The Situation:
Greenling Organic Delivery works with more than 30 local farmers to deliver organic and local food right to its customers’ doors. The grocer was voted Best Local Food Company in the 2007 Austin Chronicle’s Readers poll. Greenling wanted to promote its reputation as a business the community can trust; one that works with local farmers to help their business as well. The company also wanted to educate Central Texans about its green projects, its local and organic produce and the practice of organic farming while working on its overall goal of attracting new customers and keeping current customers.

The Challenge:
Survey respondents said that the most important company characteristic was social responsibility, rating above quality and convenience. This customer group was technically savvy and willing to search the web to find the qualities that were most important to them. Traditional tactics such as press releases and the Greenling website only went to far to show how Greenling related with its target marketing and the entire community. The company wanted to try different channels and new media to promote themselves as a company that can be trusted. In an exciting, but confusing time, for organic food, Greenling wanted to educate the public on how it is different and better than popular organic grocery stores.

Our Solution:
Diverge principal Thomas Terry suggested a video to better convey the message and all the related themes. He met with Greenling staff to determine a good location and time for the video shoot. Greenling was holding a pickling class at Greengate Farms, which is close to Austin, and the team determined that would provide an ideal opportunity for filming. The film would feature farmer Skip Connett, and include shots from around his farm of the plants and animals. Testimonials about Connett’s work with Greenling were honest and unrehearsed. At the end of the day, Diverge had about an hour of video that needed to be cut down to three minutes.

The Results:     

These efforts improved Greenling’s search visibility and customer retention through online community building. The video content, posted on several places on the web including Greenling’s Facebook Page, has indeed strengthened relationships to improve customer acquisition. The video series, “Day in the Life of Greenling,” increased customer confidence in making purchases from Greenling. Simultaneously, Diverge optimized Greenling’s site using social media tools: added RSS feeds, social tagging, third party community functionality, Flickr photo galleries, YouTube videos and calendars.