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Noviden Technologies, a Halifax-based software-development company owned by George Borovan, has invested $1-million and three years of resource time into building its proprietary meal-planning website, MealEasy.com. The site is designed to help time-starved customers plan and prepare wholesome, home-cooked meals with the least amount of fuss and bother. In a society where what we eat is under constant scrutiny, the 60-year-old Mr. Borovan would seem to have found a recipe for success.
The former owner of a dental laboratory business, Mr. Borovan teamed up with his computer-savvy son, Brent, to create an automated, online meal planner that allows users to plan all of their lunches and dinners a week in advance. MealEasy.com also allows paid subscribers to screen recipes on the basis of ingredients, country of origin, individual allergies and dietary restrictions (for example, diabetes or a heart condition), and track nutritional content, including calories. The site even generates a shopping list of ingredients for the recipes selected by the customer. Each recipe requires only 10 minutes in prep time, plus a bit longer for the actual cooking.
A Web developer and an in-house chef are now part of the MealEasy team, and as a group the company is focusing on developing and testing recipes, as well as building the site. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's website, among others, provided them with information about healthy eating and dietary restrictions.
Mr. Borovan admits he didn't examine many other meal-planning sites. "We didn't look over our shoulders [at the competition] too much. We didn't want to get derailed," he said.
A marketing campaign to promote MealEasy to potential subscribers cost Mr. Borovan about $250,000 of his total capital investment. Developed by Cossette Communication Group, the campaign included online ads, magazine and newspaper spots, and sponsorship of closed-captioning on TV programs.
During the month that succeeded the Jan. 7 launch, MealEasy received about 30,000 hits, and several hundred people signed up for a free two-week trial. But up till now, fewer than 100 people have subscribed to the basic meal plan ($19.95 a month) or the expanded plan ($24.95 a month). Meanwhile, he's getting lots of inquiries.
What our experts say
The first issue, says David Zbar of the online marketing company Webfeat Multimedia, is that MealEasy is hard to find online. It has a fantastic URL and dot-com site, yet it doesn't show up in a general search of meal planning, he said.
"It doesn't matter how great the site is [if] no one's going to be able to find it," he says.
Mr. Zbar blames the infrastructure of MealEasy.com for making it hard for search engines to connect to it. The site map and internal and external links are not search-friendly; therefore, big engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN do not find the site when they scan for "meal planning" or "healthy eating." Search-engine optimization is crucial in drawing traffic to a website, although it can take up to six months for fix-ups to produce the desired results.
He thinks the online media "buy" through Cossette Communication is a good strategy because it is measurable. The best way to drive up both the number of trials and paid subscriptions, he says, would be to implement a paid-search marketing campaign using key words for which the company pays per click.
Once the technical details are straightened out, MealEasy needs to pay attention to its content. Toronto cookbook author Eshun Mott says MealEasy has achieved its goal of creating recipes that are not overly intimidating. "They are international, fairly flavourful, but not a lot of ingredients," she says, adding that the recipes are written in a straightforward manner.
But she disagrees with their decision not to look at other meal-planning sites. "I understand that they are hoping to have an original look and concept, but if they're going to be competitive, the point is to do it better or differently than everyone else. I think this could have helped them really identify and market to their target audience," she says.
Other meal-planning sites offer a continually expanding repertoire of recipes, both from the site hosts and from other cooks. "On some of the sites, there is the ability to swap your own recipes with other subscribers, and some have forums for discussion," she says. On some sites, when a customer inputs favourite recipes, the ingredients are added to the shopping lists.
Checking out the competition helps a company figure out what it needs to do to stand out from others in the field, agrees Mr. Zbar. "The space is so crowded, so differentiating yourself from the competition by an offer, tools or from a value-added perspective is important."
He would also focus on those features that put MealEasy customers front-and-centre, and that give them a sense of ownership of the site. He suggests MealEasy's testimonial page could be expanded as a forum for user-generated content. And given the site's emphasis on healthy food, he recommends that Mr. Borovan set up blogs and forums on health in order to support that lifestyle. "They could create their own blog."
Ms. Mott suggests MealEasy feature special recipes such as desserts of the week, kid-friendly dishes, or meals for the freezer or slow-cooker. Special-occasion recipes are also a great opportunity to create some partnerships with food-related companies, Mr. Zbar suggests. At Thanksgiving, for example, a recipe calling for cranberry sauce is a chance to create a relationship with Ocean Spray (one of Webfeat's clients), and offer an e-coupon for cranberries and perhaps carry some of Ocean Spray's recipes.
"To me it's a no-brainer that they should create partnerships with consumer package goods and retail partners for product placement for special offers," Mr. Zbar says, adding that this could create revenue as well as opportunities for e-coupons.
In a nutshell
LET THE WEB WORK FOR YOU
People use the Internet to simplify their lives. Get all the technical details right to make it easy for customers to find you.
INCREASE THE TRAFFIC
Use online techniques to direct people to your site, and then make sure the site is welcoming and straightforward to use.
DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF
Make your product stand out in the crowd. Provide information, opportunities and value that customers can't get anywhere else.
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