After switching to an e-mail marketing program targeted to customers’ interests, beauty and fragrance products e-retailer Beauty Bridge has more than doubled its e-mail open rate, manager of business development Gokhan Erkavun says.
Nutley, NJ-based Beauty Bridge, which Erkavun launched in 2004 with his wife, Kate Erkavun, started using in July a Bronto Software e-mail management system operated in an outsourcing relationship by Email Aptitude, a provider of e-mail marketing services.
Beauty Bridge, which operates BeautyBridge.com on the Yahoo Store platform, had formerly sent just a single e-mail message every month to all of its e-mail subscribers—a strategy that made Beauty Bridge come across as a discount retailer rather than a merchant of high-end cosmetics and other beauty products, Erkavun says. “It damaged our brand,” he says.
Instead, Beauty Bridge needed a system that would send personalized e-mail messages that catered to customers’ interests, he says. After less than two months of preparing the new e-mail marketing system, which included integration with the retailer’s Stone Edge order management system and in-house product database, Beauty Bridge started sending personalized e-mails in July that recognize customers’ interest in particular brands, product categories, and their needs related to particular skin conditions. Bronto’s integration with Google Analytics helps the retailer identify customers’ interests.
The retailer further divides e-mails into three types of personalized campaigns: promotions focused on particular brands and categories, special offers like free shipping to entice customers to re-order 90 days after a purchase, and discounted price offers to win back customers who haven’t made a purchase in 10 months. It also sends out a monthly generalized e-mail, and all e-mail subscribers now receive one or more e-mails each month.
The most effective e-mails with the highest open and conversion rates, Erkavun says, are the 90-day re-order offers. “These are the most targeted to an individual person,” he says. “We send them an e-mail that tells them what they ordered and when, and ask if they’d like to order again with a special offer.”
The average e-mail open rate under the new system is nearly 14%—more than twice the 6% rate under the old system, Erkavun says. The 14% open rate results in a clickthrough rate of 2.6% and a conversion to purchase rate of about 2.4%, he notes.
With help from that kind of marketing performance, Erkavun says he expects sales to grow about 15-20% this year to close to $5 million.
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