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How Formaggio Kitchen Segmented Their Way to Success

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• Published August 8, 2025 • Updated August 8, 2025
How Formaggio Kitchen Segmented Their Way to Success

Quick Facts

What is Formaggio Kitchen's segmentation strategy?
Formaggio Kitchen uses Mailchimp's segmentation features to target specific customer interests, enhancing their marketing effectiveness.
How does segmentation benefit Formaggio Kitchen?
Segmentation helps Formaggio Kitchen reduce unsubscribes by sending targeted emails based on customer interests and purchase history.
When did Formaggio Kitchen start online sales?
Formaggio Kitchen began their online sales in 2003, marking the start of their digital marketing efforts.
Why is purchase history important for segmentation?
Purchase history provides insights into customer actions, enabling more relevant marketing compared to preference-based segmentation alone.
Where can I learn more about Mailchimp's features?
Visit Mailchimp's website to explore their segmentation and e-commerce features, as used by Formaggio Kitchen.
Should I shop at specialty food stores online or in person?
Both options have their benefits! Shopping in person at specialty food stores like Formaggio Kitchen lets you see and taste products before buying, which is great for items like cheese and wine. Online shopping offers convenience and access to curated selections delivered to your door. Many specialty retailers now offer both options, so you can choose what works best for your needs.
How do I find food products that match my dietary preferences?
Look for retailers that use smart email marketing and segmentation to send you relevant offers. A good specialty food shop will ask about your preferences—whether you're interested in wine, cheese, vegetarian options, or specific cuisines—and tailor their recommendations accordingly. This way you only receive emails about products you actually care about, not everything they sell.
What makes a good specialty food retailer stand out?
The best specialty food retailers combine personal expertise with customer convenience. They understand their products deeply (like traveling to dairies to source cheese), offer multiple ways to shop (in-store and online), and respect their customers' preferences by not sending irrelevant messages. They also provide educational content like classes and tasting events to help customers learn and discover new favorites.
How can I stop getting emails I don't want without unsubscribing completely?
Instead of unsubscribing entirely, look for retailers that let you customize your email preferences. You can often choose which types of emails to receive—like weekly wine updates, dinner menus, or class notifications—without missing out on everything. This way you stay connected to offers that actually interest you while avoiding the ones you don't.
Why would a food store send different emails to different customers?
Specialty food retailers like Formaggio Kitchen send targeted emails to match what each customer actually wants to hear about. For example, they don't send meat promotions to vegetarians or wine emails to customers who've only bought cheese. By personalizing what people receive based on their interests and purchase history, customers get more relevant messages they actually want to read, which reduces frustration and unsubscribes. It's a way of respecting your customers' preferences and making sure they only see offers that matter to them.

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For more than 3 decades, the cheesemongers of Formaggio Kitchen have prided themselves at being really good at selling world-beloved dairy delights. Whereas Formaggio’s shops might be best known for their cheese—selected from a process which involves traveling the U.S. and Europe visiting dairies, cheesemakers, and agers—their specialty food reach extends to fine wines, beer, charcuterie, assorted sweets, and a host of other merchandise that aims to bring a little taste of Europe stateside.Mailchimp creative content

Now with 3 locations (Cambridge, Boston’s historic South End, and the Essex Street Market on Manhattan’s Lower East Side), Formaggio Kitchen is working to keep pace with the competition locally and online. Enter: Mary Chapman and Tim Bucciarelli. As Media and Mail Order Manager and Director of Operations respectively, the cheese-obsessed pair has led Formaggio Kitchen’s digital charge, which started with online sales back in 2003.

Using Mailchimp’s segmentation feature, here’s how Mary and Tim take on dreaded unsubscribes and get to know their customers better.

Targeting customers with precision

Tim, who’s held various jobs at Formaggio Kitchen since he was 14, understands that small businesses have a hard time balancing priorities for the money they spend. So when it comes to marketing, he and Mary ensure that Formaggio Kitchen’s e-commerce site is a useful and enjoyable experience for their customers.

Their approach includes a weekly dinner menu for locals, a weekly wine email, monthly classes notifications, and general emails targeting specific food interests. Mary says segmentation has been essential to pulling off all these different marketing materials.

“Are we sending local or not local? Are we sending to people who are interested in wine? Interested in cheese or jam or meat?” Mary asks. “We don’t want to send meat emails to vegetarians. Segmentation has really helped us give our customers what they want.”

Mailchimp creative contentPrioritizing preferences and purchase history

Tim says these 2 types of segmentation seem to have the biggest impact on building their audience. The team even connected their Magento store to Mailchimp Pro’s advanced segmentation so they can get purchase history, which Tim says “in some ways is more powerful, because not only is it taking someone’s preferences of what they think they want, it’s taking their actions. It’s what they purchased, so that historical action tells us something a little bit different, and then we can send them an email that’s even more relevant.”

For instance, if they have that same item in stock or another product from the same producer, Tim says, they can better find an accompaniment or pairing to go with it. “Any of those things wouldn’t be possible without that type of purchase segmentation.”Mailchimp creative contentThe big payout

“I really believe it helps us to prevent unsubscribes because people aren’t just getting swarmed with emails,” Mary says. “We can send out more than we might normally send if they were all just going to the same place—they won’t feel spammed because it’s more targeted.”Mailchimp creative content


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