Extensive Marketing Strategy of Dunkin – Detailed Explanation

Updated on: Jul 30, 2022

In our previous blog, we learned about the SWOT analysis of Dunkin. In this article, we are going to talk about the marketing strategy of Dunkin donuts based in the United States,  and also one of the largest coffee shops and donuts shop chains in the world, as well as a quick-service restaurant.

This article aims to gain insights into Dunkin Donuts and learn how it became one of the world’s largest coffee and donut shop chains.

Marketing is part of our everyday life as it’s the backbone of industries and their biggest tool for reaching their prospective buyers. These days, marketing is majorly online as the world is moving towards the digital era. If you want to learn more about Digital marketing, then do check out our Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing by the CEO and founder of IIDE, Karan shah.

We will explain in detail the marketing strategy of Dunkin donuts by the end of this article but before that let’s begin with the company’s history, its marketing strategy, and digital presence.

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Overview of Dunkin’ 

Dunkin’ was founded in the year 1950 in Quincy, Massachusetts, the U.S. by William Rosenberg and it is one of the leading franchise providers of quick-service restaurants in the world. With approximately 13,500 stores across 42 countries, Dunkin’ has been winning the souls of customers with its appetising range of doughnuts, freshly brewed coffee and espresso, baked goods and more. 

World’s favourite Dunkin’ is an everyday stop for coffee and baked goods. Dunkin’ is a market leader in the hot coffee, iced coffee, doughnut, bagel and muffin categories. Earlier, in 1990 the chain was acquired by Baskin-Robbins but now Dunkin’ is part of the Inspire Brands family of restaurants. Dunkin’ has more than 12,600 restaurants in 40 countries worldwide.

 

Quick Stats on Dunkin
CEO David Hoffmann
CMO Rafael Acevedo
Area Served Global Presence
Industry Food, beverages and a quick-service restaurant.
Market Share/ Revenue US$1.32 Billion per year
Vision To be always the desired place for great coffee beverages and delicious complimentary donuts and bakery products to enjoy with family and friends.
Tagline America runs on dunkin’

 

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin

Having learnt about Dunkin’, let’s learn about their marketing strategy and how they carry out their marketing campaigns.

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning

According to the US Census Bureau (2010), in 2009, America had a population of 307,006,550 people living in an area of 79.6 square kilometres. Aside from that, America is a highly urbanised country, with 81 percent of the population living in cities. Dunkin Donuts’ segment markets include students, workers, children, and families. Dunkin’ Donuts has a franchise outlet in the Orchard Road retail complex. 

Therefore, having studied the population, Dunkin was able to know that their customers were mainly children, students, and workers, so they focused their advertising and products on them in America and as its global presence grew, Dunkin still used this study to know their customers, thereby providing the best to them.

The target consumer for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is of three characteristics, which include: age 18-25, who are teenagers and young workers whose budgets are limited, Age 25 years old and above, they are the heavy restaurants’ user groups due to busy working lifestyles and they have relatively high incomes and are more flexible in their budgets and then the businessman that does not perceive Dunkin Donuts coffee as a luxury food but as an easy takeaway food when they rush to go to work

On a national and worldwide basis, Dunkin Donuts is establishing itself as a preferred brand. The company’s philosophy is to “make and serve the freshest, most delicious coffee and donuts swiftly and courteously in modern, well-merchandised establishments.”

This philosophy enabled Dunkin Donuts coffee to become America’s favourite all-day coffee and baked goods stop. It is America’s leading retailer of hot and iced regular coffee by the cup, as well as the world’s largest coffee and baked goods chain (Dunkin’ Donuts 2009).

Marketing Campaigns

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin - Campaign 1

Dunkin’ Donuts believed that visually appealing creative content was the most effective way to entice customers to visit their stores, so they teamed up with Collab, a digital talent network and entertainment studio, to launch a national Snapchat campaign with a special offer for fans on that day: get a free donut with the purchase of any beverage. The minimum goal was to reach a population of 2-3 million.

Dunkin’ Donuts earned 10X more followers on National Donut Day as a result of the Snapchat campaign’s popularity than their typical monthly followers. It resulted in the brand’s highest-viewed Snapchat story to date. The total reach across all channels was 3 million people, with a total engagement of 40 thousand people.

