An Eye-Opening Experience
Not too long ago, coffee only came in one flavor. Today, coffee lovers have a multitude of choices to wake up to and tempt their taste buds with -making the coffee business a highly competitive industry. That's why Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) - recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the "200 Best Small Companies in America" -relies on PeopleSoft Enterprise Online Marketing to execute targeted email campaigns that caters to the specific needs of its eclectic customer base.
"Customers want us to cater to their needs on a more specific level. That's what PeopleSoft Enterprise Online Marketing lets us do. We can interact with our customers on a more detailed level that's much more meaningful to them," says Ken Crites, director of Consumer Direct for GMCR.
GMCR has been publicly traded since 1993 and had sales in excess of $116 million for the fiscal year ended September 2003. The company roasts about 90 varieties of arabica coffee, which it sells to more than 7,000 wholesale customers including supermarkets, convenience stores, resorts and office delivery services. The coffee is sold under the Newman's Own Organics brand, as well as the Green Mountain Coffee label. The company also markets its coffees and related accessories via catalogs and the Internet. Chairman and CEO Robert Stiller owns about 38 percent of Green Mountain.
Defining Customer Value With a low-end, e-mail campaign software package that allowed only single mime-capable messages, GMCR realized that it needed a more robust solution that not only executed campaigns but also leveraged customer preferences.
"Before PeopleSoft Enterprise Online Marketing, all our customers were getting the same e-mail newsletter," says Rod Ely, systems development manager, GMCR. "We had no customer profile information to tailor our newsletters to our customers' interests."
With its Online Marketing solution, GMCR provides dynamic content in its e-mail newsletter campaigns targeted to specific customer segments. The company can detect and capture valuable data including demographics, customer interests, purchases, permission preferences, and responses to Web forms and surveys.
"Because we know more about our customers, we can talk to people who aren't in our coffee club and try to get them to join," says Ely. "We can provide coffee club customers with special information about upcoming gifts or products. We also make seasonal coffees, and that's one of the main offerings we want to present to our customers through the Online Marketing tool in the dynamic content area."
Detail Oriented Armed with detailed customer knowledge, GMCR no longer treats every customer the same way. The company now knows how to communicate effectively with every customer on a personal level. "Our company has a very socially responsible mission," says Ely. "Many of our coffee club members prefer to buy fair trade and organic coffees. Now that we know that, we can send out targeted product announcements and increase our customer satisfaction."
Ely says GMCR now has the ability to embed within its e-mails dynamic content based on individual customers purchasing habits.
"If we know, for example that you are a tea drinker or that you prefer organic coffees or decaf or flavors we can send a standard newsletter but based on specific purchasing history, we can also custom-tailor messages," says Ely. "We know that its very powerful. One of the things that is very helpful to us is to get consumers to join our coffee club. It's nice to only push the coffee club on the people who we know aren't club members." Ely says for customers who aren't club members, special coffees and other sales will be highlighted.
Nice Numbers Under its prior online process, using a different tool, GMCR was all too aware of its sluggish Web sales. "We always had spikes after a newsletter effort but never to this degree," says Ely. "This is a significant boost. We are definitely getting the messages out there more accurately."
Since GMCR launched its first online campaign in November 2003, Web sales have increased by 60 percent. And overall Web traffic is up by 50 percent. GMCR says that on the e-mail drop date, Web traffic is tripled, boosting its overall Web site business by 60 percent.
Ely says GMCR is still carrying out certain online marketing tasks manually, but all of that could soon change thanks to PeopleSoft technology. "Eventually, we would like our order confirmations sent out using this tool because that would allow us to have an entire dialogue. Somebody could get their order confirmation then be led back into a survey about their satisfaction, back to the Web site with any deals or coupons," says Ely. Currently, GMCR's supply chain management tool is PeopleSoft 8.0 but the CRM tool is 8.8. "As for the integration, a bunch of it we have to do ourselves and until we get more of the CRM modules implemented, we're limiting the extent of the integration at this point," says Ely. Brewing Profitability
GMCR plans to integrate Online Marketing with its PeopleSoft Enterprise Supply Chain solution. This integration will allow it to leverage customers' order history easily, execute outbound campaigns to capture feedback on how they like the company's products, and ultimately, enable GMCR to continually focus its targeting capabilities. It will also help them to serve customers better and identify cross-sell or up-sell opportunities.
"The integration of our customer database at every touch point is critical for us to have an effective ongoing dialog with our customers," says Crites. "PeopleSoft gives us that. Having all our transactions in the same solution enables everyone at our company to be much more knowledgeable when communicating with customers and that has a direct effect on our bottom line."