Case Studies and Clients
SUCCESSES FROM SOME OF OUR FAVORITE BRANDS
The Problem
Drive Two Weeks of Consistent "Rediscover America" Sales Without Creating List Fatigue
The Allen Edmonds "Rediscover America" sale is the company's biggest revenue-generating event of the year. However, the sale runs for two weeks and past campaigns had contributed to significant list fatigue and higher than average opt-out rates for Allen Edmonds.
The Need
A Two-Week Campaign Plan Optimized to Drive Incremental Revenue Through Increased Engagement
Allen Edmonds' BlueHornet Support2 team recognized that the best way to increase engagement during the "Rediscover America" sale was to build a two-week campaign plan that reflected customers' individual interests and shopping behaviors. To achieve this, the teams conducted in-depth analysis of past engagement pre-campaign, and optimized current engagement during the campaign.
The Solution
Use Subscriber Engagement Data to Create a Segmentation and Cadence Strategy
BlueHornet's plan for Allen Edmonds applied learnings gleaned from subscriber engagement data to segmentation, message content, and email cadence. The solution included message customization to reflect acquisition channel, frequency modification based on current engagement and sale duration, and mid-campaign optimization based on A|B test results.
The Results
196% Increase in "Rediscover America" Email Revenue; Decrease in List Fatigue
The Allen Edmonds "Rediscover America" sale exceeded its goals. In addition to maintaining engagement and reducing opt-out spikes throughout the campaign's two-week duration, the company recognized a 196% increase in revenue from the previous year's efforts. Plus, the Allen Edmonds team has rediscovered the value of engagement-based data segmentation, applying their concepts from this sale to improve all of their program results.
The Problem
Re-Defining Loyalty and Value for Affluent International Guests
With almost 300 hotels, palaces and resorts in 52 countries around the world, GHA was challenged to implement a loyalty program that delivered unique value to hotel guests based on their rewards level (Gold, Platinum, and Black), conveyed the same level of luxury and exclusivity as members would receive at their hotels, and scaled across all of their properties—14 unique brands that have unique business needs as well as different internal systems, operating policies, and teams.
The Need
Deliver over 1,000 content variations in seven different languages
GHA quickly identified that time and resource constraints would hinder their ability to successfully send 1,000+ versions of their loyalty emails. They needed to find a way to simplify the process. BlueHornet’s Dynamic Content tool offers GHA the ability to create one email that contains multiple areas of unique content for each recipient.
The Solution
An Exclusive, Individualized Email Experience with BlueHornet Dynamic Content
For each subscriber, GHA emails use dynamic content to personalize the level of rewards the program member has reached and the Local Experiences that await them at their achieved level. Pairing the individuality of each hotel property with the individuality of each subscriber’s loyalty tier level and travel preferences equates to over 300 different variations of email sent monthly to GHA Discovery subscribers. Combine that with the 7 languages that GHA caters to, and the email versions increase exponentially – to over 1,800 for some communications.
The Results
Global Hotel Alliance Uses Dynamic Content to Send 1000+ Versions of Loyalty Emails
Since July 2010, GHA has accumulated 1.7 million members worldwide, with approx 2,200 members joining each day. And as GHA grows—adding more hotels, adventures, and loyalty members—BlueHornet scales with them, providing reliable creation and delivery of GHA emails around the world.
The Problem
Capture Lost Revenue in Abandoned Carts
Boot Barn discovered that the revenue being generated from their website was not matching up with the high click-through rates to the shopping cart. This prompted them to reach out to website conversion service provider SeeWhy, to determine whether they could capture incremental revenue by remarketing to cart abandoners and encouraging visitors who were actively looking at products to return to the site.
The Need
A Real-Time Automated Cart Abandonment Remarketing Solution
Boot Barn needed a way to send automated emails to site visitors who added items to their shopping cart, but for some reason did not complete the checkout process. These messages needed to be sent in real-time and use dynamic content in order to keep the message personalized and relevant to the individual visitor.
The Solution
Integration of SeeWhy with BlueHornet Transactional Messaging
Boot Barn integrated BlueHornet’s transactional messaging platform with SeeWhy’s conversion optimization solution. This partnership allowed them to remarket and reach out to the people who were interested enough to add something to their cart, but did not complete their transaction.
The remarketing email templates were easily created in BlueHornet using dynamic content that included an image of the product abandoned, title, customer name and more, based on data inserted from SeeWhy. In the event that a customer leaves the check-out process prior to submitting their email address, SeeWhy is able to match up the consumer’s data with data captured via a pixel placed in promotional emails, allowing Boot Barn to remarket to people even if they abandoned the process before the email submission step.
The Results
Lift in Captured Revenue With Minimal Effort
- Boot Barn’s initial abandonment campaign generated a 12% lift in captured revenue during peak season
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Email Open Rates:
- 1st Email Trigger: 45.88%
- 2nd Email Trigger: 38.57%
- Final Email Trigger: 25.50%
- The emails contain no incentives, but rather focus on brand reassurance to encourage transaction completion.
