How Did Caribou Coffee Have Success with Pinterest

Recently, I read a story about a specialty coffee and espresso retailer by the name of Caribou Coffee. Get this: they are the second largest specialty coffee in the food and retail industry and a very successful company. So, what were their ingredients to success with Pinterest? Drive and determination--the two D's.

Caribou Coffee began utilizing Pinterest for the purpose of giving inspiration to loyal customers. This meant creating their boards that spark interest with customers. The pinned boards include quotes, photos, favorite combination flavors, coffee drinks and pins from other Pinners.

This company has a hunch: they listened to their customers. So to prepare for their latest coffee, called "Real Inspiration Blend," they asked their followers on Pinterest for their assistance in helping Pinners to add pictures of inspiration, which included the hastag #InspireCaribou on Pinterest. As a result, Caribou took a look at these Pins to analyze what the new blend should consist of--notes of mango for tropical rainforest images, a touch of smoke and marshmallow for an image of a group of friends sitting around a bonfire and silk-type for an image of water running on the pebbles. The final product: an aroma combination of Latin American and Ethiopian sweet beans with fruit notes and wine.

The company had launched the Real Inspiration Blend. This included a board known as "Living Pinterest Board," which was presented in the Mall of America. Of course, this board was interactive and five-storied. Fans of the board utilized Twitter and Instagram to take pictures with the hashtag #CaribouInspires. These were showcased on the large screens in real-time.

To make a long story short, this coffee inspiration campaign really paid off. It had more than eleven million media impressions and Facebook CTR, or click-through-rate of 73% more than the typical industry average and Twitter engagement rate was also double the typical industry average.

Now, Caribou Coffee is very loyal to Pinterest, thanks to their customers. They really want to learn about what type of interests that their customers have and will apply these perspectives with future promotional campaigns.

This is one huge success story! Every business has the potential to be this successful with Pinterest or any other social media platform.

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