Sharm Tank Vol. 25

Author

Nik Sharma
May 10, 2024

Happy Friday,

Last week we talked about BRĒZ, a non-alcoholic, cannabis and mushroom-infused beverage. It’s always fun to highlight new innovations in CPG, but we still want to keep things tactical.

So this week, we’re going back to strategy and focusing on our recently launched retention program.

Everyone is always talking about paid media and conversion rate optimization, but email is often the unsung hero for many brands.

In a world of fleeting trends and momentary buzz, email stands out as a cornerstone of enduring customer relationships.

Yet, many marketers still miss the mark, focusing solely on sending messages rather than making meaningful connections.

At Sharma Brands, we redefine retention marketing by mastering the art of conversation with your audience.

We don't just send emails; we craft personalized journeys that captivate and convert, turning every inbox touchpoint into a powerful opportunity for growth and engagement.

Campaign Strategy

Our strategy revolves around understanding our audience and delivering content that resonates. We focus on:

  • Creative Excellence: Our emails stand out with stunning visuals and compelling copy. We're constantly A/B testing elements like subject lines, header images (product vs. lifestyle), and email length to discover what truly engages our audience.

  • Optimized Cadence: We maintain a balanced email calendar, sending out three evergreen campaigns weekly, with increased frequency during sales or product launches. This ensures we keep our entire list engaged without overwhelming our subscribers.

  • Conversion Rate Optimization: Despite high open and click rates, there's always room to improve conversion rates. We leverage insights from our audits to refine our messaging and calls-to-action, ensuring every email moves the needle.

Segmentation

Understanding our audience is key to our email marketing success. We employ a tiered segmentation strategy based on recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM), ensuring messages are tailored to the engagement level and interests of each subscriber. This approach not only maintains list health as we scale but also maximizes the relevance and impact of each email sent.

Here’s an example:

  • T1 - engaged last 4 weeks - receives every email

  • T2 - engaged between 4-12 weeks - receives every email

  • T3 - engaged between 12-18 weeks - receives every other email

  • T4 - engaged between 18 - 24 weeks  - receives every other email

  • T5 - engaged between 24-52 weeks - receives 3-4 emails a month

  • Sunset - over 1 year

  • Suppress non-engaged after 12 months

Content

Content is at the heart of our email marketing. We strive to:

  • Showcase Brand Story: From welcome emails that introduce new subscribers to our brand's heritage to transactional flows that reinforce our value proposition, every piece of content is crafted to enrich the customer journey.

  • Leverage Social Proof: Emails featuring customer reviews, user-generated content, and influencer endorsements build trust and encourage conversions.

  • Refresh Regularly: We keep our content fresh and relevant, removing sold-out items from bestsellers emails and updating messaging to reflect the latest trends and customer feedback.

Flows

Our email flows are designed to guide subscribers through a personalized journey, from the moment they sign up to post-purchase engagement:

  • Welcome Series: We make a memorable first impression with beautifully designed emails that highlight our brand's uniqueness. Incorporating animations and vintage elements, we tell our story in a way that captivates and converts.

  • Abandonment Flows: Separate cart and browse abandonment flows address hesitations and nudge subscribers towards completing their purchase with targeted messaging and incentives.

  • Post-Purchase: Tailored recommendations and inspirational content keep our brand top-of-mind, encouraging repeat purchases and fostering a loyal community.

  • Winback: This is imperative to maintain the quality of your list. This gives you one last chance to engage users with an enticing offer and churn them off if they don’t bite.

Deliverability

This is the foundation upon which successful email marketing campaigns are built. It ensures that your carefully crafted messages actually reach your subscribers' inboxes, rather than getting lost in the spam folder or blocked by ISPs. Here's how we ensure optimal deliverability:

  • Monitoring Metrics: We keep a close eye on open rates, unsubscribe rates, click rates, and spam complaints. Healthy metrics are a good indicator of good deliverability. For instance, an open rate of 55.5% and an unsubscribe rate of 0.14% are considered excellent and indicate that our emails are well-received by the audience.

  • List Hygiene: Regularly cleaning your email list by removing inactive subscribers and those who have not engaged with your emails over a certain period helps maintain a healthy sender reputation.

  • Klaviyo Score: Utilizing tools like Klaviyo, which provides a score (e.g., 85 out of 100), helps us gauge the health of our email marketing efforts and make necessary adjustments to improve deliverability.

Pop-Ups

Pop-ups on your website are a powerful tool for list growth and engagement. They can be optimized to convert visitors into subscribers, which then become a vital part of your email marketing strategy. Here's how we optimize pop-ups:

  • Welcome and Exit Intent Pop-Ups: We design our pop-ups to engage visitors both when they arrive and when they show signs of leaving the site without taking action.

  • Mobile Optimization: With the increasing use of mobile devices to browse the web, ensuring that pop-ups are optimized for mobile users is crucial. This means making them easy to close and ensuring they don't disrupt the user experience.

  • A/B Testing: Regularly testing different elements of your pop-ups, such as the offer, design, and timing, can help identify what works best for your audience.

  • Engagement-Based Triggers: Setting up pop-ups to trigger based on specific user behaviors, such as spending a certain amount of time on a page or viewing a particular number of pages, can increase the relevance and effectiveness of the pop-up.

That’s all for our main course, let’s dive into a few smaller stories!

Clean Creatives' F-List Awards Call Out Ad Industry's Fossil Fuel Ties

Clean Creatives' F-List Awards are back, spotlighting the advertising industry's connections to polluters with a satirical twist.

The awards, including categories like the 'Lifetime Achievement Award for Achieving Shortened Lifetimes' and 'Greenest Greenwash', aim to critique agencies that work with fossil fuel clients. This year, firms like Edelman, Havas, McCann, and Ogilvy were highlighted for their promotional efforts on behalf of large oil and gas companies. 

The campaign underscores the growing tension between advertising practices and environmental advocacy, urging agencies to sever ties with the fossil fuel industry to foster a more sustainable future.

Apple's 'Crush' Ad Faces Backlash for Undermining Creativity

Apple's latest iPad Pro advertisement, titled "Crush," has sparked significant controversy for its perceived negative portrayal of creativity.

The ad, which features creative tools like a guitar, piano, and paint cans being crushed as a metaphor for consolidating creativity into Apple's thinnest iPad, has been criticized for sending a misleading message during a time when AI's impact on human creativity is a sensitive issue.

Critics and consumers alike have drawn parallels between the ad and a similar 2008 campaign by LG, further fueling the backlash. Despite calls for its removal, Apple has yet to respond or pull the ad, maintaining its usual stance against bowing to external pressure. 

Can AI Capture Gen Z's Meme Magic?

Carolyn McMurray, founder of Word Tonic, explores whether AI can keep up with Gen Z's mastery of memes.

In her experiment, McMurray pits ChatGPT against Gen Z copywriters to see if the AI can match the generation's iconic wit and irony. 

The verdict? While AI can mimic basic aspects of meme creation, it falls short in understanding the deeper, often sarcastic nuances that define Gen Z humor. Despite technological advances, the human touch remains crucial in crafting content that genuinely resonates with this demographic, ensuring that the messaging is authentic and not just mimicry.

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