Roll in Today for some Sweet Deals, a Quick Tune-up or a Group Ride – How Mike’s Bikes encouraged existing customers to return regularly to their stores increasing their retention rate and revenue.

BACKGROUND

Mike’s Bikes operates 13 very successful stores in the greater SF Bay Area and an ever expanding online presence, drawing customers from all over Northern California and beyond – creating thousands of new bike enthusiasts every year. With each of the Mike’s Bikes stores dominating its market, they are now the largest bike dealer in North America.

CHALLENGES FOR CLIENT

Mike’s Bikes wanted to increase return traffic to their stores and encourage their customers to ‘come back’ and visit in hopes of a repeat purchase. The focus was on those customers who had not purchased from a Mike’s Bikes location (or online at mikesbikes.com) in the past 90 or 120 days. Mike’s Bikes wanted to engage with these specific customers, but also needed a hands off – automated campaign that would run in the background so they could concentrate on other marketing initiatives at the same time.

THE SOLUTION

An ongoing email campaign consisting of 2 automated emails sent after a customer has not made a purchase at a Mike’s Bikes in 90 days and then again in 120 days. The emails include messaging and an incentive to encourage a future purchase at a Mike’s Bikes location. Purchase history data from the clients Ascent360 database is used to trigger the emails which are then deployed from the ExactTarget email tool.

To execute this campaign, Ascent360 first created an automation that pulled a daily list from Mike’s Bikes CRM database of customers whose last purchase at a Mike’s Bikes location occurred 90 or 120 days prior. An email campaign was then set up to send to customers 90 days after their last purchase date and then again at 120 days after their last purchase date. The first email (the 90 day email) includes dynamic content & imaging based off the location of the customer’s last purchase – to remind the customer of their favorite, and conveniently located local Mike’s Bikes store. The second email (the 120 day email) is a limited time offer (a coupon for $ off next purchase of qualifying amount) designed to motivate the customer to visit their local Mike’s Bikes store to make a purchase.

THE RESULTS

The first ten months of this campaign produced great results:

• Total Revenues of $100,703 with an Average Order Value of $346 and Revenues per Email at $4
• Conversion rate of 1.2% – double the industry benchmark for multi-channel retailers.
• Open rates for the 90 day and 120 day emails averaged about 26% – again, far above the industry standards for Retailers.

For more information about Direct Marketing Services at Ascent360, contact Evelyn Kirby at: ekirby@Ascent360.com.