MailChimp

MailChimp Interviews Tony Riffel

Owner of Octane Coffee Bar & Lounge in Atlanta, GA.

How did the idea for a coffee bar & lounge come about? (We think it’s brilliant!)

My wife and I always wanted to start our own business. At the time we started talking about this, we lived in Portland, Oregon. Portland has such a great coffee culture that we were inspired to learn more about it. We decided that we needed [to create] a business around something that we were interested in, and our passion for coffee made enough sense to us. We decided to learn more and try to build the type of coffee place that we weren't able to find in Atlanta.

Octane has a reputation for having the most knowledgeable baristas around. When did you first fall in love with the bean?

The coffee industry has improved a great deal in the 5 years that we have been in business. We came in at a good time and have been able to learn a lot as the industry has grown. We have been extremely fortunate to have attracted some pretty great and passionate people to learn and teach others. The coffee industry is in a unique position right now where information is freely shared. No one sees any benefit in proprietary knowledge which is helping the whole industry get better.

I first fell in love with the bean as a kid. My parents used to let me dunk chocolate chip cookies into my coffee with milk (more like milk with a little coffee ☺). I've been hooked ever since.

How have email marketing and/or MailChimp helped your business?

MailChimp has been a great way for us to market our business. It has given us the opportunity to communicate to a mailing list made up of voluntary participants. This has been extremely effective because it allows us to focus our marketing on our most loyal customers. We often have events at Octane, and even our daily customers aren't always aware of all that is going on. MailChimp makes it much easier for us to talk about some of the things we think are cool and to outline the schedule for future events. The response is much higher than a random ad placed in a local publication.