Two Seasons - the retail campaign that generated a 43% click through rate
Two Seasons have been using PureResponse email marketing software for three and a half years now. The fastest growing UK board sports and snow retailer throughout the UK, Two Seasons, owned by Billabong, have 24 stores and specialise in snowboards, wetsuits, ski jackets and general surf & skate equipment and clothing.
“When it comes to our email marketing campaigns, our audience were a loyal organically grown database of about 34,000, which has significantly grown in the last 12 months.” Iain Calvert, eCommerce Manager, explains. And that’s not surprising when you look at the success of campaigns like ‘The Golden Ticket.’...
Did you get a Golden Ticket?
In 2010 the savvy marketers at Two Seasons wanted to create an email campaign that not only generated sales but also generated a buzz. So, one Monday, they sent this email:
The email went to every person in their database and informed them that they had won a gift voucher to the value of £1-£100. The clever bit? The email recipient would only find out how much they had won when they visited the Two Seasons website, chose an item and entered their unique code at the point of sale. Recipients had a week to take advantage of their golden ticket.
Iain comments: “After the initial send we followed up to non-opens on Sunday, which was the last day of the promotion, reminding them that the offer was about to end and to act fast if they didn’t want to miss out.”
He continues: “Of course we ended up with a few abandoned baskets, if someone found out they had only won £1 but 3-4 days after the promotion conversions went up by a third as people thought about their item and then went back to buy it anyway.”
Creative email marketing generates a buzz
The golden ticket campaign generated a 34% open rate and 43% click through, and also a massive buzz around Two Seasons as people were talking about the competition and asking each other how much they had won.
Iain explains: “Anybody can send an email offering special promotions, you may get the open and click through but you will also lose money. By creating a campaign like the golden ticket we wanted to get people talking about the brand, which we did, and we only had to give away one £100 voucher. My advice to any email marketer is to get creative with your campaigns, you can’t do these sorts of campaigns all the time otherwise they lose their impact, maybe every six months or so.”
What’s next for their email marketing?
By using PureResponse features like the subject line testing tool and re-sends to non-opens Iain and his team are able to test emails to see which has had the best response. The next competition that is going to run will incorporate social media by way of the Two Seasons’ facebook page. An email will be sent to the database with a competition and recipients will only be able to access details by ‘liking’ the facebook page.
Iain concludes: “By throwing a few ideas around and trying something new we managed to increase sales without doing a straight discount. I strongly encourage others to test new ideas to achieve better results. Pure360 allows us to try these new ideas, see the results and modify the campaign to improve it further. We are really pleased with Pure360 and the support they give us.”
