Multi-channel advent calendar for new customers, more traffic from existing customers and higher conversion in the Christmas hustle and bustle
And again came the Christmas season, the most important sales period and at the same time that of overflowing mailboxes and the almost limitless distraction of the customer for other offers.
Initial situation
The experience with the first Advent calendar at ifolor from 2018 was very promising, so the campaign was repeated and expanded in 2019 and 2020, and the ifolor organization was more closely involved for even more impact. How can you play the multi-channel keyboard and get the most out of this campaign?
Objective
The challenge for Mayoris, the creative agency Wirz, the digital agency 1Up, and the internal specialists was linked to these goals: to cover 24 important days in December, increase awareness, increase reach, motivate more participants, increase the number of participations, reactivate inactive users in the decisive phase, increase overall sales, improve ROI. This is the stuff of specialized service providers coming together to serve the customer in the best possible way. This organizational challenge also had to be managed as a win-win.
The centerpiece was the “Best of Advent” microsite with the Advent calendar. The counterpart was the e-mail with integrated Advent calendar for direct interaction, which was sent to a number of recipients in the upper six-digit range during four mailing days. Daily prizes totaling around CHF 30,000 were offered and enticed people to take part in the 24-day competition every day. Reminder functions could be used to ensure that no day was missed. Daily and partly video-animated social media campaigns on Facebook and Instagram were the traffic drivers for new registrations in the e-mail distribution list and thus also for new customers.
The weekly sending of an email with the Advent calendar as well as the built-in reminder function for the daily reminder significantly increased the number of participants. The important email KPIs were significantly above the annual average of the regular mailing thanks to the high relevance of the content. Participations directly in the interactive email were up to 39%, very high compared to the microsite (60% plus), which were reached via social media and directly from the website. The peaks of the participations correlated with the 4 sending days of the email on the one hand, but were also dependent on the attractiveness of the prizes. Subscribers to the reminder function increased daily, as did new signups for the newsletter.
Both new and existing customers, who placed their first order in ifolor’s Christmas business after taking part in a one-day prize draw, performed well. Inactive customers were brought back by a single-digit percentage. The targets set were met in full.
Evaluation
Technically, all emails were played out via the Selligent Marketing CloudEine Marketing Cloud Technologie umfasst verschiedene Module für die aktive Bewirtschaftung und Dialogführung von Kunden über eine digitale Marketing Plattform, welche selbst als SaaS-Dienstleistung - also über das Internet und nicht proprietär im eigenen.... Entries in the daily prize draws from both the emails and the microsite were also managed via this platform. In terms of quality, the collaboration between the service providers was very satisfactory, and a content hub enabled efficient content production and playout on various channels. A lead time of about three months facilitated the higher coordination effort and enabled the good coordination of the participants and with the protagonists within a tolerable framework.
Success
- All quantitative goals such as reach, traffic, new customers, reactivation, additional sales and ROI were achieved.
- In the first year the social channels were not used, in year 2 – with social media – the number of participants has increased by 77%, total participations have tripled.
- The number of participations per person increased by 79%. These values were further increased in 2020.
- The already very high newsletter subscriber base was successfully expanded in all three years thanks to the campaign.
- The lowered cadence of email sends for the 2020 campaign has resulted in saturation of revenue from the campaign among existing customers.
- The internal organization and external service providers were successfully coordinated thanks to a lot of skill but without a project tool.
- The interaction between channels and technologies worked (almost) perfectly.
- The campaign won an award at the Marketing Exchange’s Email Award 2020 in Germany, which underlines the innovation and creativity of the multi-media campaign. To the video.