CostumeBox leverages marketing automation for exceptional customer engagement

CostumeBox was launched in 2007 by Nikki Yeaman and Roma Burke with a range of just 400 costumes. The company has since grown to offer an unmatched range of more than 20,000 different products, offering a comprehensive range of fancy-dress costumes, accessories, audio visual equipment, party décor and supplies and more! To date, CostumeBox has dispatched more than 3 million costumes and party supplies to happy customers worldwide, making it easy, fun and convenient to shop anywhere, anytime.

Challenge

CostumeBox faced two key challenges. There was a large segment of unengaged contacts, and a lack of automated email engagement and re-engagement programs. Therefore, the brand needed to implement a robust marketing strategy to entice both unengaged customers and non-customers to engage and make a purchase.

Solution

Since partnering with Dotdigital, CostumeBox has targeted customers with relevant content through the right channels. Dotdigital’s automation and segmentation capabilities made it the perfect fit, enabling the client to better segment and understand lead demographics.

The team devised a well thought-out and meticulously-crafted Halloween re-engagement strategy to drive engagement. The first leg of the program involved excluding the unengaged/inactive contacts from standard sends to avoid redundancy. Next, the customers who engaged with the brand or made a purchase were taken out of the re-engagement program and targeted with regular marketing communications. Lastly, for those who engaged but did not purchase, a reminder was sent to promote urgency and redeem a unique special discount, enticing them to buy.

“Dotdigital has eased the entire process for the team, right from sending emails to building customer lists, segmenting customers based on their brand engagement frequency, tracking data from direct emails and crafting and scheduling personalized triggered campaigns,” said Nikki Yeaman, Co-Founder and CEO at CostumeBox.

In 2020, the brand successfully migrated ecommerce platforms to Shopify using MindArc and Dotdigital expertise. Taking personalization to the next level, CostumeBox implemented a successful loyalty program using loyalty platform, Smile. The team customized Dotdigital campaign headers for customers showcasing Smile loyalty points redeemed on the website via dynamic content blocks. Contacts who hadn’t registered for the loyalty program saw a call-to-action button with joining benefits.

Additionally, the brand implemented abandon cart functionality to expand the reach of the default Shopify abandoned checkout, as well as an extended welcome program. Furthermore, CostumeBox introduced product recommendations, using the ‘bestseller’ block for standard seasonal campaigns.

“We’ve had great success with our re-engagement programs resulting in increased customer engagement, especially during Halloween 2021,” said Nikki.

Results

CostumeBox witnessed a 38% increase in engagement from the reminder campaign, which was sent to contacts who opened the first email but did not purchase. 11% of customers who opened the Halloween 2021 re-engagement program, purchased during or after the program, with overall engagement increasing by 28% compared to the same period in 2020. The Halloween campaign recorded 4.2% in total email revenue, while overall automation revenue across campaigns stood at 28%.

Looking Ahead

Continuing its customer-centric approach and personalization journey, CostumeBox intends to focus on the post-purchase journey, harness customer reviews to drive traffic, attract new customers, and build lifelong loyalty. The company recently also launched ENCORE – a marketplace for re-selling CostumeBox pre-loved items, something the team has been working tirelessly on behind the scenes.

The marketplace will allow customers to feature their pre-loved costumes online and sell them directly to other CostumeBox customers, as well as buy from others in the community. The team is also currently working on exciting 2022 Easter campaigns.