Learn America’S Oldest Flour Society Finds Success On The Web
From fourth dimension to fourth dimension nosotros invite guests to post close items of involvement in addition to are pleased to convey PJ Hamel, spider web producer for teaching in addition to community at King Arthur Flour, bring together us today. In this post, PJ talks close the unlikely floor of a small-scale flour fellowship based inwards Vermont that’s made it big amongst the assist of the web. -Ed.
This is the floor of a small, regional fellowship that sells… flour. Yes, flour. It’s the floor of how King Arthur Flour, a centuries-old company, used the spider web to grow into an international business, devoted to spreading the pure joy of baking throughout the world. Thanks to the web, it’s a floor that volition stretch far into the future.
Now America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Flour began inwards 1790. George Washington had only larn the United States’ origin President. Despite the recent Revolution, Americans missed their English linguistic communication flour. So Henry Wood, a Boston entrepreneur, began to import flour from England. (Import from England—our arch-enemy? Even then, King Arthur Flour wasn’t afraid to brand a bold move.)
Over the adjacent 2 centuries King Arthur grew, inwards its ain small-scale way. The concern gradually moved beyond the Boston area, in addition to sold its flour throughout all of New England (we also moved our HQ to Vermont). In 1990, King Arthur launched The Baker’s Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue selling flour, tools in addition to baking ingredients. Over the adjacent v years, the catalogue helped innovate King Arthur Flour to markets exterior of New England.
By 1996, King Arthur Flour was selling similar hotcakes, amongst flour inwards supermarkets across the U.S. The WWW was also growing inwards reach. That’s when nosotros decided to brand some other bold move: taking our concern online. We could come across the ability of the web—how it would enable us to attain customers in addition to markets a small-scale fellowship similar ours would never convey had access to inwards the past.
King Arthur’s origin site, inwards retrospect, was crudely designed in addition to very, real basic. It featured v recipes, data close our flours in addition to a chip of our history.
Since then, however, we’ve ramped upwards our presence on the web—and larn tech savvy. Today, we’ve published to a greater extent than than 2,000 recipes online, all tested past times bakers inwards our exam kitchen. Over 75 pct of our catalogue sales directly come upwards inwards through our e-commerce site, which nosotros built inwards 1999. We directly connect straight amongst our customers through our blog, ratings in addition to reviews in addition to the social web.
Customers novel in addition to former notice us via Google search, through both organic search results in addition to targeted ads; nosotros create out 2,000+ baking-related keywords on Google AdWords. Email marketing, in addition to the spread of our recipes in addition to content throughout the web, convey established us every bit a truthful resources to millions of people who honey to bake. In fact, during the peak of the vacation baking season, nosotros have almost 2 i K 1000 site visits in addition to 10 i K 1000 pageviews per month.
And we’re ever looking for novel ways to inspire people to seek baking. In the past times twelvemonth alone, we’ve implemented:
King Arthur spent 205 years offline in addition to xvi years (and counting) online. Thanks to the web, this petty flour fellowship inwards Vermont has genuinely larn America’s baking resource. We’re a 221-year-old startup—looking to grow, in addition to loving every infinitesimal of it.
This is the floor of a small, regional fellowship that sells… flour. Yes, flour. It’s the floor of how King Arthur Flour, a centuries-old company, used the spider web to grow into an international business, devoted to spreading the pure joy of baking throughout the world. Thanks to the web, it’s a floor that volition stretch far into the future.
Now America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Flour began inwards 1790. George Washington had only larn the United States’ origin President. Despite the recent Revolution, Americans missed their English linguistic communication flour. So Henry Wood, a Boston entrepreneur, began to import flour from England. (Import from England—our arch-enemy? Even then, King Arthur Flour wasn’t afraid to brand a bold move.)
Over the adjacent 2 centuries King Arthur grew, inwards its ain small-scale way. The concern gradually moved beyond the Boston area, in addition to sold its flour throughout all of New England (we also moved our HQ to Vermont). In 1990, King Arthur launched The Baker’s Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue selling flour, tools in addition to baking ingredients. Over the adjacent v years, the catalogue helped innovate King Arthur Flour to markets exterior of New England.
By 1996, King Arthur Flour was selling similar hotcakes, amongst flour inwards supermarkets across the U.S. The WWW was also growing inwards reach. That’s when nosotros decided to brand some other bold move: taking our concern online. We could come across the ability of the web—how it would enable us to attain customers in addition to markets a small-scale fellowship similar ours would never convey had access to inwards the past.
King Arthur’s origin site, inwards retrospect, was crudely designed in addition to very, real basic. It featured v recipes, data close our flours in addition to a chip of our history.
Since then, however, we’ve ramped upwards our presence on the web—and larn tech savvy. Today, we’ve published to a greater extent than than 2,000 recipes online, all tested past times bakers inwards our exam kitchen. Over 75 pct of our catalogue sales directly come upwards inwards through our e-commerce site, which nosotros built inwards 1999. We directly connect straight amongst our customers through our blog, ratings in addition to reviews in addition to the social web.
Customers novel in addition to former notice us via Google search, through both organic search results in addition to targeted ads; nosotros create out 2,000+ baking-related keywords on Google AdWords. Email marketing, in addition to the spread of our recipes in addition to content throughout the web, convey established us every bit a truthful resources to millions of people who honey to bake. In fact, during the peak of the vacation baking season, nosotros have almost 2 i K 1000 site visits in addition to 10 i K 1000 pageviews per month.
And we’re ever looking for novel ways to inspire people to seek baking. In the past times twelvemonth alone, we’ve implemented:
- a mobile- in addition to tablet-optimized website
- the Google Catalogs app for iPad in addition to Android
- SMS (text message) marketing
- QR codes on our flour bags in addition to our catalogs
- Online baking contests
- Baking Hangouts on Google+ in addition to free, alive streamed baking classes
King Arthur spent 205 years offline in addition to xvi years (and counting) online. Thanks to the web, this petty flour fellowship inwards Vermont has genuinely larn America’s baking resource. We’re a 221-year-old startup—looking to grow, in addition to loving every infinitesimal of it.