For
Innocent, it all started just over 15 years ago, when three Cambridge
graduates, Adam Balon, Richard Reed and Jon Wright tested the water at a small
music festival in London.
Armed with a large sign (which asked people if
they 'thought they should give up their jobs to make smoothies'), and a 'Yes'
bin and a 'No' bin in front of their stall, they asked their consumers to vote
with their empties and the rest as they say, is history. The next day all three
resigned and now, Innocent have expanded to provide veg pots, juices and
kids' drinks across Europe, with the vision of helping 'people live well and
die old'. The company turns over in excess of €200m across Europe and continues
to go from strength to strength.
So how does a company as successful as Innocent
remain true to its roots and keep its consumers happy? Put simply, by engaging
with their consumers via all touch points, giving them a way to voice their
opinion and keeping it 'fun', the company offers all critical components that
ensures the brand remains both fresh and front of mind to the consumer.
Whilst not every company has the luxury of being
able to communicate using consumer language on their product itself (Innocent
bottles use simple things, such as 'enjoy by' rather than 'use by' and 'call us
for a chat' to engage with the consumers in a friendly and approachable way),
another approach used by Innocent is their eCRM system. With over 120k
subscribers, their newsletter has a vast reach and is continuing to grow.
A CRM (or Customer Relationship Management system)
allows a company to track and segment consumer types based on their interests
and preferences. For your average business, it is a great way to ensure you can
gather useful information on your customers, tailor messaging or offers to
certain target markets and allow you to identify trends that you may not have
been aware of at first glance.
And this is where we stumble into the arena of
market research. Through formal or informal information gathering (stored in an
up to date CRM system), you are essentially undertaking your own form of
primary research and through interpreting this data (via segmentation,
reviewing and identifying trends or similarities in consumers), you can tailor
or even introduce new products or services to a new market.
So even if you do not sell fruit based beverages,
your company can benefit from simple market research and who knows - you might
just uncover the next 'smoothie'.
From Richard Wood, Insights & Intelligence
Officer, Enterprise Marketing Solutions Ltd.
01296 584834 www.enterprisemarketing.co.uk