The Lace Clothing Store Case Study: Launching an Email Channel for Full ROI in 4 Months and 7% of Total Ecommerce Revenue

The Client

The Lace is a Ukrainian women’s clothing brand founded in 2016. The store’s product range includes minimalist styles and neutral colors, which follow long-term fashion trends. Their clothing allows buyers to create a capsule wardrobe for all occasions.

The Challenge

For this client, we had the following goals:

1. Launch an email channel and achieve a positive ROI in the shortest possible time.
2. Increase conversion at all stages of the sales funnel.
3. Establish systematic communication with customers.

The Solution

Before launching the email channel, we performed a few tasks:

• Developed an advertising strategy.
• Performed a thorough analysis of the market, including both direct and indirect competitors.
• Identified the brand's unique selling proposition and created a list of unique activities not used by the brand's main competitors.

After that, we moved on to the main stages of work involving the promotion strategy through the email channel.

We planned to implement two types of communication with customers: manual bulk emails and automatic (triggered) email chains.

We also discussed with the clients their priorities for email campaigns. These were to collect a database of new subscribers, automate marketing communications, and reactivate dormant users.

We then set up the email channel: 

• First, we connected to an email service provider (ESP), which is a service for creating and sending emails. We verified the sender domain of the emails and also searched and downloaded the existing email database.
• The next step was to connect to Postmaster, a Google tool that allows you to get analytics on emails from a specific sender, monitor spam, find delivery errors, and monitor the reputation of the domain in general.
• Next, we conducted a competitive analysis of the brand. We identified the best approaches and applied them to Lace. We also introduced tools that none of the client’s competitors were using, such as gamification, private promotions, and a welcome email series.
• Based on the brand's features and unique selling proposition, we created a channel development brand.
• As part of this, we developed a communications trigger map, from which we started to implement automated newsletters.
• We also implemented subscription forms on the website.
• Next, we set up the transfer of contacts from subscription forms to ESP;
• Importantly, we set up a double opt-in, which is a double confirmation of subscription via email.
• To boost brand recognition, we developed a master email template that includes repeated brand elements, so customers could easily identify emails from Lace.
• Finally, we created content plans and diversified them with sections to increase audience engagement.

These are the email sections we launched:

• Brand updates.

• Limited collection releases. 

• Sale selections and closed promotions only for newsletter customers.

• Seasonal selections.
• Newsletters to share inside info about the fashion and style niche. 

• Gamified emails with prizes for subscribers. This type of email generated a lot of engagement and loyalty for the brand. In fact, gamified emails generated up to 15% of revenue from the email channel.

• Holiday greeting promo codes.
• Basic trigger emails, including subscription confirmation for double opt-in, reminder for those who forgot to confirm their subscription, subscription bonus, and subscription bonus reminder for those who did not return to the bonus email.

The Results

Here are the results we achieved just four months after launching the newsletter: 

1. We achieved a positive return on investment (ROI).
2. Revenue from the email channel made up 6.92% of total revenue.
3. The number of transactions from the email channel comprised 6.74% of total transactions.
4. The channel produced a transaction rate of 3.29%.
5. The channel contributed 2.79% of the total number of website sessions.

We offered a discount as a subscription bonus. And in the first month after we launched the subscription forms, the revenue from triggered emails was 74.61% of the total channel revenue, and the number of transactions from the subscription-bonus triggered email was 72.53% of all channel transactions. 

Every month, between 1500 and 2000 contacts are added to the database from the subscription forms.

The active contact base increased from 45% to 60%, indicating an increase in customer loyalty and user interest in the newsletters. 

Thanks to the reactivation trigger, we were able to bring back 12% of contacts who had not opened the emails for more than 3 months. This also increased website traffic.