It's not often that I get excited about email marketing case study articles that I read. Toooo much is been there, done that.
After all I wrote several books on the subject. So when I read a case study about a business to consumer email campaign with a twist in Marketing Sherpa it made me say wow. I thought I'd share it with you.
What blew me away was their simple, yet clever concept of customer appreciation instead of buy one, get one free.
The problem:
ZAGG is a mobile accessories company with lots of products from tablet keyboards to screen protectors. Often they have high inventory levels and do "buy one and get one free" and bundle promotions.
They decided they wanted to do something different, and show their customers that they appreciate them, However it wouldn't be profitable to simply pass out the extra products to customers for free. Their problem was to create a campaign that:
1. Helped solve high inventory
2. Continue to earn revenue
3. Most importantly, show appreciation to its loyal customers.
The campaign
To shake things up while showing thanks, the team ran an email campaign exclusive to existing ZAGG customers, promoting a free gift with the purchase of $9.99 or more.
Customers were split into three segments. Customers over one year; over two years and customers over three years. Each segment was offered three different gift products, the items increasing in value with the number of years the customer had been with ZAGG.
They felt it was a win for their customer, a win for their inventory levels and a win for their revenue, so it just made sense.
Building the campaign
1. Select products for each customer segment
They decided upon three gifts per segment (increasing in value the higher the tier), allowing longer customers the option of choosing from the lower tier products, as well:
2. Design the body of the email
The team aspired for the campaign to exude gratitude, so the design and copy of the email portrayed an appreciative tone.
They wanted to communicate with the approach of, 'Thank you so much. We appreciate you - enjoy this free gift' rather than, 'Spend this and get this.'"
Below a large header reading, "Thank you for being a loyal customer," the copy read:
(First Name), thank you for being a ZAGG customer for over (1, 2 or 3) years! We're so happy you're a part of the ZAGG family and want to celebrate by giving you a gift. For the next few days, purchase anything on the site over $9.99 and choose any one of the below items for free!
A button at the bottom of the email labelled "Choose Your Gift" directed customers to their corresponding gift landing page.
3. Include a sense of urgency with each email send as an incentive
Beginning in March of 2013, ZAGG sent its customer appreciation emails a total of four times. Sends were spaced out every six weeks, and the gift offers were made available for only a week at a time to invoke a sense of urgency.
Minor adjustments were made to the campaign along the way due to some of the products running out of stock. The team observed the popularity of headphones and, due to the deal at hand, the gift choices that had the higher price points.
This even gave the team a glimpse into which items their customers liked the most, arming the team with helpful data to use in future campaigns as far as which products to market.
The outcome
ZAGG's customer appreciation campaign produced these metrics:
• 152 per cent increase in revenue-per-email sent
• 252 per cent increase in average conversion rate
The team attributes the campaign's overall prosperity to the messaging. They felt it was the approach of "thank you" that made all the difference for ZAGG.
"It's more of a relationship thing than a selling tool," she said. "And I think that really helped the success of this campaign."
Here's the original Marketing Sherpa article