There are several lessons to be drawn from Massage Envy’s recent Massage for the Cure e-mail campaign: that testing is vital, that coupons are effective in driving traffic and tracking response, and that doing good for others can do well for your business.
A massage-clinic franchise with more than 600 shops in 42 states, Massage Envy last autumn sponsored Massage for the Cure, in which $10 for each massage booked during the one-day event would be donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a nonprofit association dedicated to fighting breast cancer. Using the ExactTarget e-mail platform, “we tested several elements leading up to the event,” says Brynne Haack, customer lifecycle management specialist for Mighty Interactive, the agency that helped design the campaign for Massage Envy.
A/B split testing is nothing new for Massage Envy. “Every time we’re sending out a blast, they’re testing a different element of it,” notes chief marketing officer Dallas Bennewitz. Among the tests were time of day, day of week, and the design of the e-mails. For instance, they’d found that even though graphics-heavy e-mails are not a best practice, the Massage Envy customer base responds significantly better to messages with large images, so Mighty Interactive opted to use them nonetheless. Other findings showed that messages sent at 6am Arizona time (the company is based in Scottsdale, AZ) and on Thursdays garnered the greatest response. All told, the findings from the tests conducted on the company’s regular promotional e-mails, which are sent out once a month or so, led to a 65% increase in open rates over time.
To promote Massage for the Cure, Massage Envy sent an initial e-mail approximately 30 days prior to the event. In addition to contacting its house file, Massage Envy had several of its partners/suppliers send promotional messages to their customers. Skincare company Murad, for instance, e-mailed its roughly 1 million subscribers. A follow-up e-mail was sent five days prior to the event.
Massage Envy had hoped to raise $250,000 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. It ended up exceeding its goal by nearly $300,000. About 70% of the roughly 46,000 people who purchased massages that day had never visited Massage Envy before, a number that “really exceeded our expectations,” says Bennewitz. Many of them had heard of the event through one of the company’s partners or other media, or they’d been forwarded the promotional e-mail by a friend.
While at the clinic, about 10,000 attendees opted in via a check box on the premassage questionnaire to receive future e-mails from Massage Envy. Within 10 days of the event, Massage Envy sent those 10,000 new subscribers a thank-you e-mail updating them on how much money was raised that included a coupon good for a discount on their next massage. The company generally uses coupons to encourage initial purchases, Bennewitz says, but in this case it opted to offer them as a thank-you. A month later, it sent a follow-up e-mail to those who had received the initial coupon but had not yet redeemed it. More than 50% of those who had received a bounce-back coupon eventually used it.
Given how the campaign exceeded Massage Envy’s expectations both for money raised and number of new subscribers and prospects, it’s not surprising that Massage Envy is already gearing up for this year’s Massage for the Cure, scheduled for September 14.
There are several lessons to be drawn from Massage Envy’s recent Massage for the Cure e-mail campaign: that testing is vital, that coupons are effective in driving traffic and tracking response, and that doing good for others can do well for your business.
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