Quality Over Quantity

When area-rug retailer FLOR shifted their focus from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce, we saw a huge opportunity ahead of us. We worked with the brand to revamp their email strategy, focusing on providing valuable content for their customers through craftsmanship, storytelling and email best practices.

BRAND & AUDIENCE INSIGHTS

FLOR’s previous email campaigns focused on sending messages to all subscribers with frequent sale offers. Although they were showcasing many promotions to their audience, we saw an opportunity to provide more compelling incentives for why people should purchase their product. We worked with the FLOR team to build a stronger strategy based on best practices, audience behavior and competitive analysis. In this strategy, we re-evaluated the campaign objectives, the audience receiving them, the frequency at which the messages were sent and the way each one was created in order to build a strong relationship between consumer and brand.

SOLVING THE PROBLEM

When rethinking the overall strategy, we focused on providing valuable content by highlighting FLOR’s three brand pillars: beautiful, smart and responsible. Their audience saw value in learning that FLOR rugs can elevate the style of their home, make life’s messes easier to clean and help the earth through sustainable manufacturing.

The first obstacles we needed to overcome were deliverability and inbox placement. No matter how great the emails we created were, they weren’t being seen. We updated many practices regarding acquisition tactics, list-cleaning strategies and email content to improve IP and domain reputation. Eventually, we were able to improve FLOR’s inbox placement score from 49% to 95%.

Previously, FLOR’s messages were comprised of large image blocks that included little to no live text or product photos. We took a fresh approach that incorporated both email best practices and FLOR’s unique style. Doing so ensured that the designs were optimized for various email clients via desktop, web or mobile devices, and included an appropriate ratio of images and live text. We also ran various tests to determine the type of imagery that best appealed to their audience and incorporated product photos based on those results. By making these updates and including other elevated design elements, we were able to tell a story that connects FLOR’s brand with its customers directly in their inbox.

Previously, FLOR was manually sending promotional campaigns for the majority of their email communications. We wanted to help them shift to a process that allowed their email marketing software do the heavy lifting for them. While promotional periods that coincide with seasonal catalog launches are still very important for the brand, we were able to strike a balance between one-time sends and automations triggered by behavior and tailored to different audiences. We implemented and updated a variety of campaign series, including a welcome series, post-purchase message, abandoned cart series and post-sample order message. In 2019, these automated sends produced 28% of revenue while accounting for only 1% of campaigns sent, causing a dramatic increase in ROI. 

Working with a variety of audiences across multiple marketing channels can be difficult to streamline. Previously, FLOR’s digital marketing channels were siloed, causing a greater disconnect between the brand and its customers. We were able to combine our email efforts with those from our paid media team by harnessing the information gathered from email in order to target unengaged customers through online advertisements. We also synchronized the email calendar with the social media team in order to create a cohesive look and feel for all of FLOR’s customers, no matter what touchpoint in which they communicated with the brand.

RESULTS

After targeting only users who have engaged with the brand in the last nine months, we shifted our focus to crafting high-quality messages based on behavior. Segmenting the audience combined with a focus on high-quality visual elements and email best practices generated a 2,844% ROI.