The challenge: Generic marketing was a recipe for missed opportunities
Eggland's Best’s success depends on their ability to connect with the end consumer.
“On average, consumers spend kust a few seconds at the shelf finding a product, often one they've bought before,” says Matt. “Eggland’s Best needs to be on their list.” This becomes challenging when the market is dealing with supply chain challenges and price fluctuation. “But,” Matt says, “that's where that personal relationship, that brand love, and those touchpoints that you have with a consumer, like over email, can be incredibly important.”
Like many brands, Eggland’s Best’s early email marketing took a one-size-fits-all approach. By casting a wide net, it wasn’t enough in the way of meaningful engagement.
This approach is also limiting for new product launches. For example, if a new quiche was only available in Florida, Eggland’s Best had no way to send location-specific product announcements.
To propel greater consumer engagement, the brand needed to start a two-way conversation. The first step was to transform its email strategy into a conversational tool.
The tools: Segmentation, marketing automation flows, geotargeting and content optimization
In an effort to not always put all its eggs in one big basket, Eggland's Best leveraged Mailchimp to build a new approach to communication. The company transitioned to a data-driven loyalty and retention strategy that turned eager consumers into passionate brand advocates, or ‘eggvocates,’ as Eggland’s Best affectionately calls them.
“We see Mailchimp as a key part of our retention and loyalty strategy by helping us stay close to our most engaged customers,” says Matt. “Egg buyers shop the category dozens of times per year and Mailchimp helps make sure Eggland’s Best stays top of mind every time for our loyalists while empowering them to participate in the brand, too, as eggvocates.”
By focusing on a few core Mailchimp capabilities, Eggland’s Best evolved its communication strategy into a driver for highly personalized, data-supported engagement.
Data collection for smart segmentation
The brand started with the fundamentals: understanding the audience beyond a simple email address. The team implemented surveys and popup forms to gauge subscriber interest in fitness and nutrition, recipes, products, and more. Then, they leveraged that data to create and send tailored content (like gamified contests) to specific segments to drive engagement.
The marketing team used their customer data to organize Eggland’s Best’s contact list into a collection of finely tuned audience segments. Knowing just what their audience members were individually interested in allowed them to send targeted, relevant messages.
Personalization using marketing automation flows
Eggland's Best set up marketing automation flows that trigger flows based on customer behavior. Welcome emails, recipe inspiration, and new product announcements now go out to the audiences most likely to engage. The proof is in the data: Automated flows boasted an open rate 3 times higher than the mass emails, and a click rate 6 times higher over the same 4-month period in 2024.
"We're able to boost engagement among our most interested consumers through automated journeys and encourage more site visitors to become loyal eggvocates," Matt explains. "Our welcome, recipe, and new product journeys consistently outperform mass sends as we focus in on the most-likely-to-engage, relevant audiences."
Regional communication through geotargeting
Mailchimp’s location-based targeting was a game-changer for new product launches. Instead of sending an email about a regional launch to every person on the list, regardless of which state they were in, Eggland’s Best could now target only the customers living in the right area. The results were immediate.
"Our first geotargeted product launch email went out in July," says Matt. "We've already seen thousands of consumers who live nearby opening our emails, delivering regional relevance and driving traffic to stores."
Geotargeting lets Eggland’s Best connect with consumers and helps consumers discover a better egg or egg product in their own neighborhood.
Content creation made easier with optimization tools
Content creation got a major boost with Mailchimp’s content optimizer tool, allowing the Eggland’s Best team to save time and enhance the quality of their campaigns.
"Prior to Mailchimp, it would take me about a week to do a full email start to finish, but now I can get it done in about 3 days, saving significant time," says Kay Williams, Email Program Lead at Eggland’s Best. "The templates, AI features, and optimization tools have been a huge help, allowing us to do so much more, like running more contests and surprise and delights that we couldn't dive into before."
She goes on to say the Content Optimizer tool not only saves time, but also shows her new practices she didn’t know of prior to using the tool.
The results: Less scrambled marketing, more targeted conversations
By personalizing its marketing, Eggland's Best built a passionate community of eggvocates. Email functionalities powered by Mailchimp (like strategic segmentation and personalization) have become a core part of the brand’s retention strategy.
Email, says Matt, helps to “build long-term brand trust and recall through regular communication. It helps us meet egg buyers in a high-frequency category with ongoing value: recipe inspiration, contests and activations, new news, and an Eggland’s Best brand experience.”
The resulting engagement is tangible. Eggland’s Best regularly receives user-generated content from its Foodtography Contest, and email campaigns have driven thousands of product reviews and customer support interactions.
