CASE STUDY 24-day Countdown Sweepstakes increases acquisition nearly 50% and hightens engagement for weeks leading up to holiday

Transcription

1 CASE STUDY 24-day Countdown Sweepstakes increases acquisition nearly 50% and hightens engagement for weeks leading up to holiday

2 COMPANY fotokasten WEBSITE INDUSTRY Retail / Photo Publishing The Client Founded in the year 2000, fotokasten* is a German provider of high-quality photo print products with the motto, Erlebe deine Bilder, meaning Bring your photos to life. As a pioneer in the segment, the company from the small town of Waiblingen in southern Germany has grown steadily to become one of the country s foremost online photo and print service providers, and a market leader in the premium segment. fotokasten s is known for top quality, fast delivery, and a high level of customer service. They offer a range of over 200 customizable items; from photo books and calendars to mugs and housewares. Customers are able to design their own individual items using fotokasten s unique software, which is available both online and offline. fotokasten started using Selligent s marketing engagement platform in 2010, at which point the company had 423,000 contacts in its database a figure which has grown steadily to over one million customer profiles today. CAMPAIGN Holiday season countdown sweepstakes COUNTRY Germany PROGRAMS Acquisition/Loyalty Sweepstakes Daily Countdown Campaign Social Media RESULTS daily users 45% newly registered users 57% open rate 74-80% CTO rate * German for photo case

3 Starting Point & Market Environment Photo books are currently the industry s best-selling product category. According to the German Association of the Photographic Industry (Photoindustrie-Verband), around 1.3 million photo books were sold in Germany in By 2012, the number had grown to 7.2 million. This represents a 500% rise in demand in a matter of six years, while the average revenue per photo book has climbed to (Source: Foto-und-Imagingmarkt-2012-auf-Wachstumskurs) Attracted by positive growth forecasts, a large number of new service providers have flooded the market over the past few years. Accordingly, competition is at an alltime high. The spread of providers includes online-only vendors such as PosterXXL and Photobox, all the way to brick-and-mortar retail chains such as dm, Rossmann, and Kaufland, who offer photo services at store locations. Despite this highly competitive market environment, fotokasten successfully cemented its position as a leading provider, in no small part thanks to target-group-oriented audience engagement campaigns. OUR AIM IS TO MAKE OUR CUSTOMERS AND SWEEPSTAKE PARTICIPANTS ENGAGE VOLUNTARILY AND IN A PLAYFUL MANNER WITH FOTOKASTEN EVERY DAY. THIS INCREASES CUSTOMER RETENTION AND BRAND LOYALTY 60% Target Group fotokasten attracts a heterogeneous customer demographic. About 60% of existing customers are women, while 40% are men. The average age of fotokasten customers is 37 years old. CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION 40% MEN WOMEN Sarah Busch, CRM teamleader, fotokasten GmbH AGE 23% 22% % 29% 40-44

4 Advent calendar After: 11/30/14 Before: 12/24/14 Execution: Every hour Web link: Door Input List - Parana contacts InList Marketing Automation In the beginning, fotokasten primarily used the Selligent platform to send its weekly newsletters, leveraging functionalities such as A/B multivariate testing and target group segmentation. As the company s use of the platform evolved, the focus shifted to automated campaigns and marketing initiatives such as the Holiday Calendar Sweepstake. Today, initiatives such as congratulatory birthday messages and two-tiered shopping basket reminders form part of the standard communication and are fully automated. All segmentation and content is driven by product and purchase data sourced from Selligent s integration with their commerce platform Magento. fotokasten also relies on Selligent to measure customer satisfaction via the Net-Promoter-Score (NPS) system. Yes You are already participating Advent LP Click View Success Participation conditions Found Not Found Success Success Success Thanks and good luck Advent calendar confirmation of participation

5 The Advent Calendar Sweepstake The holiday shopping season is a peak business period for fotokasten, since many products are suitable as personalized gifts. In fact, the holiday season accounts for around 50% of the company s annual sales. One of the main tools to drive engagement and loyalty among existing customers is the annual Advent Calendar Sweepstakes, now in its fourth year. The German tradition of an advent calendar consists of festive wall calendars replete with small doors marked with numbers 1 to 24, counting down December days to Christmas with small gifts behind each door. In order to engage the largest possible number of customers, the Advent Calendar Sweepstakes was specifically implemented in the fotokasten online store and not as is often the case on social media. One major argument in favor of implementation in the owned media sphere of fotokasten s own website was the SEO implication. Consumers, partners and competition aggregation sites share the sweepstakes pages across their own social networks, thereby creating valuable backlinks to the company website. From December 1 to 24, every day participants had the chance to win a prize concealed behind the respective calendar door. Prizes included products from fotokasten s assortment, as well as items from contributing sponsors. All participants also had a chance of winning the Grand Prize. Repeated participation in daily drawings increased the chances of winning the Grand Prize. This provided an incentive for participants to visit the website on a daily basis. In order to maximize efficiency of back-end workflows, fotokasten decided to implement the entire sweepstakes competition using the Selligent platform. The first step consisted of creating entry forms for all 24 doors of the advent calendar within the platform. This allowed for a simplified administration of participant data. fotokasten also used the Selligent software to randomly determine the winners of the daily draws, who were then contacted directly through Selligent s software. In the run-up to the campaign, the sweepstakes was advertised across all relevant online channels: via , newsletters, social media, as well as a teasers on the fotokasten online store landing page. Further multiplying the message, advertising extended to the channels of sponsoring partners for a broad audience reach. One small, but crucial element of the campaign proves how even a simple measure can skyrocket participation numbers: the reminder . After participating in the sweepstakes, users were given the option to receive daily reminders for the sweepstakes.

6 When the campaign first launched in 2011, fotokasten attracted an average of participants per day. The next year, daily participation climbed to users, but results also showed spikes in participation on days when the newsletter announcing the sweepstakes went out. This led to the introduction of the reminder function in 2013, which proved highly successful: The number of participants rose to users per day, a total of 25,890 unique users, of which only 55% had previously been registered with fotokasten. During last year s campaign (2013), a total of 10,600 participants (41%) chose to use the reminder function Results & Outlook Powered by our marketing software, fotokasten was able to drive more personalized and targetgroup-oriented customer engagement. A/B Multivariate Testing and target group segmentation provided valuable guidelines for structuring and analyzing collected customer data. fotokasten also retained full visibility of customer satisfaction throughout the campaign via real-time NPS metrics. The example of the Advent Calendar Sweepstakes demonstrates the huge impact a relatively simple engagement marketing tool (reminder ) can have on contributing to successful campaign outcomes: The reminder achieved open rates at up to 57%, as well as a Click-to-Open (CTO) Rate around 74 80%. For the 2014 edition of the Advent Calendar Sweepstakes, fotokasten drew on past experiences to improve communication initiatives even further. 57% 74-80% OPEN RATES CLICK-TO-OPEN (CTO) RATE SELLIGENT INC. 745 Atlantic Avenue Boston, MA (617)