zazzle: make new customers lifelong customers with a targeted welcome series

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Increase Engagement with a Welcome Series

Patrick Briggs

Why a Welcome Series Matters

• Drives repeat purchases and greater LTV

• Paces customer engagement and onboarding process

• Communicates brand story and offering breadth

Zazzle’s ProblemInfinite Choice = Infinite Confusion

• 20+ BILLION individual items to shop

• 100+ product lines to customize and purchase

• Community of 300,000+ Sellers to join

Our Challenge

“I’m so proud of you! I just signed up for your

email…now what?”- Mom

Repeat Customer

Turn interested and first customers into repeat customers without 15 minute calls to my cellphone

1st Step: Data Collection

Key questions

– Who were our best customers? Looked at HV/ LTV customers.

– What traits did they exhibit?

– How did they become HV customers?

Four Key Segments Emerged• No Order (0)

Signs up for Zazzle without placing an order.

• Shoppers ($)Finds a product in our marketplace. Limited understanding of Zazzle tools.

• Creators/Customizers ($$)Designs products on Zazzle with personal photos and text. Moderate understanding of Zazzle tools.

• Sellers ($$$)Creates products to sell in Zazzle’s marketplace. Advanced understanding of Zazzle’s complete toolset and product offering.

2nd Step: Hypothesize & Test

Our if/then hypothesis:

“If we can convert shoppers to creators and creators to sellers then we will drive better retention rates”

Test, test, test! Barriers to Entry

$

$$$

Shoppers

Creators

Sellers

No Order

One Welcome Email = “Picard Maneuver”

Didn’t Work. Why?

– Overwhelming, tried to tell the entire company story…

– No single call to action

– Not relevant to customer’s actions on the website

– Didn’t engage with personality or story

3rd Step: Be Nimble and Apply Learnings

Revised our attack: “Tailor messaging to respect the customer’s first engagement point and type.”

CreatorsNo Order Shoppers

Day 1:Welcome Email

Day 3:Create Email

Day 5:Sell Email

Day 1:Welcome Email

Day 3:Sell Email

Day 5:Shop Email

Day 1:Welcome Email

Day 2:Shop Email

Day 3:Create Email

Day 6:Sell Email

Welcome Series - Part One

• Simple, high energy, welcoming message

• Sets customer expectations for emails

• Clear, simple call to action

Welcome Series - Part Two

• Drives customer to search (find content for anyone)

• No excess words. Communicates breadth with simple imagery

• Repeated, simple call to action

Welcome Series - Part Three

• Emotional example of product use

• 1,2,3 messaging conveys ease of product creation

• Customer testimonial promotes trust

Welcome Series - Part Four

• Imagery and testimonial convey ease and opportunity

• Engaging copy drives click through

• Multiple calls to action

4th Step: Continue Testing

• We don’t have all the right answers the first or even second time

• We’re still testing and optimizing

• We expect the total process to take 4-6 months

How Did It Go?

514% Increase inSeller stores

22% Increase inrevenue

46%

Incr

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oduc

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crea

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3% Increase inAOS

17% Increase inorders

Summary

• Use data to discover core customer traits

• Hypothesize strategies to move them into the engagement funnel

• Be nimble, apply early learnings and optimize

• Continue to test and optimize