US-based girls and tweens fashion brand, Hayden Girls, was looking for the best way to reach customers, keep them informed about the latest, on-trend styles, and generate consistent revenue through online orders. Even though Hayden Girls already had basic email marketing up and running, they found that – when used to its full potential – email yielded results that far exceeded their expectations. Here’s how this fashion-forward brand achieved a 200% increase in site visits within the first year, and more.
Designed for Success
The first step was finding an email marketing agency that both understood the Hayden Girls brand and the intricacies of successful email marketing. CodeCrew in San Francisco seemed a natural fit.
Hayden Girls’ new agency quickly discovered a disconnect between the brand’s values and the email campaigns they were sending out. So, the first thing their team did was spruce up their subject lines and make sure that the emails looked as good as the clothing designs themselves.
Know Your Audience
Segmentation
Segmentation is so important to any ecommerce business. By segmenting an audience according to engaged and unengaged purchasers and subscribers, you’re able to send hyper-personalised emails that focus on the receiver’s unique needs. A key factor in improving Hayden Girls’ email marketing strategy was understanding their target audience and segmenting them to ensure subscribers received relevant content only.
Design
Since CodeCrew employed incredible designers from across the world, Hayden Girls’ emails were soon looking like pages from a fashion magazine (which was the idea).
A/B Testing
Another crucial aspect of effective email marketing is constant A/B testing. By comparing send times, subject lines, and design variations, Hayen Girls steadily honed in on their recipients’ preferences to ensure that each message really hit the mark.
Stitching It All Together
The segmentation, A/B testing, and redesign alone yielded a significant increase in order rates, engagement, and revenue for Hayden Girls. Some of these figures include:
- An average campaign open rate of 48.7% (January – September 2022)
- An 86% increase in placed orders (January – September 2021 to January – September 2022)
- A 45.64% average open rate for flows in Q2 2022
Revenue-Generating Automations
One of the key elements of any successful email marketing strategy is well-thought-out automated workflows. These are a series of emails (referred to as ‘touches’) triggered during various stages of the buyer’s journey. The key benefit of having workflows set up is that they do most of the work for you while keeping the customer engaged.
Some of the main flows CodeCrew set up for Hayden LA were:
Welcome Flow: Sent once someone subscribed to Hayden Girls’ email marketing program, this flow introduced the brand’s value proposition and highlighted unique styles that were specifically recommended for each subscriber to turn new leads into customers.
Browse Abandon Flow: The aim of this flow was to encourage subscribers who had been looking through the site to return and purchase the looks they had their eye on and show them other items they may have missed while browsing.
Cart Abandon Flow: Every ecommerce business needs a strong cart abandonment strategy to recover significant amounts of potential revenue, and Hayden Girls was no exception. By providing customers with a small discount on their cart, this flow brought subscribers back to the site and straight to the checkout.
Post-Purchase Flow: As the saying goes, “You can never have too many clothes.” Chances are, if someone purchased one item of clothing and liked it, they’re likely to shop the same clothing brand again. This flow capitalised on that idea by turning one-time purchasers into repeat customers.
Transactionals: Order, shipping and delivery notifications allowed Hayden Girls to offer customers an optimal purchasing experience at every step, from payment to delivery. What’s more, these touches are known for high open and click rates, so CodeCrew used the opportunity to generate further orders by showcasing recommended products within the content.
Hayden Girls’ new workflows saw excellent results, like a 200% increase in revenue in 2022.
Back to School
While Black Friday campaigns were a key date in the marketing calendar, Hayden Girls kept an even closer eye on Back To School campaigns.
By creating teaser campaigns, reminders and special offers for the Back To School season, Hayden Girls ensured that they maximised sales during what is an important period for any youth fashion brand.
The Results
Over the two years that Hayden Girls partnered with CodeCrew, they saw some very positive results:
2021
- A 170% increase in quarterly campaign revenue
- 240% increase in email flow revenue
- An 88% increase in the number of orders placed per quarter
- A significant increase in new subscribers
- Nearly zero spam complaints
- A decrease in unsubscribe rates
2022
- A 200% increase in flow revenue from August 2021 to August 2022
- A 300% increase in campaign revenue from August 2021 to August 2022
- A 56% increase in November 2022 campaign revenue (compared to November 2021)
- An 8.5% increase in campaign order rates from January 2022 to September 2022
- A 12.67% increase in total campaign click rates from January 2022 to September 2022
Key Takeaways
When it comes to ecommerce and retail, email marketing offers personalised communication and undeniable ROI. For online retailers looking to improve their revenue and engagement, these steps are key:
- Ensuring the brand and messaging are in sync.
- Automated flows do most of the work and yield great ROI, so be sure to build a well-considered series of automated emails.
- It’s crucial to segment your audience to ensure that subscribers only receive content that is relevant to them.
- Never underestimate the importance of A/B testing and how this can optimise your email marketing program.
- Marketing calendars should be built around key dates – plan and execute any seasonal campaigns as far in advance as possible.
