case study
Michael Cherry Brand
Learn how we helped a timeless NYC-based streetwear boutique generate an extra $1,698 in sales every month using email marketing.
01. The Challenge
Being an online boutique owner is no joke.
Between the struggle of finding the right vendors, keeping up with Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm, and managing the flood of customer service emails, finding ways to win recurring sales is a formidable battle. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t make it any easier.
But when you’ve got real dreams of whatever your version of brand success is, along with the desire to create an additional revenue stream that forges a path to generational wealth, you place that crown on your head, sword in your hand, and you attack.
And if you’re savvy enough, you go to war with an experienced digital marketing comrade that knows how to win in the online boutique space profitably.
That’s what Queens legend Michael Cherry, founder of the Michael Cherry Brand, did. With over two decades in the fashion designer game, Mr. Cherry is no novice to building a brand. He co-founded his first clothing brand, Dada Supreme, in 1995.
His most latest venture, MCB, features his signature streetwear designs that the entertainment industry’s shiniest stars have worn, including 50 Cent, Tommy from the hit Starz show, “Power,” and Grammy-award-winning Atlanta rapper Ludacris.
Michael Cherry wanted to extract more revenue from his existing customer base without increasing customer acquisition costs (CAC).
Enter Blue Surge Marketing Agency.
02. The Strategy
Thanks to our extensive experience working with e-commerce stores, we understood the importance of controlling CAC.
Paid ads on Google, Facebook, and Instagram are the most direct way to drive website traffic. But relying only on PPC to convert traffic can become a costly habit that erodes net profit margins.
However, most boutique owners set themselves up to miss out on up to 30% of annual store revenue due to a missing or broken end-to-end marketing sales funnel.
That’s where email strategy comes in.
Despite the reports from false gurus, we know that email is not dead. Consumers are still regularly opening emails — they’re just not opening the ones from inconsistent or weak brands.
Email marketing is actually quite underrated. It is the digital marketing channel with the highest return on investment. Email has an average ROI of $38 for every $1 spent. And once you factor in, there are no costs associated with sending campaigns other than paying for the software; its value increases even more as an owned channel.
Knowing this, our marketing team concocted and executed a powerful email marketing strategy that welcomed new customers and rewarded the most loyal ones.
Blue Surge Marketing Agency is a Klaviyo Partner. We used Klaviyo to combine Michael Cherry’s customer data with their marketing software to deliver a fantastic experience on this owned channel.
Before working with Blue Surge, MCB was using MailChimp to send out emails infrequently. Tagging was absent. None of the lists were segmented. The state of affairs resulted in abysmal numbers that attributed virtually no online store revenue to email.
Upon working with the email marketing experts, the MCB email system was built. We safely migrated all of his contacts to Klaviyo, which has multiple integrations that make it interact nicely with Shopify.
We implemented a 3-part welcome series designed to get new subscribers imbued with the brand’s street lore. Our team carefully crafted this drip funnel to teach subscribers about the boutique’s history. It gave them an incentive to make a purchase at a reduced rate without tarnishing the luxury aesthetic that Mr. Cherry had meticulously formulated in the rugged streets of New York’s boroughs for the better part of a quarter-century.
We also set up several automations that segmented his contacts into different lists based on their:
- behavior
- interests
- geographic location
- purchase history
- and more.
Using these custom-built automations, we found creative ways to extract additional value from his audience. By personalizing the campaigns, we ensured the customers received the right message, at the right place, at the right time.
And thanks to Klaviyo’s Smart Sending feature, we were able to do so without overwhelming subscribers with too many emails.
For example, we his abandoned carts, one of the essential elements of an e-commerce email strategy. Shopify plans include standard abandoned cart email sequences that you can turn on in your backend settings. From our experience, these are okay, but for brands looking to see more than incremental growth, we knew it was better to build our own. We used industry research and data from Google Analytics to determine the best send frequency to release those emails. As a result, we exceeded the average industry open rate.
03. The Results
- 54.3% Abandoned Cart Email #1 Open Rate
- $423 attributed in revenue per campaign
- 389% over average open rates
- 99th percentile click rates in multiple flows
- 38% click rate on Customer Winback Email #2
- 3.37% average monthly placed order rate
The MCB is another online clothing brand that has seen dramatic gains after partnering with Blue Surge Marketing Agency. The average open rate for retail and e-commerce emails is 11.04% (Constant Contact 2021). Our Welcome Email #1 lies at a 54% open rate, a 389% improvement over the industry average. Our click rates range as high as the 99th percentile compared to our peers in the e-commerce, apparel, and accessories industry. Thanks to our email marketing efforts, Michael Cherry Brand can continue to astound its audience with exclusive, limited pieces that transcend classic streetwear.
We’re looking forward to helping brands like yours achieve incredible results using digital marketing.
