Generating a 179% Increase in First-Time Online Orders With Sales Enablement

With Opportunity Comes New Challenges

As the massive website redesign of over 1,200 pages was getting close to completion we began discussing next steps.  Driving awareness seemed absolutely necessary. Several weeks ahead of the targeted launch date, we posed a simple question:

How should we introduce the new website to their existing customer base? 

The majority of their customers had never shopped online, instead relying on traditional methods for placing orders such as calling  or walking in.  We simply had to come up with a way to drive attention and awareness to their new tool if we were going to generate return on their investment into the large website redesign.

While their email database contained somewhere around 6,000 contacts, most of which had either never ordered online or not been ordering online regularly, we knew that relying on email marketing alone with this audience would not produce the results they were looking for. Instead, we set out to assemble a multi-touch, multi-channel campaign that would outdo any that we had pulled off before.

The Smalley & Company team had already run some calculations to determine the savings realized across online orders. Considering their baselines and internal goals, our objectives became clear:

1. Add 45 new online ordering accounts over 90 days
2. Enhance the online buying experience for existing online customers
3. Build a solid foundation for future marketing efforts

Building a Game Plan That Couldn’t Lose

Unlike many of our strategies that focus on attracting the attention of new prospects, we instead were focusing on their current customer base. Since many of those folks had either had a negative online buying experience or were well-rooted in their offline ordering methods, we would need a compelling hook to get them to at least try the new online ordering system.

Our teams agreed that a 10% discount on their first order under $5,000 should do the trick.

During our initial strategy session on the whiteboard, we identified all the possible/realistic channels we would use to target our audience and came up with these five:

1. Email: using their existing MailChimp setup, we would map out a workflow series of touches that would only target individuals who had not yet registered on the new site and send those that did complete an online order a thank-you email and a SurveyMonkey survey.
2. Phone: we would work closely with their inside sales team to develop a script for outreach to those individuals that we did not have an email for with the intent to get their email address and give them a heads up on the new website.
3. Social media: to date, the company had not had a legitimate presence on any of the social media platforms despite the fact that many of their competitors had already grown their own followings. While less specific to their customers specifically, building out accounts for them would help us round out their digital presence.
4. Direct mail: though not one of the channels we use on most of our campaigns, it was important to include this one based on the audience. Contractors and their office managers get their attention pulled in multiple directions constantly, but keep a close watch on the mail.
5. In-store signage: perhaps the best way to target the current customers coming in to place their orders or pick them up, a combination of standing banners, countertop vinyls, and tear pad slips to include with orders would get their attention.

With the number of channels and touches slated for this initiative, we would effectively be spinning a marketing web that our target audience could not avoid. Because it would be critical to capture their attention without completely annoying them, the timing of each touch would need to be carefully considered along with tracking and criteria to prevent new users from receiving additional messaging:

Channel attribution was important in demonstrating success

To track which channels were most successful in generating new online users, we created custom promo codes for each that were tracked on the backside and tallied accordingly. In addition to helping determine ROI on the overall campaign, it would help us better understand their audience for future marketing efforts.

Here are a few key takeaways:

• Before launching the new website and marketing campaign, Smalley & Co were accumulating new online-ordering customers at a growth rate between 4% and 18% year-over-year; post-launch, 2015 saw a 30% increase year-over-year in online-ordering customers

• The breakdown of promo code usage indicated that the phone calls and postcards generated a majority of new online customers with email coming in at a close third; this strongly suggests that outbound marketing can be strategically integrated with inbound marketing methods in some industries. It was critical for us to understand the audience!

• The follow-up survey emailed out to first time online-ordering customers had a 10% response rate with insightful feedback the team leveraged to make ongoing improvements to the site; considering the industry, this was a relatively high response rate.

(click the images to bring up the results)