Shapen

Choosing an emailing tool

When looking for the ideal solution for Shapen, the price and quality of the emailing tool’s customer support were crucial. In the end, we chose the Czech Ecomail.

We have extensive experience with it and use it to manage email campaigns for several clients. As a result, Ecomail’s customer support helps us even with more complicated matters.

Structure of automatic campaigns

After this, we pulled together a package of automated campaigns including new creatives, texts and graphics. For example, we included:

• the welcome process (welcoming a new newsletter subscriber),
• an abandoned cart,
• the reactivation of inactive subscribers,
• communication with VIP customers (those who buy more often or for higher amounts),
• a ‘thank you’ for a purchase,
• birthday greetings, and so on.

Automatic campaigns always go out based on a particular condition, i.e. automatically. They arrive by email at an appropriate time and date (a person’s ‘names day’, a purchase anniversary, an abandoned cart).

Based on the language version from which the customer originated, we send campaigns in Czech, Slovak and English (to Europe and America).

We chose pleasant, human and personal communication. We work with discounts, but very carefully. We send VIP clients an email directly from the founder of Shapen.

Emails are not just for sales. We are interested in whether customers are satisfied with their purchase and we advise them on how to take care of their footwear and health.

Simple? Appearances can be deceiving

• Successful emailing is dependant on quality. Sending newsletters is sensitive work involving the psychology of purchasing, the product and the brand. That is why we conditioned the machines so that the customer does not receive them too often. For example, we do not send an abandoned visit and an abandoned cart at the same time.
• We use multi-round campaigns, which follow a logical order. For example, the post-purchase thank you is three-round (three consecutive campaigns leaving on the condition that the customer has not made a purchase in the meantime).
• Smart solution for discount codes: We generate codes based on the number of automated emails several months in advance. Each customer thus receives a unique code by email and cannot misuse it for multiple purchases.

• ‘Thank you’ for a purchase: We did not rely only on transaction emails (order information from the CMS system) about the delivery and dispatch of the order. We also contacted customers after their purchase. We gave them advice on how to exercise or take care of their new shoes or rewarded them with a discount on another pair of barefoot shoes for loved ones (referral model).

Results

The numbers that Shapen achieved with emailing surprised us all. Once again, the old well-known rule was confirmed: Do things properly, with love, and the results will come.

Every second customer opens their email

Customers trust the Shapen brand and, combined with the appropriate tone of communication and properly set up email campaigns, they generated a 50.6% average open rate.

This means that every other customer opens the campaigns. The usual average for other online stores is roughly 20 to 25% for automatic and 15% for manual campaigns.

We converted 11% of abandoned carts into purchases

The total click rate (click-throughs from email campaigns) is 9.7%, which is again almost twice the normal average.

Together, the campaigns generated sales of almost €370,000. We managed to convert 11% of abandoned carts into purchases.

A romantic co-existence of manual and automatic campaigns

We only run manual campaigns when there really is something to write about, because they are less effective than automatic campaigns. On the other hand, they do excite customers.

It turns out that automated campaigns leave twice as often when we send manual campaigns. If we sent interesting manual campaigns, they triggered newsletter subscribers to click, view the offer and add products to the cart. As a result, the number of automated emails also grew, and the whole strategy fit together perfectly.

Revenue from automated vs manual newsletters

Automatic campaigns are more effective because they bring more sales even with fewer emails sent. In the case of Shapen, automatic newsletters bring 63.3% of emailing revenue, while they make up only a third of sent e-mails .