Case study. Ormatek: Increasing email channel sales from 1% to 8%
Case study. Ormatek: Increasing email channel sales from 1% to 8%
The following case study is from Mindbox, the original brand behind Maestra’s technology
Ormatek — is one of the most well-known Russian manufacturers of bedding and sleep accessories with a strong position in the overall domestic furniture market.
The challenge
Before turning to Mindbox, the client had been using a simple ESP which proved to be inefficient. Ormatek wanted to create a deeply personalized communication with a customer and to be able to segment customers by age, gender, location, shopping history, and so on. Another objective was to evaluate the impact of online communications in general and the email channel in particular on offline purchases. The ratio of email channel sales to the total revenue was chosen as a global indicator of email marketing efficiency. In six months, this figure has increased from 1% to 8%. The graph is based on Google Analytics data.
Trigger-based mailing scenarios
More than 30 automated trigger-based mailing campaigns have been set up, including the following:
- Welcome series
- Abandoned view of an expensive item
- Password recovery
- Discount digest
- Birthday greetings
- Special offer abandoned cart
- Mattress turning alert
- NPS survey
- Reactivation
- Next best offer
Separate templates for mattresses and other items
Since mattresses make up an important part of the Ormatek product range, it’s been decided to make a separate template for mattress abandonment. The mailing template was designed to show the entire list of each mattress’ characteristics, effectively enabling the customer to choose the desired model before going to the website. As a result, the customer would make a shopping decision upon reading the email and visit the online store only if truly interested.
Mattress turning alert
One of the project’s most interesting mailing types. By filling out a form on the website, customers can opt for getting alerted when it’s time to turn or flip their mattresses. The form fields includes the mattress’ firmness and size and the date it was last turned. Based on this data, we determine which message to send and when, with different instructions for one-sided and two-sided mattresses. We can also see which additional items to recommend and when the time comes to buy a new mattress.
Special offer abandoned cart
In addition to the standard abandonment mailing series, there is another message we send if a special offer for an item in the cart is coming to an end. Offers are updated frequently, so we linked the mailing with the store database to get automatically the offer expiration date and the specific products it applies to.
NPS survey
Ormatek regularly conducts online surveys and sends promo codes to respondents. The entire process — from creating a survey to sending promo codes to those who answered all questions — is configured in Mindbox without involving any third party services.
Summary
Over a six-month period, we have launched more than 30 trigger-based mailing series. The email channel revenue has increased from 1% to 8% of the total sales. Throughout the course of the project we have always been experimenting: launching unusual scenarios, conducting A/B tests, setting up polls, creating different templates for different product categories, etc.
Thanks to Mindbox, we have managed to find a new channel for efficient interaction with our customers. To be honest, at the planning stage everything seemed pretty simple, but as soon as the integration with the service began, some challenges surfaced. For example, how to combine our online and offline customer databases while keeping track of who bought what, when and where? There was plenty of ideas, but only working together with Mindbox experts we were able to find the method that truly worked. The process of integration took almost three months. This might sound like a lot of time, but we ended up having an effective system of communication with customers, not just a simple spam solution for short-term income generation.
I am impressed by the Mindbox team’s high competence and their readiness to positively resolve any issue as soon as possible. Their managers are always proactive and involved. Although I am not new to email marketing, I had been working more often with online audience. Drawing on that, we started out by improving our direct marketing and reaching to offline audience. We launched a number of reactivation strategies, combining text messaging and email channels.
Finally we compiled a database, reactivated some customers, and faced the question of what to do next. Spam? No, because we respect and value our subscribers! We conducted several surveys, organized the data, and based on that came up with a flexible customer segmentation system, with parameters such as the color of bedroom walls, what’s missing in the room, preferences and hobbies, etc. We didn’t want to reduce our understanding of customers to their age and gender. This audience segmentation approach gave us a better idea of their true needs, so we could create personalized mailings that significantly increased the company’s revenue.
What we gained by turning to Mindbox:
— a sophisticated system for building relationships with customers, fine-tuned for our objectives;
— a single platform for all marketing communications with offline and online customers;
— positive changes in a whole range of metrics: RR (Retention Rate), PF (Purchases Frequency), CPO (Cost Per Order), and a number of other parameters.
We plan to continue working with Mindbox, develop our marketing communications, introduce new scenarios, and achieve even better results.
