As Folks Stay Home, Vitamix Brings the Joy of Cooking Directly to Customers

Food has the uncanny ability to bring people together. With many of us cooking at home more than ever before, healthy and fun ways of doing so are becoming increasingly important. Few companies understand the power of food better than Vitamix. With a cult following built over 100 years, the brand has held lifelong relationships with customers and inspired a zest for transforming food.

The company knows the importance of creating meaningful connections with their customers. In the very beginning, founder William Grover Barnard worked tirelessly to hold face-to-face conversations with customers as he traveled the country selling the product.

In 1950, Vitamix wanted to reach a wider audience and took its live demonstrations to TV, creating its first infomercial. Fast forward to today, with consumers moving aggressively online, Vitamix has tapped Adobe Experience Cloud apps to create and deepen its relationship with customers digitally.

A digital revamp

A Vitamix blender is not just any blender. Besides an engine that generates enough power to create soup or churn ice cream, it has plenty of unique features that make cooking fun and easy. The lid plug for example, is also a measuring cup.

Vitamix.com has been the home for content spanning recipes, tips & tricks, and more. All that content however, had not been utilized to full potential. In an effort to better engage consumers and maximize their investments in the blender, Vitamix revamped its digital strategy. First up, they revamped the look and feel of the content with search capabilities, filters and more. With Adobe Analytics, they are able to monitor engagement and make ongoing tweaks to drive interest.

Then in June 2019, with a bit of help from Adobe Campaign, the company launched Vitamix Rewards. It began as a way to encourage two-way communication with customers and allowed the company to better anticipate their needs.

The rewards program gives members points for everything from trying new blending techniques to writing product reviews and completing short surveys – which can then be redeemed for things like Vitamix accessories. Customers can track their progress on the website or through customized monthly emails with updates on their activity and points balance.

According to Jimmy Wojtila, Associate Manager, Email Marketing, at Vitamix: “Adobe Campaign gave us an ability to evolve and scale our marketing efforts as our company grew. The loyalty program is a great example of that, an effort that we delivered with incredible speed. Over time, the analytics have helped us not only make improvements and maintain a high engagement rate, but also to learn about our community’s needs and inform the content strategy in programs like ‘Recipes of the Week.’”

When COVID-19 made it so that more people had to stay home, Vitamix knew that an even bigger audience would find value in its content. They put more of a focus on engaging blender owners (and potential ones) digitally with new ways to cook, eat healthy and still have a good time.

Created by chefs on staff, the recipes have been easy to follow, such as a fruit sorbet with Greek yogurt. And in the case of “Chef Matt”, he’s been doing his cooking demos remotely from home.

Tips & tricks have evolved as well, with one story focused on making the most use of limited grocery hauls, while another looked at ways to boost immunity. And as more people are engaging content and trying new techniques, they are earning points in the Vitamix Rewards program as well.

Proof in the pudding

The investment that Vitamix has made in building meaningful relationships with their customers is paying off. Since launching in June of 2019, Vitamix Rewards is approaching 90,000 members, with over 140,000 engagements with recipes and tips provided through the program.

The “Recipe of the Week” series has seen an average clickthrough rate of 33 percent, significantly above many industry benchmarks (some of which are in the single digits).

As Vitamix looks towards their 100th anniversary in 2021, the company continues to push the envelope with customer engagement. To commemorate the milestone, they will be publishing a new cookbook with recipes submitted by their most passionate customers.