Image from: Rice Krispies Image / Shutterstock

As everyone who has ever met me knows, I love cereal.  I can’t start my day without a big bowl (or maybe 2) of cereal.  I could eat cereal any time of the day, so I especially like cereal based snacks.  Rice Krispie treats and Chex mix are two of my favorites.  And I am not alone.

Each month, hundreds of thousands of people look for recipes on the Rice Krispies sites.  Chex recipe seeking throughout the year is much lower, however, during the holidays Chex traffic surpasses Rice Krispies traffic and peaks to more than half a million consumers.  Clearly consumers love Chex mix recipes, but for some reason, they only think to make them during the holidays.  There is an opportunity for Chex to reach consumers all year round and change this habit.

And perhaps paid search is one way to attract recipe searchers.  Chex historically invested in paid search, but this has slowed since the holidays.  On the other hand, with the exception of a low point in December, paid search accounts for upwards of 25 percent of total Rice Krispie search referrals.

And looking at the search terms driving traffic to Ricekrispies.com, they are leveraging paid search to attract generic recipe searchers.

Chex is failing to capture these types of searcher.  In fact, the first non-branded term sending traffic to Chex.com does not appear until term number 20, and this term is one of only two non-branded terms to make the top 50 list.

Perhaps by investing in a search campaign focusing on non-branded terms, Chex can entice more snack seekers.  Or maybe they need a new media campaign focusing on baking with the product to remind consumers of all the delicious snacks one can make with Chex.   Chex lovers are out there—the company just needs to find them more often than just during the holidays!