Business and Marketing

The home fragrance company's behavioral- and catalog-based messaging ignites stellar open and conversion rates.

                                                                                                                                                     Photo Source: Diamond Candles

Burnout is a risk for any email marketer. From collecting and analyzing data to building templates and testing subject lines, it's no wonder that many email marketers feel like they're burning the candle at both ends. And once a brand's inventory changes, the team has to start the process all over again.

Home fragrance company Diamond Candles wanted to better manage and personalize its emails as it updated its catalog. So the company known for putting $10 to $5,000-rings inside of its candles hired automated marketing provider Bluecore in February 2014 to achieve these goals and enhance its triggered email program.

Before working with Bluecore, Diamond Candles had a standard abandoned cart email program; however, the four-year-old company with less than a dozen employees wasn't able to scale its program or personalize its messages based on people's online behaviors.

“We wanted to have the power of Amazon without the cost, manual overhead, and time... because, certainly, there's a lot of value if you can execute on that level,” says Justin Winter, cofounder and CEO of Diamond Candles.

After inserting Bluecore's JavaScript code within its website, Diamond Candles was able to launch its new triggered email program within 72 hours. The solution enables Diamond Candles to send different triggered messages based on the behaviors of customers who have opted in to the retailer's promotional program or catalog changes.

Diamond Candles can send customers emails if they abandon a website browse, search, or item in their cart—just a few examples of the company's new behavior-based triggers. For instance, if a customer adds a Diamond Candles Sunwashed Ring Candle to her cart but doesn't make a purchase, the home fragrance brand may send her a message to resurface that item. Or, if a customer visits the site but doesn't add anything to her cart, Diamond Candles may send her an email featuring the viewed items. Similarly, if a customer searches for a certain candle but then abandons the site, Diamond Candles may send her an email highlighting the searched item, as well as a few best sellers in that category. The retailer can also send post-purchase emails featuring related items and best sellers based on customers' previous buys.

As for catalog-based triggers, Diamond Candles may send an email if the price of an item a customer looked at or virtually abandoned dropped or if the company introduced a new product in that same category. For example, if the brand debuts a new candle in the “Spice” category, Winter notes, it can view all of the customers who looked at candles in this group during the past 90 days and notify shoppers of the new arrival.

“The more relevant and helpful that we can be in helping people discover the products that they like and be reminded of what they're interested in, the more likely it is that someone is probably going to go ahead and purchase something,” he says.

To avoid over-emailing its customers, Diamond Candles relies on frequency caps and prioritization—both of which are built into Bluecore's algorithm. For instance, a customer may qualify for price drop, browse abandonment, and cart abandonment emails; however, that customer may only receive a cart abandonment email because that behavior most strongly indicates that customer's intent, explains Fayez Mohamood, cofounder and CEO of Bluecore.

Plus, Diamond Candles doesn't send all of its emails right away. Mohamood says that the retailer has a three-hour to seven-day window for its automated messages, depending on the customer and type of trigger. Finally, Winter adds that he looks at metrics, like open rates and revenue, to determine if Diamond Candles' messages are truly resonating with its customers.

“If people weren't interested and it wasn't helpful, they wouldn't be opening the emails, and they'd be marking it as spam,” Winter says. “But the reality is no one ever marks it as spam because it's so appropriate to the conversation.... We're not sending all of these triggered messages to somebody who doesn't qualify for that campaign type.”

And it looks like Diamond Candles' customers are indeed interested in its messaging. During the past year, the home fragrance company has sent 1.1 million triggered messages with a 40% average open rate and a 13% average conversion rate. 

Now those results are enough to make any marketer glow with pride. 

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