How Beardbrand automates 10% of their monthly revenue with email marketing

From the start, Beardbrand's vision was to change how society views beardsmen. What started as a community of beard lovers sharing tips on YouTube, quickly grew into a multi-million dollar business creating premium men's grooming products to help beard lovers keep on growing. 

Beardbrand’s secret to success over the years has been to maintain very close and honest communication with their community members. With personalization at the heart of their brand strategy, they’ve built a business around delighting shoppers with an incredible customer experience. 

And email strategy is a huge part of it. Just look at this feedback they received from a customer:

Every small touch - including a particularly relevant email 😉 - combined to make Julian “a fan and a customer for life.” By optimizing for the customer experience, Beardbrand created something personal; something memorable.

Something that leads to repeat business.

Personalizing your content with email

Beardbrand approached us to create an email strategy aligned with their brand philosophy.

Our angle was to create triggered emails so valuable and personalized that each reader would be thrilled to hear from Beardbrand in their inbox. 

To accomplish this strategy, we turned to Klaviyo's deep segmentation to create hyper-personal email interactions with their beard-loving audience. Today we reach each customer at different stages of the sales funnel, to communicate appropriately with first-time visitors, cart abandoners, first-time buyers, and repeat customers. 

Let's take a closer look at Beardbrand's emails that generated a 964% return on investment in 11 months.

It all starts with lead capture

In order to initiate an engaging conversation with first-time store visitors, Beardbrand needs to capture their attention... and their emails.

To do this, we designed an offer that appeals specifically to Beardbrand's ideal customer: a set of high-value bearding tips, free in exchange for their email address.

We offered these tips within a banner at the top of the site rather than a welcome pop up. The latter is more intrusive by abruptly interrupting the visitor's flow, while a banner is better aligned with Beardbrand's typical approach.

Beardbrand’s banner offer was recently updated to include a quiz (another fun option to consider for obtaining email addresses!). They moved the “Top 10 Beard Tips” to their blog page which is also a great place to capture emails.

The result: a 442% increase in lead capture rate (in comparison to their previous footer lead capture).

Turning fresh traffic into buyers

Once a new visitor gets on the list (thanks to our lead capture strategy above!), Beardbrand starts the conversation via an automated Welcome Sequence. This email flow delivers a five-day beard bootcamp that gradually educates and converts newbies into "Beard Masters." 

By sharing free education, Beardbrand builds trust and gratitude. It's an opportunity for them to show off their premium products without seeming salesy, and creates a sense of exclusivity. 

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The result: Beardbrand's Welcome Sequence converts up to 9%* of these new visitors into customers.

*An average Welcome Sequence converts at around 2.7%

Seal the deal with abandoned carts

On average, nearly seven out of 10 carts are deserted - a staggering 69 per cent! If you're not winning those customers back, you're losing money.

Customers abandon carts for many reasons. Maybe they got distracted, ran into a technical issue, couldn't get their card to work, were surprised by the shipping price, weren't 100% ready to buy... 

We created a 3-step Cart Recovery flow for Beardbeard to target all of these different scenarios. This flow offers assistance and makes it easy for a customer to ask for help or return to their cart and finish the purchase. 

1. We started with a plain-text email to build a human connection with customers. This email goes out from Keith (a human!) who sounds like he just sat down at his computer to write them a personal note. This creates a friendly environment that encourages customer responses.
   
   
2. The next email goes out one day after a customer abandons their items. This email targets customers who need a push to buy, so we add a cart expiration time to create a sense of urgency.
   
   
3. The last email is our final chance at converting the toughest customers. This email is a plain text email sent directly from the CEO, to show readers they are valued. This is a very personal and friendly message from the face of the company, Eric Bandholz, who asks if there is anything he can help with. 

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The result: These emails recover 16.5% of all abandoned carts. Beardbrand started out with a 7% cart recovery rate from sending a single email. By adding segmentation, personalization and urgency, we boosted their recovered revenue by 235%!

Increase loyalty by treating buyers like royalty

After a customer places their order, they enter a post-purchase flow. These emails are perfectly timed and share valuable, personalized content. That's what we call the royal treatment. That's also what leads to loyal fans and high customer lifetime value. 

The first email is transactional (the order confirmation email), the second is a first order thank you email, and then the personalization really kicks in. 

If a customer orders mustache wax, they will receive a video teaching them how to use this product. If they got scissors, we'll show them how to properly trim their whiskers. And so on, and so forth. 

About a month after their first purchase - when their beard oil, beard wash, or other products are probably running out - customers receive an email to refill in one-click. It's easy, relevant, and helpful. 

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The result: A 15% increase in repeat customer rate.

Thanks to these automated systems, 10% of Beardbrand’s monthly revenue is completely automated, which means they make money without lifting a finger.

By welcoming customers to your company, thoughtfully introducing your products, and sharing high-value content at the right time, you can build loyalty and make more money along the way.