Email, social media, and coupons makes the CFO smile

While attending the Monitoring Social Media Conference I had the opportunity to listen to Mark Schmulen, General Manager of Social Media for Constant Contact (affiliate link), discuss a case study centered on the combination of e-mail plus social media.  The study focused on how Dingo, a pet product company,  leveraged Facebook plus Constant Contact to achieve impressive revenue growth.

In searching the web I found a good overview of the social media accomplishments from this campaign. However, those are but part of the story and miss the real business outcomes.  I will summarize the article and add the rest of the story to help you better understand what took place.

Their goals?

• Capture more Dingo users, adding to their existing database of power users.
• Find dog owners who haven’t tried Dingo and drive trial of their product.
• Utilize the power of Facebook to build a community in which Dingo could have easy, real-time interaction with consumers.

Their Tactics

Dingo began the campaign with 330 fans on their Facebook page and around 9000 users in their mailing list.  Dingo added the Constant Contact tab to their Facebook page and offered a $20 coupon to the first 5000 fans that joined their mailing list and liked the page. 

The Outcomes

In just three days they had passed the 6000 fan mark and their mailing list surpassed 14,000 users.  Even more important, however, than these metrics, were the sales numbers.  During the month of this campaign they grew monthly sales by 22% (3 or 4% was their normal monthly growth) and 45% of this growth came from new customer accounts.  That’s right, 45% came from new customers.  The strategy proved itself to work very well in driving revenue and customer acquisition.

After the promotion ended?

Mark did not go into the life after the campaign as he had other studies to discuss.  However, in checking out their Facebook page they now have 7,445 fans so we can see the growth rate has not continued.  The coupons plus the use of social media probably provided the largest incentives.  Also note that they are running a new campaign which ends on October 29th, pushing to reach 25,000 fans.  I’ll keep an eye on how this progresses and let you know.

John