Case Study: 25% List Growth With Revamped Email Strategy

We’ve been working with this well-established Washington state brand since the beginning of 2023, when we developed, wrote, and designed several email flows to help them level up their email marketing.

By the time we began working together, they had been steadily building their email list of 40,000 for over a decade. Email marketing was bringing in steady sales–but they knew that they could see greater revenue and profits with consistent, streamlined email marketing using a more robust system. And after more than ten months working together, we can confidently say that email marketing has delivered.

The Background

The business had been consistently sending emails to subscribers for years, but they were doing everything manually, one click at a time. Their previous email service provider struggled to track data accurately, leaving their email marketing efforts inconsistent and their brand presence somewhat disjointed. 

When they decided to go all in on a company-wide rebrand, they needed their email marketing to match their elevated presence. Plus…

→ They wanted to set up automations for hands-off revenue and a smooth customer experience. 

→ They needed sign-up forms and an incentive to encourage people to join their email list. 

→ And they needed to be able to dive into the data and see which email marketing efforts were propelling their business forward. 

After working with Minty Made on their website overhaul and rebrand, they were ready to establish a consistent online presence across every marketing touchpoint. Knowing they had a massive opportunity to tap into email marketing, they partnered with us to transition them into Klaviyo (our favorite email marketing system for e-Commerce businesses) and set up email marketing mainstays like a welcome flow, post-purchase flow, and abandoned cart flow. We also added SMS marketing to the mix, which is a highly lucrative (and growing) marketing channel. 

Finally, once all of the necessary automated flows were set up, we took on regular newsletter management for the brand, sending out about two emails a week to continue to nurture customers and offer opportunities to make a purchase. 

Marketing Strategy: The Automated Flows

We designed new email templates entirely from scratch to match the company’s new branding and style. After their website overhaul and rebrand, they needed their emails to replicate the look and feel of the online experience for a seamless customer journey. To do this, we created new email templates with consistent header and footer variations to highlight key brand values and make it easy to email subscribers to access popular weblinks.

The one downside of Klaviyo is its lack of graphic design ability (although they have made some recent changes to make it a bit better). That’s why our team leverages Canva to make email designs look polished and elevated before transferring them into Klaviyo, where we can make good use of Klaviyo’s tech and analytics features. After finishing the process of email design and setting everything up in Klaviyo, this company’s emails now look cohesive and on-brand, just the way they envisioned. 

Here’s what the client had to say: “[These changes] brought fresh eyes to our approach and messaging in the content of the emails. It has also allowed us to implement new industry standard best practices and features. I feel like Acorn Digital is committed to helping us market efficiently and authentically, so I feel like I am in good hands.” 

In total, we set up four major flows–welcome, post-purchase, browse abandoned, and abandoned cart–consisting of more than 15 unique emails. We integrated SMS into these flows as well to provide another touch point for customers. Together, all of these flows serve to nurture and support new and existing customers, increase customer lifetime value, and boost revenue by reminding customers to come back and make a purchase. 

For each flow, we also implemented custom A/B tests to optimize each flow based on different data points, such as email timing, cart value, or subject lines. Over the past months, as we’ve gathered more and more data as send volume increases, we’ve made changes to optimize these flows based on what we’ve learned. Although we sometimes need to make small updates here and there, these flows don’t need constant adjustments, and we can mostly leave them be and let them do good work all on their own. 

It’s hard to overstate just how important email flows are for ecommerce business. Getting email flows set up and running will help you generate tons of pretty much hands-off revenue. If you run an ecommerce business and don’t have email flows set up, you should know you’re leaving money on the table!

Marketing Strategy: Newsletters

We’ve talked a good amount about the flows strategy we’ve implemented, but we’ve also been keeping up with consistent newsletters two to three times per week for this brand. These emails feature products, blogs, brand announcements, giveaways, and more. The goal is to drive conversions at every single touchpoint, and staying in contact with the audience is a crucial part of providing value to subscribers.

Sending this many newsletters a week might seem like a lot, but at least one email per week is the gold standard for established e-commerce brands. We also segment our audience (this is hugely important–read more here), so not every single subscriber gets every single email in their inbox. Instead, they get curated content they’re actually interested in reading, which boosts revenue and deliverability. 

The Results

In the past three months, revenue from email flows have accounted for 60% of the company’s total email sales.

On average, they make $2.75 per recipient on their welcome flow, and $6.50 per recipient on their abandoned cart flow (the industry averages are about $1.52 and $2.66 respectively). Open rates across all flows are more than 55% and click rates are at 4.4%. That’s some pretty impressive data, and it just goes to show how lucrative email marketing can be for a business.

Oh, and did we mention that their email list has grown to nearly 50,000 active email subscribers? Their sign-up form has a 5% submit rate–for comparison, the industry average is about 3%. More subscribers equals more chances to boost revenue, so we couldn’t be more pleased with these results. They’ve gained thousands of subscribers in the last three months–and summer actually tends to be their slow season. We can’t wait to see what will happen to their list growth as more people start shopping for the holidays!

The Future Strategy

There’s still plenty more to do to capitalize on email marketing opportunities, and that’s exactly what we intend to do. In fact, right now we’re in the middle of developing and implementing three more flows for this brand: A winback flow, a sunset flow, and a birthday flow. The first two will be important to help with list cleaning and keeping the email list healthy, and the third flow will be another fun way to connect with and engage customers while incentivizing them to purchase.

Going into the winter months, we’ll also be amping up Black Friday and holiday messaging with extra newsletters, more targeted emails, and time-sensitive SMS messages. We’re excited to continue to refine these flows and newsletters even more, grow the company’s audience with healthy and engaged subscribers, and help them boost their revenue beyond what it’s already achieving. Email marketing is a process, and we’re here to support every step of the way!