Caffeine Army
Caffeine Army, a Brazilian company dedicated to creating high-quality, healthy coffee-based energy drinks and supplements, began its ambitious journey in...
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Caffeine Army, a Brazilian company dedicated to creating high-quality, healthy coffee-based energy drinks and supplements, began its ambitious journey in 2016. “Our CEO introduced our proprietary coffee recipe to Brazil, addressing a gap in our market for healthy, energizing products.” Today, they are one of the most popular coffee products in Brazil with their ‘Super coffee’, an energizing drink designed for the health-conscious. They now have ambitions to become a household name beyond their homeland, expanding into the US and Canada.
Vitor Montassier, Growth Coordinator at Caffeine Army, shared the company’s growth story. “I joined Caffeine Army in 2020 when we were a fledgling company with 15-20 members. We focused on online sales and were just beginning to grow when the pandemic hit.” A defining year, 2020 marked the beginning of an intensified online presence and a new approach to client engagement and retention.
Facing the Marketing Automation Challenge
Caffeine Army’s initial struggles revolved around software constraints, particularly in the realm of customer organization. “Software limitations with our automation tools prompted our switch to ActiveCampaign,” Vitor shared, highlighting difficulties in labeling, tagging, and segmenting their growing customer base. “We were working from 3 or 4 free Mailchimp accounts, but eventually we knew we needed something that could handle more sophisticated automation and organization.” The major tipping point came when the company transitioned to Shopify in 2022 for its e-commerce operations. At that moment, they needed a solution to cultivate and strengthen customer relationships, driving further customer acquisition and revenue growth.
“With our previous tools, it was cumbersome to organize our customer base using labels, tags, and segments. However, with Shopify and ActiveCampaign, we’ve streamlined our processes,” explained Vitor. The decision stemmed from a need for a platform that offered seamless Shopify integration. Efficiency became the name of the game. “We saw how much time we could save, and the seamless ecommerce integration with Shopify made ActiveCampaign our choice.”
Revolutionizing Client Engagement with ActiveCampaign
Caffeine Army has grown rapidly from a base of 50,000 contacts to managing over 600,000 leads on ActiveCampaign. One of the key areas of revenue growth is converting one-time buyers to a subscription plan. “Our business model prioritizes customer retention. We aim for consistent purchases every month or two.” This strategy necessitated distinguishing customer behaviors: one-time e-commerce sales versus subscriptions. “When acquiring a client, we evaluate their purchase volume to identify potential subscribers.” Online buyers are tagged and the size and frequency of their orders are shared with ActiveCampaign from Shopify. Frequent shoppers are then sent into a nurture stream where they’re sent personalized touchpoints to help them see the benefits and savings of becoming a subscriber.
Reengaging “dead” contacts to get the most out of their lists
Caffeine Army faced a problem many companies confront: disengaged contacts. In order to keep deliverability and open rates high, disengaged contacts are taken out of nurture automations after a certain amount of time. Vitor and the team, however, aimed to reengage these dormant contacts in a unique way. They accomplished that by setting up a two-week sample-sharing campaign.
Vitor shared, “We ran a two-week campaign offering samples to our disengaged list.” By selling a cheaper sample pack compared to the pricier commitment of a full sized product, Vitor was able to get a lot of contacts reengaged after a long stint of unopened emails. “We had the delivery confirmation from Shopify sent over to ActiveCampaign and then sent the new lead an email asking how they liked the sample and begin offering a full-sized version of the exact flavor they ordered. We saw a ton of people reengage after a long time of them not opening our emails.”
This campaign is a testament to their innovative approach to leveraging marketing automation to reengage customers and upsell their full-sized products, which led to increased sales. ActiveCampaign then enabled more detailed segmentation of their customer base, a task previously deemed challenging with Caffeine Army’s previous tech stack.
Recapturing abandoned cart revenue
Caffeine Army also sends abandoned cart emails to win back potential sales. To ensure these emails are personalized and highly impactful, they pull in the exact product the customer left behind using ActiveCampaign’s product catalog. This way, customers see the item they were eyeing, making it easy for them to pick up where they left off. They don’t limit these reminders to just email though. Vitor shared, “We use AC automation to orchestrate this strategy with other channels such as WhatsApp and SMS. Because of ActiveCampaign’s Shopify integration, we know in real-time if the customer still has items abandoned in their cart, so we try email, then SMS, and then WhatsApp to remind them to complete their purchase.” This multichannel approach has helped boost sales and give customers a nudge to finish their purchases.
Multichannel marketing drives success
Like many countries around the world, WhatsApp is a highly prevalent communication channel for consumers. Integrating WhatsApp with ActiveCampaign has been key to Caffeine Army’s success. “WhatsApp is a vital tool in Brazil. We integrate it with ActiveCampaign to send messages using webhooks and other tools. When our team receives a WhatsApp message, a webhook alerts ActiveCampaign, allowing us to monitor metrics effectively.” Vitor also shared that in Brazil, people like engaging over WhatsApp and that the channel gave Caffeine Army sales reps the opportunity to connect directly with customers. Having their order and communication history readily available also helps these reps speak to contacts in a highly personalized way.
Centralized customer data improves customer service and marketing insights
ActiveCampaign’s CRM emerged as a tool of empowerment. The sales team could interact online with customers, structuring interactions effectively. This CRM utility extended to the customer service team, who could view customer histories, ensuring personalized service.
ActiveCampaign also proved invaluable during Caffeine Army’s transition to Shopify. As a team member observed, “Transitioning to Shopify momentarily disrupted our data access. However, ActiveCampaign provided crucial insights during this period.”
Impactful Outcomes & The Road Ahead
Caffeine Army’s decision to integrate ActiveCampaign bore fruit in multiple ways. Their open rates improved, costs optimized, and customer interactions became more tailored. Reflecting on their journey with ActiveCampaign, the team resonates with gratitude. “One significant benefit of ActiveCampaign was its ability to automatically identify and isolate inactive leads, optimizing costs and improving open rates.” For Caffeine Army, it wasn’t just about automation but about refining and amplifying their customer engagement strategies.
A quick summary of some of the most impactful improvements:
- 21% of inactive leads recovered through automation and personalization
- 206% revenue growth YoY, strongly supported by email marketing
- 25% average open rate across all emails
If you’re looking to empower your business journey like Caffeine Army, start with ActiveCampaign’s 14-day free trial today!
