How to Achieve a ROMI of 5477.3% in the First Month: PUMA Email Marketing Case Study

The client

Established in 1948, PUMA is a sportswear brand that originated in Germany and has since gained a strong global presence. It is also the leader in Ukraine's sports fashion niche. The company operates offline stores worldwide and maintains a strong online presence at the same time.

PUMA produces its own clothing lines and regularly collaborates on themed limited-edition collections.

Campaign objectives

As a result of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine, PUMA stopped communicating with its customers via email for six months. So, we had the big task of getting this process going again to meet specific performance marketing goals:

1. Create a revenue growth forecast for the email channel based on our proposed development strategy.
2. Increase revenue over the pre-war period.
3. Grow the subscriber base.

In addition, PUMA partners expected the Netpeak team to be proactive and come up with fresh ideas on how to run the channel. This made our work even more interesting.

Promotion strategy

Based on the client's needs and our experience, we developed a promotion strategy for PUMA. Here’s what we did.

1. Developed a project development plan to achieve the goals. Importantly, this included a communication map involving triggers and manual mailings. Many of the triggers had been implemented previously but required design updates.
2. Created new sections for the newsletter.
3. Updated the newsletter template. We started using a new, unique design in each email instead of a single master template. At the same time, it was important to maintain the overall recognizable brand style.
4. Increased the number of newsletters per sales period.
5. Added product recommendation blocks to the website.
6. Added gamification to increase engagement with existing customers.
7. During the winter period, we decided to send newsletters in the form of an Advent calendar.
8. Developed new subscription forms to meet the goal of growing the subscriber base.

Let's take a closer look at the strategy.

Check out the email marketing glossary to better understand professional materials.

Bulk emails: design update and diversified content plan

We started by updating the design of the bulk email campaigns because they shouldn't have been stopped despite other technical work. Whether it's creating new forms or updating triggers.

We were asked to create something stylish and attractive that would appeal to the audience and make them fall in love with PUMA apparel even more. The answer to this was to use the same template for all the emails so the readers would not get bored. We wanted something new and unique in every email.

In addition, we reviewed the old template and found that specific product cards were rarely used in emails. Instead, they typically just used sections of the site (men's, women's, and specific product categories) or an email with a banner and a button to go to the site. So, we decided to show users the actual products more often, alternating them with templates that only contained site sections or generic banners.

Here's what we ended up with.

Before:

After:

More letter examples: 1, 2, 3. 

Next, we diversified the content plan by adding new sections.

1. Thematic product selection.

Sports/seasonal products:

New products:

For the holidays:

Bestsellers:

Sports:

Collections:

Sales with a selection of products:

2. Email gamification. We implemented this to increase user engagement with newsletters and brand communications.

3. Mono newsletters. These are newsletters that feature one type of product. As PUMA has many separate product lines that are known and loved around the world, mono newsletters helped diversify product newsletters and offered more choice in the content plan.

4. Sales reminders. During periods of sales and big promotions, such as Black Friday, we added announcements and increased the information drive by increasing the number of emails reminding readers about discounts on the website.

Examples of announcements: 1, 2.
Examples of discount reminders: 1, 2.

Growing the subscriber base

We implemented new subscription forms on the website to increase the number of subscribers and thus the revenue from triggered and manual email campaigns. Here are the must-have elements:

• A GIF widget
• A pop-up form
• A form in the website footer

We also updated the subscription landing page. A separate page for subscribing to newsletters, the subscription landing page gives the user more touchpoints with the database collection form and, therefore, more opportunities to share their contact information. We also mentioned the long-term benefits that a subscriber can get from this channel.

Working with triggered emails

We updated the design of existing triggers so that both mass and triggered emails have a single style.

We also developed a new communication map (an infographic of all the channels used and the types of emails they send) and planned to create new triggers after updating and redesigning the old ones. PUMA already had a fairly extensive communication map to begin with, so we decided to update what was already there and then build new ones as we went along.

An old design:

A new design:

The first thing we built from scratch was the welcome chain:

• 1st email
• 2nd email
• 3rd email
• 4th email

The welcome chain is important, as it helps the brand to get to know users better. It also familiarizes users with the brand, encourages them to buy, and ultimately increases their loyalty.

Next, we launched product recommendations on the site using the Yespo service. Over the following months, we continuously refined the recommendation rules to deliver more accurate results for customers, and we’re still improving them today.

An example of recommendations for sneakers on the site:

Advent calendar newsletter

In December, we decided to actively embrace the holiday season from the very first day of the month so that users would be as warmed up and loyal as possible by the time the winter sale started. In addition, the concept had to stand out from competitors’ promotions and mass offers that would be sent to users' emails during the Christmas and New Year period.

Also, this was during the war, and people wanted to relax a bit. We decided to give them that atmosphere in our emails.

So, we started an Advent calendar and informed users about it in the first email.

All the emails of December were built in the format of an advent calendar:

• Each new one is an open cell.
• Each email contained a prediction for the day and a calendar of things to do during the holidays to create a more festive New Year's atmosphere.
• We released several themed games.

We also played around with the discount calendar. At the bottom of this email, you can see the winter activities calendar. We updated it once a week and created a new activity for users for each day of the week. For example, playing snowballs or drinking cocoa.

Next, we added predictions for the day at the top of each email.

Of course, we did not forget to create a gift guide so that users could prepare gifts for their loved ones in advance.

For Christmas, we sent out a newsletter with fun predictions: users were invited to randomly choose a numbered ornament, and below, it would reveal what the new year had in store for them.

To avoid trivial New Year's greetings, on the 31st, we created a fun game where subscribers could choose who they were going to be this New Year.

Promotion results

As a result of all our actions, we had a month-over-month increase in sales from 87.4% to 235.4%. People bought more from the emails than they did before the war.

Not only that, we increased our customer base by an average of 3.9% per month thanks to the introduction of forms.

The strategy, in general, resulted in an almost threefold increase in revenue compared to the year before the war. The conversion rate from the channel in 2021 was 1.69%, and the conversion rate in 2022 was 1.98%.

Now, we continue to develop at the same pace and are always introducing new ideas. We have added several new communication channels and are looking for new ways to expand the customer base.

Also read:

1. How to Generate 23% More Email Revenue in the Low Summer SALE Season Than in the High Season: PUMA Case Study
2. PUMA success story: revenue growth of more than 100% from organic traffic and 30% from contextual advertising