CMO Roundtable With Reid Nolte, Executive Vice President of Marketing at PJ's Coffee

How do you integrate technology into your marketing efforts while also ensuring a personal touch?

Reid Nolte
Executive Vice President of Marketing
PJ’s Coffee

At PJ’s Coffee, we see technology as a tool to deepen our connection with the people and communities that our cafés serve. Whether it’s through personalization, automation, or brand storytelling, we’re using digital tools to bring our guests closer to the heart of what makes our specialty coffee experience unique: the warmth, charm, and flavor of New Orleans.

We recently integrated with Paytronix to enhance our loyalty program and mobile app, providing a strong platform to deliver hypertargeted messaging. For example, if a guest who typically visits twice a week suddenly drops to once, we can reengage them with a personalized nudge. If someone frequently orders oat milk, our promoted offers should avoid dairy-based items to show we’re paying attention and respecting individual preferences.

Where this personalization becomes even more strategic is in our nurturing campaign, which is designed to turn casual visitors into loyal guests. We’ve found that once someone makes three transactions, their visit rate increases by 25%, their average ticket climbs by 6%, and their lifetime value grows by more than 230%. The campaign uses behavior-based incentives to guide guests across those key first visits, and we’re learning a lot in the process. We may think we know which drinks hook customers, but the data might tell a different story. The insights that we gain through the nurturing campaign will help us refine our entire approach to menu innovation and guest engagement moving forward.

On a broader level, the next phase of our brand evolution is Project NOLA, which ensures that the PJ’s experience feels unmistakably us from every angle. Inspired by our New Orleans roots, this initiative reimagines everything from menu language (“Customize Your Beverage” becomes “Jazz It Up”) to food offerings and staff uniforms. Even our flavor strategy is changing as previous limited-time flavor profiles, like Southern Wedding Cake, become core items, and new personality-packed energy drinks, like the Hurricane, Swamp Attack, or Voodoo, are introduced.

While technology gives us the ability to market in smart ways, ultimately, it’s the voice, style, and soul of PJ’s—infused through our digital and in-café guest experience—that keeps our connection to people truly personal.