CASE STUDY
How Budai Media Helped a Home Decor Brand Generate $1,500,000 in 3 Months with an Omnichannel Retention Marketing Strategy
Brand Story & Challenges
Our client is a home decor/furniture ecommerce brand that generates at least $1 million in revenue each month,
Email marketing contributed to 40% of the monthly sales of this brand in November 2022 but they wanted to go beyond and add new retention marketing channels besides email. These all intended to increase the AOV, LTV, and customer retention rate of their customer base.
Besides the long-term plans, we had to pick up the pace of our client’s processes quickly because they were not only unhappy with the design of their emails but we also had to create and implement a Black Friday - Cyber Monday strategy.
Results of January 2023
Before Budai Media
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Marketing emails didn’t have branded design and ad hoc email campaign schedule
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No SMS marketing setup
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No push notifications and loyalty program setup
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No resources for AB testing with popups, emails, and SMS
After Budai Media
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10 monthly SMS campaigns were sent out
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Effective loyalty and reviews program set up and promoted
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$760,000+ attributable sales to SMS marketing
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Email open rates increased beyond 50%
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Omnichannel retention marketing strategy: push, email, SMS, loyalty, rewards programs
How We Helped
Klaviyo email marketing revenue in November of 2022
Klaviyo email flows revenue in January 2023
Once BFCM lapsed, our focus shifted to these important elements of the retention strategy:
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SMS,
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Browser push notifications,
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Mobile app push notifications.
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Loyalty and reviews program
For SMS marketing, we set up Recart and for loyalty and reviews, we use Yotpo.
The SMS marketing consisted of setting crucial flows, including the Welcome Flow, Abandoned Cart, Browse Abandonment, and New Customer Flow.
Additionally, a total of 10 SMS campaigns per month were sent, with an average frequency of two campaigns per week. The campaigns were carefully crafted to achieve a balanced blend of content, promotional (often showcasing new product arrivals), and sale event campaigns. At least 4 of these 10 were exclusive SMS content, either sales or blog posts exclusively promoted through SMS.
SMS marketing was clearly the biggest winner of our strategy, we could attribute $760,000+ sales to SMS marketing in just 3 months (even if a part of it clearly decreased the email revenue numbers because of channel overlap).
SMS automations and campaigns results in January 2023
Since the client contacted us in October, we had to fire our engines quickly to set up a successful BFCM campaign plan. We always tell our clients that late October and November is too late for a great BFCM campaign since certain tactics such as warming up the email segments and an early-bird VIP strategy is something that must be done earlier in September and October.
When we first started working with the client, they had some email marketing in place, but they were not satisfied with the design. Our main focus was to address this issue by developing two different brand style guides for them. The client chose our brand style guide, and we adapted all their marketing efforts to it. Proper branding builds familiarity and ultimately trust in the eyes of your audience.
Using these, we set up the campaigns for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Our 7-day email campaign strategy for BFCM was the following:
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Teaser
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Grand Event Opening
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Reminder
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Last Chance
We also differentiated our offer for different segments, loyal customers receiving a higher discount.
Simultaneously, we revamped their flows in their Klaviyo account. The website popup in place converted very poorly, and some of the most important ones of the customer journey were either generic in terms of copy and design or poorly triggered from a technical perspective.
The loyalty program included a landing page on the website and setting up related email, SMS, and push flows.
We created all the essential email automation to ensure a robust foundation for the initiative.
The key of a successful loyalty program is to promote them in an omnichannel way. Subscribers also need to be educated on how they can use their points and what goals they can achieve.
Automated emails were triggered and dispatched to customers whenever they interact in any way with our store, either accumulating points, making a purchase, referring someone, submitting a review, etc.
We also sent out a campaign aimed at educating our entire customer base about the launch of our Loyalty and Rewards program.
Additionally, we added a new email to the Welcome Flow, New Customer Flow, and Returning Customer Flow to inform customers of the loyalty program's existence and how to sign up for it during each stage of their customer lifecycle.
Initially, the push notification setup consisted of automated browser notifications intended for customers abandoning their cart, or abandoning a product browsing.
A series of 3 to 5 notifications were designed, featuring a discount ladder that progressively increased to encourage customers to complete their initial purchase.
Later, we developed a Welcome Flow targeted at newly created profiles and a New Customer Flow with exclusive browser notifications aimed at recently acquired customers. These notifications contained valuable content tips on how to maximize the use of their newly acquired lighting products.
Push notification results in March 2023
In the meantime, we also worked out the best sale event strategy. For this brand, 48-72-hour long flash sales worked best two or three weeks apart. Other brands can see a better performance with a longer holiday sales event like this fashion brand.
One example is the Valentine's Day Flash Sale.
Firstly, we implemented a discount ladder with tiered discounts that boosted our average order value (AOV). This ladder consisted of a 10% site-wide discount, a 15% site-wide discount on purchases exceeding $500, and a 20% site-wide discount on purchases surpassing $1000.
Secondly, it was our first short-duration sales event, which generated a sense of urgency among our customers.
The sales event consisted of four emails, two sent in mid-February, and an extension flash sale sent at the end of February. The combined impact of all these emails culminated in our highest-ever revenue record for a sales event, amounting to $93,341, with the first Flash Sale Grand Opening email alone accounting for $43,944 in attributed revenue.
As our work shifted from a setup type of work to the maintenance and optimization stage, we started focusing on AB testing to improve click rates and popup strategies.
We increased the number of email campaigns to 12 emails per month and this gives the opportunity to learn about the audience faster.
One example is that we discovered short call-to-actions (below 10 characters) had a much higher click rate than long CTAs.
Another great example is the Focus Send Time. For the latter, we identified that sending emails at 9PM was not only showing an increment in open rates, but also in revenue (specially for CONTENT emails). As a result, we sent at least 2 of the 10 monthly campaigns at 9PM, and we also tested other times, like 3PM.
When this case study is being written, we are working on a quiz on the website to help customers choose the best lighting for their space and run a contest for user-generated content where the winner’s image is shared and receives loyalty program points. These efforts increase customer engagement and reduce customer support inquiries.
CONCLUSION
Budai Media helped a home decor brand increase revenue by $1.5 million through an omnichannel strategy that included email, SMS, loyalty, and push notifications. Before working with us, the brand had no SMS marketing, loyalty program, or push notifications.
We set up the Black Friday-Cyber Monday campaign, revamped the brand's email designs, and set up a loyalty program. Our team also implemented SMS marketing, which was the most successful aspect of the strategy, generating $760,000 in sales over three months. We also optimized the brand's email campaigns, increasing open rates beyond 50%.
AB testing was used to refine the strategy, and new customer engagement initiatives are just being implemented, including a quiz and a user-generated content contest.