told their story and differentiated Pickle Haus from competitors in the eatertainment industry and the local market.

From there, the Phlox team developed and launched the Pickle Haus website, social media platforms, digital ads strategy and marketing automation systems, as well as creating collateral to be used in-house and for event sales.  In the role of Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, we worked to advance brand goals through program development, pricing structure. We combined our teams’ expertise with a network of exceptional partners, including web developers, public relations specialists, photographers and videographers to ensure  we could tell the Pickle Haus story and attract our ideal customers/guests through a robust variety of communications channels.    

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283 Million

total audience reach: earned media placements

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120k+ Email Sends

60% open rate and 12% click-through rate.  

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social connection

8% engagement rate,  68% active followers. 

creating loyalty through social engagement

We launched social media before Pickle Haus had a completed facility that could be used to create visuals or tell the Pickle Haus story. We developed a strategy that focused on building community and gaining visbility in the local area prior to opening, creating both trust and curiosity about the new facility.

We focused on developing our key platforms and creating content that was informative, engaging and visually appealing.  As a result Pickle Haus’s social engagement consistently led competitors across the eatertainment space. 

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right messages, right audiences lead to 60% email open rates  

Using data as the foundation of our email marketing strategy, we segmented our audience through a combination of analytics tracking and simple, easy-to-complete email surveys.

By marketing specific program offerings to the right potential guests, we increased each email’s relevancy to its target audience, increasing the potential that they’d click through and make a purchase. These strategies paid off, as Pickle Haus earned email open and click-through rates far exceeding typical industry benchmarks (12 percent click-through rate across all emails). Those opens and clicks also translated to sales, as revenue from Pickle Haus programming and bookings was directly attributable to email marketing efforts.

on-site marketing collateral creates consistency, improves sales processes

Once the facility opened, the storytelling continued. Our team created sales collateral and resources that consistently promoted programming, offerings and specials in a way that made it easy for the on-site staff to sell or upsell guests.