How Moosejaw Mountaineering drives up e-mail marketing performance

By providing customers details about the status of their orders, Moosejaw Mountaineering and Backcountry Inc. has doubled the amount of sales driven by e-mail marketing messages, CFO Jeffrey Wolfe says.

Moosejaw, a multi-channel retailer of hiking gear and apparel, ties many of its e-mail marketing campaigns to e-mailed confirmations of orders and returns. It uses its own Etail Manager software to produce real-time data updates from a combination of software systems – including its Retail Pro store operations software, order management, UPS shipping, and Newgistics returns management – to provide extensive details about the status of orders and returns in e-mail messages, Wolfe says. It delivers its e-mail through ExactTarget.

The promotional messages included with e-mailed confirmation notices range from discount coupons for online and offline purchases to previews of information available in Moosejaw.com’s “Moosejaw Madness” section, which offers hiking trivia and assorted advice in an effort to keep people coming back to the web site.

“The key to getting our customers to read about the promotions and the ‘madness’ is to provide them with detailed information about their order so they have a reason to open the e-mail,” Wolfe says.

“Moosejaw`s e-mail marketing strategy has helped it control costs and drive repeat business in an industry where nearly all competitors sell the same products at the same price,” he adds. “The number of e-mails opened has increased from 5% to 35%, resulting in over a 100% increase in the sales driven by these e-mails.”