Holy Grail of Marketing

By Alliston Ackerman
Jelly Belly Candy Company has been delighting candy lovers with its gourmet jelly beans and candies for more than 140 years. More recently, the Internet has become an important sales channel for the company, which makes more than 75 flavors of Jelly Belly jelly beans and more than 100 other candies such as gummies, licorice, chocolates and holiday sweets.

When Jelly Belly decided to re-launch its Web site in late 2008, the company was dedicated to maintaining its long-standing reputation for excellent customer service. The ability for an e-commerce company, like Jelly Belly, to utilize the wealth of information gleaned through multiple channels, such as on-site search, ratings and reviews and personal recommendation clicks, might just be considered the Holy Grail of marketing, as it provides immense opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling and building solid customer relationships.

Jelly Belly selected Learning Search and Site Champion from SLI Systems. Since implementing SLI's site search, which was incorporated into the site's launch in August 2008, conversions have grown nearly one-third, average orders have increased 10 percent and Jelly Belly has boosted its visibility on major search engines.

In addition to providing a seamless site search experience for its customers, Jelly Belly turned to MyBuys, a SLI Systems partner, to provide personalization services for its Web-based customers in March 2009. Showcasing products that customers might be interested in based on current behavior and/or past purchases, as well as customized personalized e-mail alerts based on customer preference, Jelly Belly has seen its e-mail conversion rate jump 85 percent higher than the industry standard and prompted close to 20 percent of visitors to take action on Web recommendations.

Another important element of the Jelly Belly online shopping experience is its use of user-generated reviews. Jelly Belly implemented PowerReviews Customer Reviews in March 2009 and has been able to add more than 1,000 user reviews in less than 60 days, which has provided the company a greater level of credibility with its customers, and has contributed to an increase in sales.

"Customer-generated product reviews provide a powerful way to keep people on our site longer, as they are able to do the research they need without looking elsewhere," says Jason Marrone, e-commerce marketing manager for Jelly Belly. "In addition, the reviews we have generated thus far are contributing to a more enjoyable online experience for our customers as they can quickly and easily find the products that are just right for them."