Back Story
Hi-Spec Tools is a leading online DTC hand & power tool brand available on most ecommerce platforms in over 10 countries worldwide.
With online advertising costs skyrocketing post-covid, the brand was looking for ways to cut down on customer acquisition costs while remaining competitive in the market.
The Challenge
Lower Hi-Spec's online customer acquisition costs while continuing to drive ecommerce revenue.
The Strategy
It's always cheaper to do more business with past & present customers than acquire new ones.
However, although Hi-Spec's customer base was growing fast, its previous Marketing Director had severely neglected its growing community- mishandling inbound customer data & overlooking the potential of email marketing.
My plan? Build Hi-Spec's mailing list & implement email marketing campaigns to raise brand awareness, boost sales & increase repeat business.
The Process
Building the Mailing List
Hi-Spec's initial marketing list was almost non-existent (in the low hundreds).
However, I knew the Customer Service Dept. had a warranty registration process- meaning a customer database surely existed.
However, I was wrong!
After a customer emailed their registration number to customer service, their email, warranty number & all other data simply sat in the the customer service inbox! It wasn't being utilized!
We remedied this as follows:
- Scraped through all warranty submissions in the last two years and extracted all names/email addresses
- Added a warranty registration module on the website with an "opt-in to marketing" toggle button
We sent an "opt-in" email to the pre-existing contacts that were floating around the customer service inbox & cleaned the list further.
Once all the dust settled (opt-ins/outs etc) Hi-Spec's email list was hovering around 11,000 contacts. And, with the new "opt-in" method in place, the list was growing steady.
Designing & Implementing an Email Marketing Strategy
Content can literally make or break Email Marketing success. Bombard an audience with advertisements/promos, and you'll destroy effectiveness.
With a large Home DIY audience, our email strategy consisted of 80% educational DIY content (ie. Holiday DIY crafts you can do with the kids).
The remaining 20% + holiday specific campaigns pushed product discounts, promo deals, etc.
Measuring Data to Tailor Customer Experience
Aside from individual email data, we used in depth customer behavior data available from Amazon & other Ecommerce platforms to better tailor our emails and offer higher-converting products.
The Results
Compared to previous year:
- Email-attributed sales grew 6x
- Branded DTC sales grew 3x
- Repeat customers grew +121.33%
- Branded search queries grew 4.3x
- Email list size grew 12x
- Website visitors grew +122%