Mastering Email Marketing & SMS By Gina Perrelli

I first got into Email Marketing by mistake when I was running events at a ski resort.

The resort restructured and as a result the email program lost its owner and my event emails stopped going out. I went to school for Industrial Design so I took my basic Photoshop skills and started designing the emails, but they still weren’t being built.

Like almost every millennial, I had a MySpace, so I know some light HTML/CSS and I figured out how to get email templates built. Before I knew it, I was running the email program and building content calendars across a multimillion person database with segments across 12 business units. After 2 years at the resort, I met Pierson Krass, my now Co-Founder, and decided to join the agency he was with to run email strategy for 10+ brands.

After a year at that agency I was ready to make the move to NYC. I wanted to work in-house to focus on custom automations and learn more about enterprise tech. I worked as the email marketing manager for an on-demand massage service company. There I fell in love with the infinite possibilities the new email providers were bringing to the table and got to come up with some out-of-the-box solutions for a brand that was built on a custom backend.

After a year there, Pierson reached out to see if I had an interest in building L//S and starting an Email division of my own and here we are.

In late 2018, I started the email program at Lunar Solar Group. For the first few months, I was building the emails, creating the strategies, and managing a designer who was bringing the visions to life. Fast forward 2.5 years and the CRM team now services 40+ clients on a monthly basis with 15 absolute rockstar employees.

I believe in building scalable programs on email and SMS that grow with you. I specialize in CPG DTC brands, but I’ve worked with b2b, resorts, tech, etc. With email and SMS, there are so many ways to build something to achieve the same goal. The way we structure accounts is to optimize for testing.

One of my goals is to remove a lot of the noise and opinions from email and SMS marketing. In Q3 of 2020 I onboarded a team of 3 analysts which allowed us to take services and testing to the next level. We built out a proprietary testing program we enroll all our clients in with specific controls on tests around open rate, send times, cadence, creative, and messaging. Tests are run for 3 months at a time and include a minimum of 30 datasets, across 15 clients so we can track findings specific to accounts or industry with 100% confidence. In other words, I can tell you with 100% confidence you do not need to include the sale amount in your subject line; vague messaging out performs specific messaging on opens as long as the word sale is mentioned but neither prove constant significance in conversion.

When I’m not working, I can be found drinking bourbon somewhere downtown in NYC or snowboarding/mountain biking (season depending) in Park City. Let’s link.

I first got into Email Marketing by mistake when I was running events at a ski resort.

The resort restructured and as a result the email program lost its owner and my event emails stopped going out. I went to school for Industrial Design so I took my basic Photoshop skills and started designing the emails, but they still weren’t being built.

Like almost every millennial, I had a MySpace, so I know some light HTML/CSS and I figured out how to get email templates built. Before I knew it, I was running the email program and building content calendars across a multimillion person database with segments across 12 business units. After 2 years at the resort, I met Pierson Krass, my now Co-Founder, and decided to join the agency he was with to run email strategy for 10+ brands.

After a year at that agency I was ready to make the move to NYC. I wanted to work in-house to focus on custom automations and learn more about enterprise tech. I worked as the email marketing manager for an on-demand massage service company. There I fell in love with the infinite possibilities the new email providers were bringing to the table and got to come up with some out-of-the-box solutions for a brand that was built on a custom backend.

After a year there, Pierson reached out to see if I had an interest in building L//S and starting an Email division of my own and here we are.

In late 2018, I started the email program at Lunar Solar Group. For the first few months, I was building the emails, creating the strategies, and managing a designer who was bringing the visions to life. Fast forward 2.5 years and the CRM team now services 40+ clients on a monthly basis with 15 absolute rockstar employees.

I believe in building scalable programs on email and SMS that grow with you. I specialize in CPG DTC brands, but I’ve worked with b2b, resorts, tech, etc. With email and SMS, there are so many ways to build something to achieve the same goal. The way we structure accounts is to optimize for testing.

One of my goals is to remove a lot of the noise and opinions from email and SMS marketing. In Q3 of 2020 I onboarded a team of 3 analysts which allowed us to take services and testing to the next level. We built out a proprietary testing program we enroll all our clients in with specific controls on tests around open rate, send times, cadence, creative, and messaging. Tests are run for 3 months at a time and include a minimum of 30 datasets, across 15 clients so we can track findings specific to accounts or industry with 100% confidence. In other words, I can tell you with 100% confidence you do not need to include the sale amount in your subject line; vague messaging out performs specific messaging on opens as long as the word sale is mentioned but neither prove constant significance in conversion.

When I’m not working, I can be found drinking bourbon somewhere downtown in NYC or snowboarding/mountain biking (season depending) in Park City. Let’s link.

I didn’t really think anyone would click over here but if you’re this deep here’s some insight on what I’m working on and where I’d like to see it go.

First off, I want to keep growing the CRM program at Lunar Solar. I want it to be the absolute best retention program known for its testing and scalability. I think there’s a lot of cool new tech out there that’s going to change the way we retain customers. I’m excited to see where we push SMS and subscription programs and would like to get more involved with the products that make it possible.

I’m pretty jealous of the hype brands get. I’d like to launch my own CPG brand but I need to find something I’m really passionate about. Maybe bourbon. Stay tuned.

