If data is gold…and maybe it is…California Giant Berry Farms is rich indeed.

The Watsonville, CA-based strawberry grower was one of the first fresh produce shippers to tout the importance of connecting with the consumer through social media. They have continued down that path for several years now, honing their offerings and learning more and more about the people who buy their products.

“Through the various social media touchpoints (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Pinterest) we have built a data base of more than 100,000 consumers of our berries,” said Cindy Jewell, director of marketing for the firm.

“We have more than 75,000 visits to our website per month and the average number of downloads per month is 65,000,” she added.

Those downloads include recipe booklets, nutrition guides, party tips and other information that Cal Giant posts on basically a daily basis with the goal of creating a relationship with the people shopping for and eating Cal Giant berries. And each time a visitor makes that connection and attempts to download an item, Jewell and her team are poised to learn a little bit more about that customer.

“Every time they want to download something they have to answer three questions,” she said, noting that three is a small enough request to gain the consumer’s cooperation before completing the download task.

Cal Giant has a list of questions and a sophisticated software package that allows it to identify the consumer logging onto its website and making sure that it asks different questions each time.

“Each time they are telling us a little more about themselves — what they like, where they shop, and what they buy,” Jewell said.

Cal Giant is then using that information to both target those individual customers with on-line coupons, serving suggestions and ideas, and to help the retailer know more about their Cal Giant berry buyers. For example, Cal Giant was able to tell one retailer that 52 percent of his shoppers buy those berries at least once a week or “whenever I can get my hands on them!” Another 27 percent purchase every other week, with 14 percent being monthly berry buyers and a bit less than 8 percent falling in the less frequent or special occasion category. Those same shoppers listed fruits and/or vegetables as the most frequent item purchased on a regular basis during a shopping trip to that chain.

Jewell said this kind of information is very valuable and is helping the industry know more about their customers. For this reason, Cal Giant is continually trying to partner with other produce firms doing similar data mining in an effort to build the body of knowledge about the consumer.

“I tell other produce companies that we are not competitors,” she said. “We all have the same goal of keeping the shopper in the produce department and buying more items.”

She said using social media to connect with your customer is not a particularly expensive proposition. The software packages are reasonably priced and while it takes work and some dedicated people to the effort, it’s well worth the cost. “We are always looking for produce companies that are interested in digging deeper and knowing more about their customer,” Jewel said.

She believes too many firms continue to focus all their attention on getting retailers to run ads as opposed to finding out what the consumer wants.

Jewell added that the metrics attached to social media have become very sophisticated and the results are very trackable. She knows exactly how many people come to the Cal Giant website after seeing an on-line ad on Facebook. The firm does the same tracking of its on-line ads run on produce websites. The firm launched a newsletter aimed at produce industry professionals called Trade Buzz and it can track who is reading it, how often and where the connection originated.

Jewell strongly believes the company’s foray into social media is paying big dividends. Besides the measurable data, she has plenty of anecdotal evidence as Cal Giant is constantly getting emails from consumers touting their products and thanking them for their recipe books and other information that is being provided.

All of this social media interaction is focused on the same goal: providing consumers what they want from Cal Giant in the berry category.