When Koia’s founders saw firsthand the toll that stress and poor nutrition can have on people, they decided to create a product that helped people live healthier lives.

To do so, they studied regions in the world where people live longer than others — and eat predominantly plant-based diets, make movement part of every day, and stay socially active.

Koia’s name is inspired by one of those studied places, the lush Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Plant-powered Koia brings these values to life with protein, keto, and coffee plant-based drinks and shakes, designed to provide people a balance of complete protein, fiber, and healthy fats.

To bring their product to a broader audience and build the Koia community, the Koia team turned to Customer Experience Automation (CXA).

Keep reading to learn how the Koia team:

  • Grew out of their original email marketing platform — and found a new platform that could grow with them
  • Uses CXA apps to create an engaging customer experience across channels
  • Built the Koia Krew, a loyalty program that brings together a community and gamifies brand advocacy
  • Uses segmentation to personalize and tailor messaging based on customers’ hobbies, location, and more

Finding a platform to grow alongside your business

When they started email marketing, the Koia team used Mailchimp, which was a great way to get their feet wet with email campaigns. But as Koia experienced tremendous growth, they wanted a platform that could grow with them.

The Koia team wanted more email tools, marketing automations, and control within their emails. To create the best experience possible for every customer and contact, they needed the ability to control the exact flows and be more flexible with automations.

More than anything else, Koia wanted to learn more about their subscribers, so they could cater personalized messages to each of them — at scale. That’s why the Koia team chose ActiveCampaign as their Customer Experience Automation platform.

Engaging subscribers with welcome series, flexible automations, and loyalty program

With ActiveCampaign, a new Koia subscriber’s journey looks like this:

  1. A new subscriber signs up for the Koia newsletter or enters a giveaway, giving the Koia team their email address and location
  2. The subscriber enters a welcome series that nurtures the lead, shares promotions and coupons, and educates them about all things Koia
  3. If the new subscriber is active, clicking on links and opening emails, they’re added to a Facebook Custom Audience
  4. Koia uses the Facebook Custom Audience to find a similar audiences on Facebook to target with future giveaways
  5. Active subscribers also receive the Koia Krew loyalty program recruitment email

The Koia Krew: Using CXA to create a gamified loyalty program

Koia created the Koia Krew loyalty program to keep customers engaged and create brand advocates. Here’s how it works:

  1. The Koia Krew recruitment email takes subscribers to a form to fill out their information and create an account
  2. That information is then pushed to ActiveCampaign and a Google Sheet with ActiveCampaign’s Google Sheets integration
  3. The integration automatically adds new member information to the top of the Google Sheet, which gives the Koia team a quick and easy way to view who is new to the program.

Koia Krew members can log in to their accounts and view their “mission dashboard” or chat with other community members about their love for Koia. Missions help Koia gamify brand advocacy.

On the backend, the Koia team uses the ActiveCampaign CRM to track mission progress of the community members. At the bottom of each mission, there is a field that lets the member enter their email and check a box that they have completed the mission. This information is automatically updated in ActiveCampaign, where the contact is tagged with “Completed mission 1” and automatically moves to the next mission.

Using segmentation to create a personal experience for every customer

Collecting subscribers’ locations when they sign up is key to Koia’s segmentation strategy. Koia uses location to know which subscribers should be added to the “Amazon Fresh” automation, which sends product promotions to subscribers in the cities where Amazon Fresh operates.

In addition to location, Koia gathers different information about subscribers throughout the customer lifecycle, including:

  • Birthday
  • Hobbies and interests
  • Where they shop

Segmenting subscribers based on their store preference helps the Koia team assign missions to Koia Krew members. For example, all members who shop at Whole Foods are given a secret mission to download a Whole Foods product request form and circle the flavor they want most, then submit that to Whole Foods’ store manager. This not only gives the customer the power to get their favorite Koia flavors in their store, but also allows Koia’s B2B sales team to follow up with Whole Foods about stocking that flavor.

Besides assigning secret missions, store preferences also help the Koia team send the right emails to the right customers. The Koia team segments store preference into two categories:

  1. Natural grocery (Whole Foods, Mother’s, Sprouts)
  2. Conventional (Albertsons, Kroger, Wegmans)

Depending on the category of their preferred store, customers will receive certain emails. For example, when Koia launches in a store similar to Sprouts, the Koia team will send a promotion to subscribers who shop at natural grocery stores to help support that launch.

By collecting information on subscribers’ hobbies, the Koia marketing team can develop more targeted ads and learn more about their target audiences. For example, the Koia team notices a trend in new subscribers being mountain bikers. The marketing team can then create ads around mountain biking and target mountain bikers on social.

Still growing strong

Since choosing ActiveCampaign, the Koia team has seen:

  • 10K new email addresses acquired per month
  • 65% cost savings to acquire a customer
  • 92% increase in online sales in 3 months

But they’re not stopping there. With ActiveCampaign, the Koia team continues to learn more about each subscriber — they’re even looking at using the information they gather with ActiveCampaign to introduce new flavors!

Customer Experience Automation lets the Koia team create a personalized experience that delights customers, build brand advocacy, and continue to grow their business with their customers top-of-mind.