Coffee Seller Keurig Tests Mail In Consumer-Focused Effort
If a new direct mail campaign from Keurig is successful, 2011 will see consumers moving at a slightly peppier pace. Right around Thanksgiving 2010, the coffee marketer sent out 125,000 pieces, urging consumers to either try or give as gifts its in-home brewing systems.
“We don’t typically do direct mail, but the holidays felt like a great time to test the concept,” says Tammy L. Hegarty, director of consumer direct and digital marketing and Keurig. “We have been using digital marketing tactics, and are exploring how we can use other mediums, like direct mail, to help with engagement.”
The consumer group had an advantage going into its test: Keurig’s parent company, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc., uses direct mail for its retail- and business-focused efforts. Hegarty’s group drew on other units’ knowledge of content, product placement and response rates.
“The advantage we have, in being an enterprise family, is that we don’t have to go very far to share best practices,” she says.
The mail campaign consists of two different creative packages, both of which were designed by King Fish Media. Fifty thousand copies of a 16-page catalog titled “Share the Love” were mailed to high-volume consumer customers. Another 50,000 were sent to customers who hadn’t made a purchase within the past year. Because these recipients already have a brewer and are familiar with the product, the mailer was able to showcase a mix of coffee and tea products as well as the hardware.
Separately, 25,000 prospects who had never made a purchase received a 10-panel accordion-style mailer. This piece downplayed the variety of flavors available (featuring them primarily in photographs, but not the copy) in favor of offering an introduction to the hardware. It also offered mini-vignettes about different personality types that enjoy single-cup brewing systems.
Before launching its campaign, Keurig’s consumer unit ran a profile of its million-plus customer database, and found buyers were primarily women between the ages of 35 and 55.
The customer profile gave direction to King Fish Media’s creative work. It also shaped list selection. The prospecting part of the campaign used lists from direct marketing firms that cater to women who buy higher-end household goods. Within each list, Keurig isolated those who had made an online purchase within three months.
The primary function of both mailers is to drive traffic back to the company’s online gift pages (keurig.com/Holiday). Hegarty intends to do matchback analysis, linking online purchases made within the campaign’s time frame to mailer recipients.
That said, she knows some recipients will be spurred to purchase their K-cups—the small packages of coffee, tea or other drinks—through retailers. While part of the test’s success will be its return on investment, she acknowledges there will be an unmeasurable halo effect.
Hegarty isolated the direct mail test’s 125,000 names from other promotional activity the unit is conducting during the holiday season. None of them, for instance, received e-mail from an 800,000-effort blast the unit sent out to existing customers on Nov. 27—a “one and done” campaign, as opposed to sending multiple efforts. There is, however, a chance that individuals in both groups will receive one of 50,000 package inserts the company is distributing.
Going forward, Keurig will look at the test’s results and determine what role direct mail will play in Keurig’s outreach to consumers. This campaign was timed for the December holiday season; future use may rely more on event triggers than seasonal campaigns.
