PMI has invested a mind-blowing amount of time and resources to create a new generation of smoke-free products as alternatives to cigarette smoking. To enable this it had to undergo one of the biggest transformations from a traditional B2B behemoth to a modern D2C “startup”.

A critical element underpinning this motion is to service its users with an amazing and seamless customer experience that enables them to get the best out of their products. We have been working with PMI’s internal teams to do exactly that; make PMI’s smoke-free products an amazing experience.

The Challenge: Customer Engagement at Scale

PMI’s transformation demanded a fundamental shift in how the company interacts with its customers. This meant moving from a transactional, distributor-focused model to a deeply personalized, data-driven customer relationship strategy. The scale of this endeavor was immense:

• Creating infrastructure to manage millions of customer interactions.
• Transitioning to new technologies while ensuring seamless operations.
• Delivering hyper-relevant communications across multiple channels, including email, SMS, Viber, and in-store experiences.

PMI’s vision of customer-centricity called for more than just new tools—it required a comprehensive data ecosystem, marketing platform, and operational workflows.

The Solution: A Comprehensive Ecosystem Powered by Data

1. Building a Centralized Customer Data Platform (CDP)
Satori developed and continuously improves PMI’s global Customer Data Platform, establishing robust data structures and integrations to enable seamless data flow. The CDP serves as the foundation for PMI’s customer insights, providing:

• 360-degree customer profiles.
• Advanced analytics models, such as Next Best Action recommendations.
• Clean, actionable data for personalized outreach across channels.

This centralized data hub supports not only marketing efforts but also sales teams, customer service agents, and retail partners, enabling over 100,000 live consumer lookups monthly.

2. Launching Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SMC)
Satori implemented Salesforce Marketing Cloud from the ground up, replacing the legacy system and integrating a range of features:

• Over 100 automated journeys tailored for customer segments like prospects, dormants, and dual users.
• Advanced functionalities, including link shortening, Viber messaging, and custom surveys.
• Hundreds of Ad hoc campaigns every year.

Our CRM team continues to operate the platform in close collaboration with PMI’s digital team, executing campaigns, optimizing content, and ensuring top-tier performance monitoring.

3. Scaling the Ecosystem
The platforms are continuously enhanced to support new initiatives, such as:

• Onboarding and retention journeys for new smoke-free products.The ecosystem now covers 5 brands, delivering significant economies of scale.
• Prospect management and “Try For Free” campaigns.
• New Advanced Customer Analytics based on state of the art ML models and pipelines

The Results: Transformational Impact

PMI’s digital ecosystem is now a cornerstone of its customer engagement strategy, delivering measurable results, such as 4x growth in consumer base since the system’s inception in 2018, and tens of millions of personalized communications sent annually.

The ecosystem successfully transformed Papastratos into a Direct-to-Consumer business, with End-to-end, Automated, Data-driven, Omnichannel Customer Experiences.

These achievements have been recognized through multiple industry awards.

Looking Ahead

Satori and PMI continue to innovate, leveraging advanced AI technologies such as large language models (LLMs) for customer feedback analytics. By exploring new ways to enhance customer experiences, PMI is positioned to stay at the forefront of its industry transformation as the market grows increasingly competitive.

If your organization is also navigating the journey from legacy systems to a data-driven future, contact us to learn how Satori Analytics can help. Together, we can design the next chapter of your success.