Digital skills help Melbourne coffee pod business brew success

We all know Melburnians love their coffee but just what is Melbourne’s preferred brew? According to what coffee Melburnians are searching for online, it’s the espresso.

A look at Google Trends over the last 12 months found the espresso came out of top, closely followed by the latte — when compared to other common favourites including the flat white, cappuccino, mocha, macchiato and long black.

One Melbourne business working to capitalise on Melburnians love of coffee in their homes and workplaces - while helping the environment - is Melbourne-based eco-friendly coffee pod maker Pod Co. They’ve built a burgeoning online business combining Melbourne’s penchant for great coffee with digital tools.

Pod Co have used the internet to gain insights into what brews Melburnians love the most, and have run online campaigns to engage with them when they’re thinking about coffee. Since focusing on online sales, customer engagement, and targeted advertising, they’ve doubled their revenue.

While showing other Melbourne businesses how to succeed online, research suggests many small businesses are unsure how to go about it. In fact, while businesses who engage online are one and half times more likely to be growing, 90 per cent of Aussie small businesses aren’t taking the necessary steps.

Google Australia is working to close this gap through the Grow with Google program which came to Melbourne today. Grow with Google workshops were held at Hawthorn Arts Centre. At today’s event Melbourne businesses learned how to grow their presence online and gain valuable customer insights, and individuals at all stages of the digital journey picked up new skills.

Since 2014, Google has trained more than half a million people across Australia through online and in-person digital skills training, as well as curriculum integrated through school and partner programs.

Grow with Google aims to provide all Australians with access to digital skills training online and in-person, to help them make the most of the Internet. It includes an online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules. The next Grow with Google event will be held in Adelaide on 4 November. Find out more at: http://g.co/GrowAdelaide.

SEARCH TRENDS DATA 

Key insights:

• The espresso, or “short black”, is the most searched type of coffee by Melburnians in 2019.
• Search interest in “short black” is +30% higher in Melbourne than Australia as a whole.
• Melburnians are also searching for Turkish coffee (+28%) and Vietnamese coffee (+18%) above the national average.
• Coffee pods ranked third for search interest in biodegradable products in Melbourne this year.
• Coffee pods ranked fourth for search interest in compostable products in Melbourne this year.

Top five most searched coffee type, in Melbourne in 2019:

• Espresso (Short Black) 
• Latte 
• Mocha 
• Cappuccino 
• Flat White