CMI Orchards says its consumer digital marketing strategy has helped lift retail apple sales by 14.8 per cent this season, with Kiku and Kanzi sales increasing by 28 per cent during the promotion period.
The company has teamed up with MNI Targeted Media to create digital campaigns that drive consumers to retail locations, whether in person or online, using geotargeting, analytics, and research. One recent campaign resulted in 4,267 direct impressions to a grocery store’s website.
“CMI Orchards is the first Washington shipper to leverage digital advertising campaigns of this magnitude,” explained marketing specialist Danelle Huber.
“We’ve worked hard to develop and use this cutting-edge technology to promote our brands and increase foot traffic to stores, and we’re able to offer it to retail partners in an easy and accessible manner. They do not need to invest any time or effort to take advantage of this tool.”
Sabrina Baklenko, account executive at MNI Targeted Media, added: “CMI is really stepping out of the box and providing incredibly strong support to their growers and retailers with these digital tools.
“Once we were able to really identify key target audiences, we then narrowed in on their consumer behaviour patterns. We use this data to build campaigns that deliver results.”
For the past year, CMI Orchards has also been the only Washington apple shipper to work directly with Instacart to sell bagged product.
Huber said the partnership had allowed CMI to learn the ins and outs of Instacart’s business.
“They’ve been extremely supportive of working through UPC barriers and have given us fantastic tools on how to grow in the digital and online sales sector,” she explained.
“It’s a partnership we hope to continue to grow as we see online shopping continue to increase.”
