Content + personality + triggered email campaigns = 200x ROI for U.K. retailer
The Company
VIE at home is an award-winning skin care, makeup, and bath and body products retailer based in the United Kingdom. The company’s philosophy remains the same as it was when it originally launched in 1997 (under its previous name Virgin VIE at home): premium products at affordable prices that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home.
The Challenge
With its small marketing team, VIE at home needed to find new ways to drive ROI without adding significantly more time to the team’s workload.
The Solution
One of the company’s strengths is how its personality shines through in its promotional emails. Thus, VIE at home decided to focus on using Silverpop Engage to deliver relevant, triggered pre- and post-purchase emails full of content and personality that would help grow the revenue it generated per email.
“One of the key reasons we decided to implement a triggered email campaign was because it allowed us to communicate with our customers with highly relevant content without requiring a lot of additional effort on the part of our email team,” said Andrew Steward, CRM manager, VIE at home
VIE at home focused its post-purchase email campaign on delivering content that would be helpful and relevant to customers at specific stages in the post-purchase and retention lifecycle. Its post-purchase email program consists of several emails:
• “Top 10 Items Purchased.” Once an order is completed, a triggered message is sent to those customers who have purchased one of the top 10 most popular items on VIE at home’s site. The focus of these emails is on educating customers about the particular item they purchased. For example, one VIE at home email includes a video that provides step-by-step instructions on how to apply its Mineral Foundation makeup using its Kabuki Brush. Not only does the message help recipients get the most out of the product—thereby increasing customer satisfaction—it also provides VIE at home with an upsell opportunity. And to help increase message reach, VIE at home include a Share-to-Social link in the email, giving customers the ability to share the video with friends on their Facebook page.
• Product Review Request. One week after purchase, VIE at home sends an email to customers asking them for a product review. These reviews are subsequently used in emails, on VIE at home’s website, and internally by VIE at home’s product team.
• Product Refill. Next, VIE at home sends an email when it’s time to replenish the product. Featuring humor such as, “Is the shiny silver base of your One Step Face Base wickedly glinting up at you?” VIE at home’s messages use personality to urge customers to come back to its online store to make another purchase. VIE at home also uses this opportunity to encourage customers to host their own “VIE at home party,” offering free products as an incentive.
• Cart Recovery. VIE at home has also implemented a cart abandonment campaign reminding customers to return to their cart to finalize their purchase. In this email, VIE at home lets customers know that the items in the basket will be available for the next 24 hours.
The Results
VIE at home has connected strongly with its customers and achieved phenomenal ROI through its triggered emails. Its “Top 10 Items Purchased” email has proven highly engaging, with 42 percent of customers that open the Mineral Foundation email watching the YouTube video on how to use the product.
For every £1 VIE at home spends on its refill reminder emails, it gets back £190 in sales. These emails also achieve a 57 percent higher click-through than VIE at home’s weekly promotional email.
Finally, VIE at home’s cart abandonment campaign has helped recover revenue that would have been otherwise lost. For every £1 spent sending these emails, VIE at home gets £243 back in sales.
“There’s no doubt that our triggered email campaigns have been a big success for VIE at home,” says Steward. “Given that we’re seeing open and click-through rates that are heads and tails above those for our promotional emails, it’s evident that clients are seeing the value of these relevant messages.”
Download the PDF to learn how VIE at Home gets 200X ROI with triggered emails.
