Ghirardelli Hits The Sweet Spot Using VerticalResponse

Background

Manufacturing and selling premium chocolate since 1852, Ghirardelli has become a household name for its chocolates and famous Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. Their chocolates can be found everywhere from grocery stores to department stores, as well as many select tourist hot-spots. Ghirardelli is America's longest continuously operating chocolate manufacturer and products starting from the cocoa bean.

Problem

With chocolate and ice cream shops in key tourist locations: San Francisco, Orlando, San Diego, Las Vegas and Chicago, the restaurant and retail division of Ghirardelli recognized the need to market to traveling consumers. Additionally, because Ghirardelli chocolates are so widely distributed they realized the importance of building a closer relationship with consumers and the need to increase brand awareness in order to drive sales across their many locations.

Discovery

Ghirardelli was introduced to VerticalResponse in 2005 by a marketing consultant who helped them set up their account and get started with email marketing. The consultant initially managed the entire creative process, however in early 2008, Ghirardelli started doing all their email creation internally. They have successfully launched Choco-Mail, a monthly newsletter, which includes news and events, promotions, and recipes. Once they began designing emails internally, Ghirardelli was able to use their own creative team who better incorporated corporate branding. Ghirardelli’s email marketing campaigns are collaborative, incorporating content from the entire company including all aspects of their business, not just retail news.

Solution

Ghirardelli uses VerticalResponse to maintain and grow brand awareness and to promote their line of rich chocolates. "Our main priority is to connect our consumers with our brand. VerticalResponse and our Choco-Mail definitely help to do that," noted Felicia Gonzalez, Marketing Associate. VerticalResponse's email solution has enabled Ghirardelli to expand its marketing efforts, communicate with customers more frequently and drive people to make purchases online. Ghirardelli is constantly trying to figure out how to connect with their customers, whether it’s through offers or promoting different products online through their Choco-Mail.

VerticalResponse has provided Ghirardelli with an easy-to-use email marketing solution to reach thousands of customers. In order to promote its brand identity, Ghirardelli uses the 'Canvas' email creation option available with VerticalResponse. They are able to send out emails whenever they want to and keep their own exclusive template. Ghirardelli finds VerticalRepsonse to be very intuitive and is able to quickly and easily create emails.

Within just a few years, Ghirardelli has developed an impressive mailing list of 65,000 customers, growing its email list through various means. They collect names and information through many different promotion types, including drawings and special offers. They also make sure to have the Choco-Mail sign-up sheet in each of their stores and at various festivals so that customers can subscribe to their mailing list. After they collect names and emails they simply enter the information into VerticalResponse. Additionally, Ghirardelli has implemented list segmentation to target specific geographic areas for warehouse sales or promotional offers.

Results

Selling chocolate may be easier than selling sardines but Ghirardelli's use of VerticalResponse demonstrates just how important email marketing can be for any business. Having a branded email service has greatly impacted the growth of Ghirardelli’s online presence. Their Choco-Mail open-rate is about 20%, which has dramatically improved over the years. It's an excellent open rate and much higher than the industry average and their click-through rate is also quite high. Ghirardelli's passion for chocolate has melted into a passion for email marketing with VerticalResponse.

Ghirardelli has taken advantage of all VerticalResponse's resources: customer support, whitepapers, and videos to perfect their marketing strategy. "When there’s an issue with anything, I'll definitely call the customer service representatives. HTML is new to me and I would be stressed out without the awesome customer support. The product is quite intuitive and there’s so much support that it becomes very easy to use VerticalResponse. It’s great to have someone explain certain things step by step and how to actually build the email," said Gonzalez.

With VerticalResponse customer support and online resources, Ghirardelli has taken advantage of the many product options and features available. "I’m constantly learning so many different things that we can be doing. From ROI tracking, to surveys, to campaign comparison and forward-to-a- friend feature. There's so many different facets that anyone can use and we’re constantly trying to play with the product. It’s an indispensible tool for online marketing," said Gonzalez. Ghirardelli demonstrates that VerticalResponse can help all organizations, both big and small, to increase brand awareness and drive sales with email marketing.