The Problem
How to Grow Email List in Store Locations
Chuck E. Cheese’s offers personalized coupons, birthday reminders, and other promotional offers through their Chuck E-Club email program. The majority of their Chuck E-Club membership base is acquired through website traffic, and over the past 4 years, they’ve built a database of over 3 million valid and active opt-in subscribers. What was missing? CEC Entertainment recognized an opportunity to further build their membership base if they had a better way to allow in-store guests to register for the Chuck E-Club email program.
The Need
An Immediate, Automated Registration Process
The manual registration process proved to be inefficient – from the illegibility of the handwritten forms to the time it took to mail the forms and enter customer data into the Chuck E-Club database. CEC needed a solution that would allow their welcome letter coupons to be sent to customers immediately upon registration, rather than weeks after they initially signed up for the Chuck E-Club email program. Welcome letter coupons are CEC’s most aggressive offer and the largest driver of coupon usage, so the delivery of these coupons in a timely manner is crucial to driving revenue in stores.
The Solution
Instant Registration Through Text Messaging
Together with their email service provider BlueHornet, CEC partnered with mobile marketing solutions provider SmartReply to develop an automated sign up process via mobile text messaging that seamlessly added customers to the normal CEC double opt-in and welcome letter process and into the Chuck E-Club email program.
SmartReply’s mobile solution to opt in or out of communications enables customers to sign up for email communications wherever they may be – in this case, a Chuck E. Cheese’s location – by texting their email address to a number assigned to the company. Once the customer texts their email address, they receive a thank you text message in response, and an email is also delivered to begin the double opt-in and welcome letter process.
The Results
Higher Open and Click Rates for Text-to-Join Subscribers
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Subscribers who join the Chuck E-Club via text message account for 5% of daily sign up volume.
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The open rate of text subscribers is typically 10-20% higher than that of all other subscribers.
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Coupon clicks are 8-10% higher for subscribers that used texting as a sign up method.
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Texting as a sign up method has proven to be more efficient and delivers better results for CEC.
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Guests love the instant gratification they get from the text-to-join process.
The Problem
Subscribers with jobs stop visiting the site
Job seekers use the SnagAJob.com site frequently—often daily—when they’re unemployed and searching for a job. Once subscribers find jobs, however, their interaction with the site drastically decreases.
SnagAJob.com knew that hourly job holders change jobs on an average of every 9-12 months and that workers may need the resources on SnagAJob.com again in a short time. But how could they ensure site visits and maintain subscriber engagement with workers, even when those workers are currently employed?
The Need
Keep SnagAJob.com top of mind
SnagAJob.com needed to stay top of mind with job-seeking subscribers on a consistent basis, even after they found employment. They also needed to provide content that was compelling enough to drive employed subscribers back to the website. Their program would need to be highly relevant to people in two different stages – those actively looking for jobs and those who are thinking about a change but are not actively searching just yet.
The Solution
A “win-back” email program aimed at recapturing latent subscribers
With the help of the BlueHornet strategic services team, SnagAJob.com identified three primary reasons why hourly workers begin looking for a new job. Since many of these reasons were addressed in themes that already existed on SnagAJob.com, they decided to tap into that content as a starting point.
The Results
A High Rate of Re-Engagement
SnagAJob.com set out to re-engage with a segment of their dormant subscribers using content-based emails. With the three-touch win back email campaign, SnagAJob.com was able to recapture over 10% of the initial target population back into their email program.
The Problem
Capitalize on existing social momentum
Since KFC began experimenting with social media marketing in 2010, they found surprising results: their email subscribers who had clicked on social sharing buttons in previous KFC emails had 70% higher open and click-through rates than the average subscriber. Once they recognized that their most active email subscribers were also actively sharing news about KFC on their social networks, they recognized an opportunity to find additional brand advocates.
The Need
Tap existing and create new social influencers
KFC wanted to turn as many existing email subscribers into social influencers as possible, and also needed a way to ensure that social influencers knew about and were participating in their email program.
The Solution
A two-pronged campaign increases email engagement and social exposure
Step 1: Use Email Marketing to Drive Social Sharing
By capitalizing on the visually compelling element of their newest product, the bunless Double Down sandwich, they created an email with just a product shot and a simple call to action: to share the news with their friends via social media. View the results and what the email looked like in the full case study.
Step 2: Use Social Media to Drive Email Subscriptions
By using SocialLoop™, the social email solution from BlueHornet and Shoutlet, KFC’s Facebook page now drives 3% of all email sign-ups and the quality of those subscribers remains high. "We have grown our email database slowly and organically," Geiser says. "That has really paid dividends for us. We have a substantial following and tremendous trust in the brand."
The Results
Combines Email and Social to Drive Increased Engagement
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Highest open rate to-date
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Over 12,000 shares in first 24 hours
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3M additional impressions
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29% website traffic increase
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3% of email sign-ups from Facebook
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See all results
