Birdy Botanicals Sings Email Marketing Praises

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Background

Birdy Botanicals is a natural skincare line for consumers who want an alternative to mass-marketed skin and beauty products. The brand uses natural ingredients combined with sustainable, socially responsible business practices.

Problem

Sally Waters, founder of Birdy Botanicals, saw a need for natural skin care ingredients and products at affordable prices. In late 2007, she turned her idea into a home business, sharing products and ideas with friends and family. She sent HTML emails to her small contact list, her only source of marketing for the year. By 2008, Birdy Botanicals was ready for a broader launch. Without the convenience of a retail store, Sally needed a more robust solution to grow her email list and reach out to new customers.

Discovery

After looking into a few different email marketing solutions, Sally ultimately chose VerticalResponse because it’s straightforward, easy to use and has the most competitive pricing. “I love the graphics and have a much easier time creating a custom template through VerticalResponse’s website than with some of the other email service providers I tried. Not only that, but VerticalResponse also offers 100 free emails to test it out, so I knew what I was signing up for.” After familiarizing herself with the tools, Sally also was impressed with the company’s responsive customer service team.

Solution

Birdy Botanicals has established itself as a resource for customers through informative bi-monthly emails. Since Sally’s business is entirely Web-based, VerticalResponse has been essential to her growth and success in keeping in touch with existing customers and finding new ones. Sally has improved her marketing strategies thanks to advice featured on the VerticalResponse Marketing for Small Businesses blog and uses her emails to advertise events, offer discount codes and provide educational health and beauty content.

Results

With VerticalResponse, Birdy Botanicals has experienced a great return on its marketing dollar. Most sales have been generated through the use of professional-looking emails that take only minutes to design and send out. VerticalResponse has allowed Birdy Botanicals to build its customer base and reach every monthly sales goal it has set. Sally has consistently seen open rates between 20 and 30 percent, and click-through rates between 3 and 13 percent.

At one point, Sally began handing out business cards that included offers for 25 percent off first purchases for new recipients of the Birdy Botanicals newsletter. VerticalResponse’s CEO, Janine Popick, was so impressed with this technique that she blogged about it to share the list-growing tip with other VerticalResponse customers. “This particular offer has helped dramatically grow my list. I make a point of developing campaigns that directly benefit my customers, rather than simply plugging new products, so people want to forward to friends. Through VerticalResponse, I have been able to build my reputation as an expert and resource in the field and it has been super exciting.”

VerticalResponse has greatly helped Birdy Botanicals get off of the ground. Sally stated, “I love VerticalResponse, I love the marketing information and the cost-efficient marketing tips that it offers. VerticalResponse has proven to be such a great source to contact people and to keep my business in their minds, especially when you don’t have a retail location.”