Campaign Enterprise is Geeks.com
favorite for delivering deals
Geeks.com
is a popular discount online retailer that specializes
in all things computer hardware: full systems,
computer peripherals, and most anything that plugs
into a computer.
Geeks.com buyers scout the planet for great
deals on computer supplies for their customers,
obtaining merchandise from such far away places
as Taiwan and Hong Kong. "We'll look for
deals wherever we can find them, even when they're
not exactly computer related but still an electronic
that's a great deal," says Peter Green, marketing
specialist for Geeks.com. These deals might include
cordless drills, in-dash auto DVD and CD players,
and other consumer electronics.
Challenge: Take sales to the next level
Green says the email offers Geeks.com would send
to their customers at the start of their business
would sell inventory, but after a while staff
began to wonder if they were leaving money on
the table by sending emails without knowing anything
about specific subscriber activity. Could they
be selling more?
"We'd start out with 500 products in stock,
send an email blast, sell the 500 products, and
then we would say 'Great!'" Green says. "But
then we would ask: Did we have the potential to
sell more? Did only 500 subscribers open the letter?
Is there something else that they might really
want?"
It was soon realized that in order to take their
discount computer supply website to the next level,
Geeks.com needed reliable activity data from their
email campaigns to determine what subscribers
really want.
Solution: Campaign Enterprise delivers campaign
data
Geeks.com began using Campaign Enterprise to deliver
email campaigns a little over two years ago. Prior
to Campaign Enterprise they used SMTP software
that had the ability to bounce email addresses
and determine good addresses, but lacked the technology
to capture any campaign effectiveness data. "We
could scrub our list, but we couldn't gauge campaigns
in any way," Green says of the SMTP tool.
"We upgraded our email system specifically
so we could have some open data from our campaigns.
And Campaign Enterprise gave us an effective means
to do that."
The Geeks.com crew were immediately impressed
with the ease of setup and integration of Campaign
Enterprise to their custom database, in addition
to the speed which the software could send campaigns
out the door. "It was a welcome change. It
saved us a lot of time," he said.
Geeks.com uses Campaign Enterprise to deliver
campaigns and track email open information, and
Coremetrics to analyze the performance data. Their
daily email marketing campaigns are in the 200k-to-220k
size range.
Using Campaign Enterprise, Geeks.com sends out
three types of email: Daily Geekmail, which offers
a highlighted deal of the day, usually a discounted
item or an item new to the website and available
only to Geekmail subscribers; TechTips, an information-only
email newsletter which covers geek specialty talents
like how to install a video card or how to convert
old media to new media; and "new arrivals"
emails, usually sent on Fridays and featuring
new products or upcoming sales events.
"Our main goal is sales, but by offering
Tech Tips emails to our customers, we want to
be seen as a knowledgebase for the industry,"
Green says. "We try to make it easy for our
customers. If customers want to repost a Tech
Tip on their own website as content, we're happy
to let them do it, as long as they cite us as
the source."
Results: Gauging promotions and expanding
business
The Geeks originally acquired Campaign Enterprise
to get a handle on their consumer-based computer
supply email environment, but once they implemented
the software and saw how well it was working,
it was decided to use Campaign Enterprise with
their business-to-business side as well, so they
purchased a second copy.
"We wanted to have the software registered
under each domain, with seperated campaign information,"
Green says. "We like to run each business
as separate entities. We even have two separate
mail servers."
Evertek.com sells computer hardware just like
Geeks.com, but in a wholesale-only pricing environment.
It runs a smaller customer email list—approximately
25k—and because of the resellers certificate
and tax ID required to shop there, the website
caters to a more specialized audience. Evertek.com
email subscribers receive emails twice a day:
Daily computer supply specials in the morning,
and new arrivals to the website in the afternoon.
The Evertek email open rate is a consistent 25-27
percent, Green says.
"Campaign Enterprise gave us a level of
visibility that we never had previously,"
said Green. "It really gave us more confidence
on what we could put out there in terms of email
promotions, including gauging the receptiveness
of our emails by measuring open rates. Today we
have a solid 30-to-32 percent open rate, which
we are very proud of."
About Geeks.com
Geeks.com, headquartered in Oceanside, Calif.,
is a leading direct-to-consumer ecommerce site
specializing in providing computer-related excess
inventory, manufacturer-closeouts, high-demand
and unusual computer components and peripherals
at highly-discounted prices to tech-savvy consumers.
Their deals can be found at http://www.Geeks.com.
About Arial Software
Founded in 1993, Arial Software is widely considered
the leading developer of permission-based email
marketing software used for delivering email newsletters,
customer specials, automatic responses, exclusive
offers and more. Arial Software products are used
by corporations, retailers, universities and other
organizations to deliver personalized messages
directly to subscribers, customers, prospects
and members. More information can be found at
http://www.arialsoftware.com.
If you are interested in an email best practices
case study, contact the Arial Software Media &
Press Relations department here.
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