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin - Campaign 2

Other marketing campaigns include discounts and great offers offered on any celebration like global donuts day valentine’s day, mothers day, children’s day etc. the posts related to these are posted on social media handles of Dunkin. The posts are alluring and can easily convince a viewer to order or go straight to the Dunkin’s store to buy some food and beverage.

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin - Campaign 3

Dunkin’ Donuts conducted a Multisensory Marketing Campaign to grab their customer’s attention towards coffee after successfully making customers think about Donuts. Seoul, the capital of Korea has been nicknamed the land of coffee where Dunkin’s “Flavor Radio” campaign supported by multisensory marketing hooked the audience and instilled them to go to Dunkin’s stores to get their morning coffee.

Curious to know the complete story behind this marketing campaign, then simply visit this — link to know more about how multisensory and stimulus marketing works to encourage potential customers.


Social Media Marketing

Dunkin’ is active on social media and uses this social media for marketing its brands. Dunkin is active on Instagram with over 2.2 million followers. They are also active on Twitter with over 1.2 million followers, on Facebook with about 16 million followers, and on other social media platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok. 

Out of these platforms, Dunkin has many followers on Instagram and Twitter, which have over 2.2 million and 1.2 million followers, respectively, and they are very active on these two social media platforms with their content because they are actively posting their content.

They promote their products on their social media pages, make announcements, do advertising, and promote their campaigns. So the goal of their social media marketing approach is to engage customers by creating fascinating content that they can’t resist looking at.

 

SEO strategies

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin - SEO

In the ranking of SEO, it is said that the number of keywords – below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good and 10,000 + is amazing, as we can see from the above diagram, Dunkin has 248,307 and is considered as being amazing, this means that the digital marketing of Dunkin is gaining a good amount of insights.

Also, the traffic per month is over 11 million which is known to be awesome, hence Dunkin’s SEO strategies are very good and they should keep improving, soaring high and keep building their brand in the Google organic results.


Influencer marketing

Dunkin engaged an army of TikTok influencers to promote the firm and design new signature drinks for their menu as the majority of marketing has moved online. While the advertising tool first appeared to be an exciting method for creators to earn some additional cash, Dunkin’ went all-in when they hired Charli D’Amelio, the app’s queen. Dunkin’ has dominated the influencer industry since then, making drinks, developing content, and building a viral reputation that has led to real-world cash sales.


E-commerce strategy

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin - e-com

With respect to their e-commerce strategy, Dunkin’ has a website where they sell their products with awesome offers to their customers. You can order and pay for their product online and have it delivered to your locations. The website is simple, user interactive, load time is less and engaging. Users visit the website to order food and to explore content posted by Dunkin, which we can analyse by looking at the SEO score.


Mobile apps 

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin - Mobile App

Dunkin developed a mobile app to increase sales and it’s all super convenient, of course, and allows users of the service to speed past those lines in-store and pick up their donuts, coffees and muffins. There are separate apps according to different countries, for example, Dunkin’ India, Egypt, Morocco, Chile, UAE etc and more. The download range from 10k+ to 100k+. 


Content Marketing Strategies

Dunkin is very active on social media platforms, they post things relating to their products like new flavours, price slashes, new product awareness etc. they have different sources of posting but their main three on social media are Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

 

This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Dunkin. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Dunkin.

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Conclusion— What is unique in Dunkin’ marketing?

From the above marketing strategy of Dunkin, we can see that Dunkin has achieved a global presence both offline and online because of the support and love It gets from people around the world ranging from people who buy from their stores and those who ordered online. Its uniqueness as the largest coffee shop and donuts shop chain in the world, as well as a quick-service restaurant, has improved its sales. Dunkin’ is a good company with a good marketing strategy, and it would be nice if they kept improving.

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Dunkin has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Dunkin check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Dunkin, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of Dunkin in the comments section below.

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Author's Note:

My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

Practical assignments, case studies & simulations helped the students from this course present this analysis.

Building on this practical approach, we are now introducing a new dimension for our online digital marketing course learners - the Campus Immersion Experience.

If you found this case study helpful, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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