Oh and I’d like to get back to riding 30 days a season. I used to snowboard 30+ days a year. I’ve fallen out of that habit and I want to bring it back. I turn 30 next April so maybe the goal will be to spend 30 days on my snowboard and 30 days on my mountain bike.

Don’t trust me, trust them.

RG email team is a group of rockstars. They took us from ground zero to a full built out email automation and campaign funnel and consistently bring us new ideas and deliver on brand creative with turnarounds. 2 Thumbs up!

Brandon Ancier
Head of Digital, Flying Embeis

The LS email team has been such a collaborative partner building KRAVE’s  email program from the ground up. They took new brand identity and brought it to life creatively through copy and design. On top that, the team is a group of A+ rockstars and I look forward to meeting with them every week!

Steele Meisinger
VP Maiketing, KRAVE & Chef’s Cut

We have the utmost faith in the Lunar Solar team to drive results for our customers. They’re constantly pushing the limits on both sms and email to make sure their clients are maximizing ROI. This is the tea you want to work with if you’re to build and scale a best-in-class brand.

Claire
Head of Paitneiship at Postscript

THE GOALS

• Drive excitement and conversions for the product
• among most loyal customers
• Increase SMS list size and opt-in
• Create a VIP brand experience

THE PROCESS

Introducing a new product should always be exciting internally and for your customers. New products are a great way to get press and higher engagement from your existing customer base. When we launched the SMS program at OLIPOP we decided it would be an intimate, behind the scenes, first to know community.

The launch of Orange Squeeze gave us the perfect opportunity to raise awareness with existing customers around the SMS program. Two weeks prior to launch, we tapped into the brand’s entire digital marketing ecosystem to drive users to opt in via SMS for exclusive access to the newest flavor. We made sure the messaging was clear that being on the SMS list would be the only way to buy the product when it first dropped. We set up keyword replies around the opt-in points that built hype in the days leading up and dropped the product exclusively on SMS before making the link public.

On the backend, the link we shared via sms was a hidden landing page that couldn’t be accessed from the main site. OLIPOP also hid the product from the collections page so there was no other way to find it without the text link. While some brands might want to push a product launch out on all channels at once for maximum exposure, OLIPOP valued creating an exclusive experience for their loyal customers.

THE GOALS

• Increase campaign sends while maintaining the same revenue/campaign
• Collect more emails on site
• Optimize automation flows

THE PROCESS

When we first started working with Perk, we implemented a standard automation project so they would have a popup, welcome, abandon cart, and post first purchase flows. We were sending one campaign a month with very healthy returns and KPIs and after a few months felt the database was ready to scale up. Typically, we recommend going from 4 emails a month to 6-8 and monitoring KPIs to see how the audience responds. The Perk team requested we scale faster and jump to 12 campaigns a month to hit revenue goals and we were up for the challenge.

We started by taking a 4 month look back at the types of content that performed well and drove high engagement so we could lay out a well balanced content calendar. We tested different types of creative, sendtimes, subjects, and cadence. Within three months we were able to scale from 4-5 campaigns a month to 12 while also increasing the average revenue from each campaign 43%.

Once we had the campaign calendar dialed, we focused on collecting more emails from site traffic. We implemented a few popup creative and timing tests like adding images and questions. We were able to get the form submit rates up about 5% to over 12% monthly averages which greatly increased traffic to the welcome series.

While we were optimizing the campaign calendar and popup, we were also running tests on the automation flows we had originally implemented. With creative and cadence optimizations in addition to the increased traffic from the popup, we were able to get automation revenue up over 135%.

THE GOALS

• Drive high AOV purchases during BFCM to offset sale amounts
• Incentivize nonpurchasers to try the product then capitalize on subscriber brand loyalty
• Have the highest revenue-generating BFCM period in company history

THE PROCESS

The acronym BFCM might not mean much to the average person but to the DTC marketer, it signifies the most critical period of the year. The launch of a sale too soon could cannibalize margins and dissipate urgency for the sale. On the flip side, the launch of a sale too late might lead your customers to shop your competitors.

A lot of stores run a flat sitewide sale but for Super Coffee we wanted something a bit more sophisticated to achieve all their goals. A simple way to think about segmentation here is that everyone falls into one of three buckets. Never Purchased, has purchased not on subscription, and subscribers.

For subscribers we launched a BOGO sale, this was the best deal in order to garner goodwill and higher purchases from this high CLTV segment. The sale was specifically positioned as VIP only and exclusive to subscribers to make subscribers know that they are appreciated as loyalists. With this offer, Super Coffee’s subscriber base accounted for 25% of it’s BFCM revenue despite being a small percentage of its total email list.

For anyone who wasn’t a subscriber, we started the sale by launching a tiered discount that incentivized a higher AOV than normal. By leveraging flat and simple dollar amounts in the sale rather than percentages, Super Coffee showed customers exactly how much they would save rather than customers having to run a x% off $x calculation in their head.

In the final days of the sale, we isolated anyone who was opening emails but never made a purchase. The tiered sale started at $75, which is a high threshold for a first order so we sent a 10 off voucher off their order. No minimum. The customers were able to try the product with zero downside, many of whom later became repeat purchasers.

• Introduction to Mastering Email Marketing and SMS
• Pulling the Right Data. AB Testing and Campaigns
• Automation and Sign-up Forms
• SMS Best Practices and How to Grow Your SMS List
• Subscriptions and the 3 R’s to Growing Your Lists