Each year, the 3 Entrepreneurship programmes of EIT Food recruit new startups and scaleups who are looking to launch, accelerate or scale up their venture, connecting thousands of startups to more than 200 leading corporations, universities, research centres, and investors while providing a total of 50 million Euro in direct support through grants and investments.

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🏁 The challenge

We developed a tailored communication strategy targeting niche audiences of researchers, start-ups and scale-ups in the AgrifoodTech sectors. With this strategy, we aimed to mobilise their interests in obtaining support on their entrepreneurial journey, positioning EIT Food as the go-to supporter for this journey. 

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Given the existence of three distinct programmes - Seedbed, Food Accelerator Network, and RisingFoodStars - each addressing different stages of the entrepreneurial journey (with unique needs, wants and pain points), it was crucial for the strategy to harmonise these programmes at the Entrepreneurship level to reinforce its branding as well as how EIT Food Entrepreneurship programmes as one entity, while allowing each of them to maintain its thought leadership in its respective sector - seed, growth, and expansion - and effective reach its right target audience.

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In order to achieve these goals, a multi-channel, two-tier strategy was activated. The multi-channel approach involved leveraging various channels - paid, organic, and earned -  to maximise lead generation, funnel engagement and conversion. Meanwhile, the two-tier strategy included top-level branding and more generic messaging for EIT Entrepreneurship as a whole, alongside programme-specific and personalised messaging for each individual programme. Additionally, the strategy was continuously refined based on data-driven insights to enhance engagement and drive conversion. 

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🔬 The insight

A deep understanding of the complexities of the niche sector EIT Food Entrepreneurship was in, as well as the even more specific focus areas of each programme - seeding, growth, and expansion - was essential. Entrepreneurs at different stages of their journey have varied needs in terms of support, from types of knowledge and funding to resources and goals. Recognising this, we emphasised the importance of personalised and tailored communications and a nuanced engagement approach. 

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Moreover, identifying and understanding the commonalities among the three distinct programmes was crucial for developing a unifying strategy and messaging for EIT Food Entrepreneurship as a whole. This requires a thorough grasp of both the overarching mission of EIT Food Entrepreneurship and the individual goals of each programme to craft a message that effectively conveyed this cohesion. 

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📊 The answer

After doing our research to better understand the organisation, its goals, mission statement, and audiences, we worked closely with the EIT Food Entrepreneurship team along with their partners and agencies to develop a multi-channel communication strategy tailored to each channel and most importantly each audience segment's specific needs.

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Leveraging our expertise in data-driven communications and personalisation, we created a comprehensive full-funnel email marketing strategy, a full-funnel paid media campaign on social media (specifically LinkedIn and Facebook), and referral communications toolkit. We also supported the team in their customer experience email journey and public relations to ensure seamless integration and consistent messaging across all channels. 

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Most importantly, we activated all channels to interact synergistically, ensuring high-quality leads progressed through the funnel to the final stage - submitting their application for the cohort. For instance, individuals who became aware of the opportunity through a referral source and visited the website would then be retargeted using social media with appropriate messaging. Once they began their application, they would be encouraged and reminded to complete it through a personalised customer experience email journey.

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🚀 First and foremost: Audience research

This was the most crucial first step before commencing any work on the campaign. Given the niche and specific nature of the audiences for EIT Food Entrepreneurship and its three programmes, extensive research was conducted, supplemented with input from the team, to inform the strategy.

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The goals and outcomes of this were two-fold. Firstly, to understand the needs, wants and pain points, as well as their most frequently used communication channels and entry topics. This information shaped the programme-specific messages and helped identify the most accurate targeting attributes on each platform. Secondly, to identify the commonalities among the three programmes and bridge their differences to craft a message and visual representation that best showcased EIT Food Entrepreneurship on a cohesive entity and as a thought leader in the sector. 

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Paid media campaign on LinkedIn and Facebook

We utilised LinkedIn and Facebook as paid media channels to promote the Recruitment Call as these two platforms were the optimal for reaching the specific and niche audiences of EIT Food Entrepreneurship. A full-funnel strategy was implemented with three stages - Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion, while ensuring data communication between these two platforms with other channels to maximise exposure and engagement without overwhelming the audience. 

Upon launching, the campaign was closely monitored and reviewed, both automatically by the platform and manually based on weekly performance analyses to identify campaign optimisation opportunities for  maximum engagement and conversion. 

The strategy included a mix of posts for EIT Food Entrepreneurship as a whole and specific posts for each of the three programmes. Messages were tailored to the campaign stage (i.e., Awareness, Consideration, or Conversion), and targeted specific audiences using the identified targeted attributes from the audience research. targeting attributes. Given the broad nature of these targeting attributes compared to how niche the target audience is, we used these channels as a broad "net" to capture as many "fishes" as possible at the awareness stage, with plans to retarget them in the later stages of the campaign. 

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Full-funnel email marketing

Our email strategy was a full-funnel approach tailored to leads at different stages of their decision-making process (awareness, consideration, near conversion or hesitation/scepticism). We used personalised content, tested for optimal tone-of-voice to create a message that best resonated with the audience at the right place, at the right time to maximise engagement and conversion.

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Customer journey email journey

We also developed various customer email journeys to deliver reminder emails at optimal times and frequencies (every 2–3 weeks to avoid email overload). These journeys were tailored to the applicants' stage in this application process, the programme they applied for, and hence their needs and wants. Each email also carried a personal and empathetic approach in order to create a personal and supportive connection with the audience. 

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Referral communication toolkit

EIT Food Entrepreneurship has a strong network of employees, partners, and alumni who could be activated to communicate about the opportunities to interested or soon-to-be interested individuals. To  maximise the chances of them spreading the word, we developed a referral communication toolkit for organic media, designed for easy use across various channels. The toolkit contains ready-to-use messages and supporting visuals, organised by channel (social media, email, direct message, and etc.) for easy navigation, along with clear instructions on how, when and where to use the assets. 

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💡 Our impact

Overall, the multi-channel strategy was comprehensive and effectively maximised conversion opportunities by activating multiple channels. Each channel contributed to the campaign's success in its unique way. 

The email strategy yielded a high open (58.79%) and a click rate (8.6%), both  well above industry benchmarks (NGOs; 40.03% & 3.27% respectively). This lead to 1/5 of total applications coming from this organic channel. 

The paid media campaign successfully captured a wide audience, as indicated in exceeding the Impression and Clicks KPIs using the broad targeting attributes. It  also successfully retained and converted those who showed keen interest in the opportunity using later phases of the campaign as well as other channels. In the end, paid media accounted for 14.5% of total conversion. 

The referral communication toolkit was also effective with about 20% of total applicants reporting that they learned about the programme from an EIT Food Organisation Member or Partner. These members utilised this toolkit to spread the word about the opportunity and also shared their positive feedback on the ease of use of the toolkit.

Lastly, the high open rate and click rates of the reminder emails (67% and 18% respectively) demonstrated their effectiveness in encouraging and motivating applicants to complete their applications. By the end of the Recruitment Call, we achieved a high application completion rate of 51%.

Working with the Dante Media team was a great experience. Their fresh, creative approach helped us to strengthen our ways to reach researchers, startups, and scaleups in AgriFoodTech.Their efforts contributed to higher email open rates, better website performance, and an increase in application completion rate. Most importantly, we were thrilled with the quality of the applicants we attracted, showing how these efforts really helped attract the right audience.

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- Marie Russier - Head of Entrepreneurship Programmes at EIT Food

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