Z. Cioccolato
“Easily the best thing about working with SBDC was getting a fresh perspective on my company. I often get too caught up in day to day operations so it was great to get a fresh set of eyes along with some great expertise.” – Mike Zwiefelhofer, Owner of Z. Cioccolato
Z. Cioccolato is a locally owned business located in the heart of the historic North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Z. Cioccolato is best known for its famous fudge, which comes in over 50 different flavors. Its talented team of chefs handcrafts each batch of fudge in-house daily in San Francisco using only the finest ingredients. The fudge has been featured on the Cooking Channel for its creative and unique flavors.
Dreaming of owning his own sweet shop, Mike Zwiefelhofer acquired Z. Cioccolato in 2015 when the original owners were retiring. He was interested in increasing online sales and improving conversions of the online ads the company was running.
With SBDC marketing advisor Molly’s help, Mike developed a way to test different newsletter sign-up popup boxes, taking the conversions from an average of 2.75% to 4.18% on the first test – over a 1% improvement. Thus, decreasing to amount need to spend to get the next customer. This is a huge success, and they are excited to see how they can continue to improve conversion rates. With this new method, Mike is confident that they can decrease customer acquisition costs and increase profitability.
As a result of working with SBDC, the business increased sales by $750,000 from the year before.
“Easily the best thing about working with Molly was getting a fresh perspective on my company. I often get too caught up in day to day operations so it was great to get a fresh set of eyes along with some great expertise.”
Mike Zwiefelhofer
Owner of Z.cioccolato
