About konivéo
In the ultra-competitive beauty market, konivéo has found its formula for success: only when products are top quality do they earn customer trust. The luxurious sheet masks were named the best product in the market by Brigitte. Thanks to dermatologically tested formulas and consistently high product quality that creates visible results for customers, konivéo has built a loyal customer base. Still, konivéo has a problem. How can the brand reach customers and keep them active? Today, not only konivéo faces this problem, but most direct-to-consumer brands do. Customers are busy, and online marketing has become increasingly difficult because of rising ad costs and overcrowded inboxes. To solve this problem, konivéo chose a postcard campaign with PostPal. The advantages: less competition than online, and almost 100% read rates. In this case study, we show how konivéo uses postcards to generate ongoing repeat sales and stay memorable with its target audience through offline touchpoints.
The one-time buyer problem
A high customer lifetime value is the lifeblood of cosmetics brands like konivéo. Because competition in cosmetics is fierce, customer acquisition costs are extremely high and often exceed the gross margin of the first order several times over. That means konivéo is in the same situation as most online shops: money is not made on the first purchase, but through repeat buyers. We call this the “one-time buyer problem”. Put simply, konivéo needs returning customers to generate profit. When someone buys for the first time, konivéo therefore needs to turn that person into a regular customer as quickly as possible to prevent churn. But how does konivéo know that a customer is about to churn? Very simply, customers stop buying. Based on customer behavior, the team knows that if a customer has not ordered for at least 35 days, they are unlikely to come back. They would then be a lost customer and, in the worst case, would need to be reacquired through expensive new-customer channels.
The solution: add postcards to the marketing mix
Equipped with this knowledge, konivéo set up a postcard campaign with PostPal to reactivate inactive customers. Many online shops already use a mix of paid channels such as Facebook and Google Ads and free channels such as email to existing customers, but only the most successful shops among them use the power of classic direct marketing with postcards. Print mailings, and postcards in particular, are neglected by most merchants. They think the channel is slow, cumbersome and requires a long onboarding period. But that means they miss a huge opportunity:
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Postcard marketing is often cheaper than a Facebook ad or a Google click because postage costs are capped.
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Print mailings are read more than email. Average email open rates are below 20%, while postcard read rates are close to 100%.
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Postcards make it possible to reach customers who are not on your email list or who have unsubscribed and are difficult to reach through other channels.
The winback campaign
This is how konivéo built its direct-mail winback campaign in five steps:
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konivéo added the PostPal app to its Shopify store (2 minutes)
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PostPal automatically imported the customer data.
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konivéo simply selected the segment template “Reactivate inactive customers”, which refers to a) all customers who have made one or more purchases and b) last purchased 1 to 2 months ago. (2 minutes)
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konivéo created a dedicated 20% discount voucher for the postcard (5 minutes).
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konivéo automated the campaign. In other words, every time a new customer meets these criteria, PostPal sends them a reactivation card. (2 minutes).
Creating this sample winback campaign took less than 15 minutes and will work this way for 90% of online merchants.
The result
konivéo turned a €3,569 investment into €39,733 in revenue. The results were phenomenal: with this simple campaign, konivéo generated €39,733 in revenue within the 60-day tracking window, equal to an ROI of 1,013%. The best part: konivéo not only generated massive revenue, but also won back inactive customers. These customers are likely to spend money with konivéo again in the future and generate even more revenue. And because the campaign is automated, konivéo never has to touch it again. The key takeaways:
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Complicated postcard-marketing strategies are not necessary. A simple “reactivate inactive customers” campaign can already generate disproportionately high returns.
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Postcard marketing works, and PostPal makes it very easy.
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When a campaign works, you can automate it and keep generating profit without additional effort.