CATEOGORY: E-mail Marketing
FIRST-PLACE CAMPAIGN: EyesLipsFace
AGENCY: eWayDirect
CLIENT: EyesLipsFace
E-tailer EyesLipsFace (ELF) built its e-commerce business by creating a strong niche in the high-quality, low-cost cosmetics market. Yet, despite being online-driven, they had a database of just 40,000 e-mail addresses and were only doing simple e-mail marketing, such as welcome messages or general sales promotions. The company wanted to engage customers more frequently and provide valuable, useful, individualized information without overloading them with too many messages, all while increasing sales.
“We realized that make-up is available everywhere, so just selling high-quality make-up was not enough and we knew we needed to build a more serious relationship with the consumer,” Marty Donner, chief marketing officer of eWayDirect, ELF’s e-mail and social media solutions provider, said. “We felt we could do that by providing them with useful information.”
eWayDirect built social media site ELF Beauty Network, an exclusive members-only social media network, which was accessible directly from http://www.eyeslipsface.com. The site offered message boards, blogs, Facebook and Twitter links to facilitate interaction and conversations among the members. The company observed and learned from the conversations what was important to the members.
They also provided content about getting ‘the look’, current trends in eye make-up, skincare tips and things that helped people look and feel better about themselves. In addition, members received exclusive discounts, content, access to a beauty expert, contests and promotions.
“It was about providing an information resource where they could go for advice, rather than being a company that’s trying to sell them a product,” Donner said.
Joey Shamah, CEO of EyesLipsFace noted that, “What stood out for me was the way we were able to engage our customers and open up a two-way communication. It’s important to build a relationship with someone who’s in their beauty closet on a day-to-day basis but communicate with them in a way they want to be communicated with.”
It’s all about the relationship, Shamah said.
“By listening to the customer and understanding what they want, we were able to give them the tools to get their message out there and in turn they felt like a brand ambassador,” he said. In other words, he said, they used social media as the hub for all the other spokes of their relationship wheel.
Meanwhile, eWayDirect worked with e-mail marketing company Sell Up and creative marketing and consulting firm Ideas Inc. to design and implement the email program and segment the existing customer profiles into buckets based on age and behavior, including whether they were opening e-mails, clicking on certain links and making online purchases. (Members of the Beauty Network gave their e-mail addresses when they registered.) Targeted segments were created based on very granular data from their observed behavior, such as ‘180 day buyers who purchased three or more times’.
eWayDirect, on ELF’s behalf, began mailing the file several times a week and optimized their frequency based on behavior and ROI, i.e., whether recipients were opening their e-mail, not opening as frequently, or if unsubscribe rates changed.
“In e-commerce, the user, based on their actions, will tell you if you’re using the right frequency or not, ”
By continuing to ask customers for their e-mail addresses, they now have a database of more than 1 million addresses, and their revenue through e-mail marketing has increased twelve-fold, shifting from previously representing 10% of the company’s revenue to now representing 40%. —Lynn Russo Whylly
