The More E-mail Versions the Merrier for American Greetings

Still need proof that segmenting your e-mail house file and creating unique messages for each group can pay off? Consider the lift that American Greetings enjoyed from doing just that: Between October 2009 and April 2010, it increased customer engagement—opens, clicks, and transactions—13% for its AmericanGreetings.com and BlueMountain.com brands.

For a membership fee, American Greetings subscribers can send e-cards or create and print cards from among the company’s vast library. As part of each campaign—and according to marketing specialist Adrienne Sender, the company produces at least one campaign each month, usually based on upcoming holidays and special events— the marketing team will decide how to customize the e-mails for various sectors of its file.

At the most basic level, the database of more than 5 million names is split between retention, targeting current members, and acquisition, targeting former members and customers who have sent cards but not signed up for membership. Further segmentation is usually based on customer life cycle and engagement: Customers whose membership is up for renewal in two months, say, might be in a different segment than customers who just joined. Members who signed on six months ago but haven’t sent a card in the past quarter would be broken out from those who joined at the same time but have been using the service more frequently.

Each campaign can have as many as 20 segments, Sender says. “The creative usually is different for each. Though we might split some of the people by life cycle but they might not get different creative,” she adds, “though the analysts on the back end can tell” how one segment responds versus another.

In addition to the life-cycle segmentation, nearly every campaign entails a degree of testing as well. “We might test different creative or a template,” Sender says. “We might do a test to see if two e-mails are better than one, or if sending early in the morning is better than in the afternoon.”

American Greetings had been working with e-mail solutions provider ExactTarget since summer 2008. Not until about a year ago, however, did it begin using ExactTarget’s AMPscript programs, which in combination with analytics data provided via integration with a solution from online optimization provider Omniture simplifies the creation and sending of multiple versions. “It’s kind of like an Excel sheet,” Sender says.

The software got a workout this past December, which is one of American Greetings’ busiest months. This year it became even busier, as the company decided to test whether increasing the quantity and frequency of e-mails to at least once a week would increase customer engagement. What’s more, during the week prior to Christmas, “it was probably every other day,” recalls Sender. On Christmas Day, it contacted all customers who had not opened any of the previous e-mails.

All told, American Greetings delivered 10,000 e-mails in December, resulting in a 22% click-to-open ratio and 7,300 subscriptions. “We looked into the amount of sends and the amount of time that we touched our customers in the weeks leading up to the holiday,” Sender says. “We found that the more we sent, the more engagement we saw.”