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Our brand has existed since 1981, and our goal is to have a large, happy group of customers. We’re not looking at ROI in terms of this month, quarter, or year. Our goal, no matter what, is to reach our customers in a way that will surprise them and add real value.
With their brand established in 1981, INGLOT Cosmetics is a world-renowned cosmetics brand whose products can be found in over 800 retail locations and seen in some of the most well-known Broadway productions. But having a global brand doesn’t mean they can rest on their laurels.
INGLOT Canada’s market centers around five major cities. Having large and diverse populations, each major market contains unique multiple sub-markets. In order to deliver value to such a diverse customer base, they knew their marketing strategy had to marry their in-store and online omnichannel marketing program.
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As a long-time Shopify customer, INGLOT Canada needed to replace Mailchimp with an ecommerce-focused platform that could integrate with their POS data and have the tools to grow ecommerce sales.
After testing over 10 different solutions, Omnisend came out on top. Since then, INGLOT Canada has been taking advantage of Omnisend’s sophisticated automation workflows and omnichannel integrations to execute their strategic vision.
Finding the balance between promotion & customer relationships
As many ecommerce marketers do, INGLOT Canada relies heavily on email marketing for communication with their customers. According to their president, Marcin Bielen, email marketing generates the highest ROI and is the most efficient way to get a call to action to the customer.
In terms of ROI, even if we spent the same amount, or much more, on social media or any other type of advertising, email always brings the highest revenue. We also see it in the long-tail: the sale may not happen in that exact moment. But building information in the client’s consciousness as they receive several emails over time to get them to purchase, we see that too.
According to Marcin, the biggest challenge they face is striking the delicate balance between sending value-driven promotional emails and delivering information and making it interesting for the subscriber.
With email being a high revenue-driver for the brand, they’re encouraged to send as many as possible. However, Marcin realizes that maintaining a good relationship with customers is more important than always pushing for the sale, saying, “Usually customers won’t have an issue if an email adds value, but you still can’t do it every day.”
The key to finding this balance while keeping conversions high was augmenting their email program with other connected online channels.
The added push: Incorporating SMS & push with email
INGLOT Canada’s strategy utilizes email, SMS, and push notifications for their cart abandonment workflows. By including push notifications in their workflow, they’re able to catch a customer while they’re still in the mood to shop but before they’ve been pulled away by another task or distraction. According to Marcin, the longer they wait, the less return they see—and he may be right.
Their SMS with email cart abandonment messages earn a combined 2,130% lift in revenue per message compared to their promotional emails, while the abandoned push messages earn a monstrous 4,798% lift in revenue per message. For the entire series, conversion rates experience a 117% increase over email-only promotions and accounts for 8% of their yearly email revenue.
“It’s harder and harder to reach the customer, so a combination of push notifications and text messages, works so much better. We’ve been testing it against email only, and email plus text and push gives us a much higher turnaround.”
Marcin says that incorporating different channels into their marketing strategy also allows them to earn more engagement on days where email classically underperforms. For example, they tend to run promotional campaigns over the weekend, a time when customers aren’t always checking their emails.
“During the week we’re so busy, we just skim messages. So despite a lot of “best practices” saying that Sundays aren’t great for engagement, we have a lot of success on Sundays. We see that people are much more relaxed, they browse longer, they pay more attention to what they’re buying, and they have larger baskets.”
Adding value and maintaining their relationship with their customers is the top priority, and by using their customer data to know when to send they can continue to do so.
Taking it offline: Using omnichannel to create a better customer experience
As a hybrid brick-and-mortar and ecommerce DTC brand, they needed to extend the omnichannel experience beyond their ecommerce shop. Using the Shopify-Omnisend integration, they were able to connect their point-of-sale database to Omnisend’s subscriber lists.
“It was a huge asset to have a platform that has as many tools as possible. If possible, we do prefer to stay on one platform and work with one database that’s connected to our store resources, instead of having multiple platforms and syncing one to another. Extra channels weren’t what we were originally looking for, but now that we have them, we want to use them.”
With popular locations all over Canada, INGLOT Canada is the place to be for a variety of cosmetic and beauty-themed events. They have begun creating their own in-store events and using email marketing to invite customers to them.
With beauty influencers and fans coming to their events, customers create user-generated content—which is shared across Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat—further solidifying INGLOT Canada’s branding.
Of course, with many stores being at the epicenter of popular tourist destinations, they rely on Omnisend’s segmentation to ensure they’re only inviting the local customers to the event.
With the connection from their POS system, they can see exactly what customers have purchased either online or in-store. Not only does this allow them the opportunity to send more relevant product offers and recommendations, but it also provides their brick-and-mortar employees the information necessary to better serve their customers while they’re shopping in real-time.
Having a commerce-focused marketing automation provider like Omnisend be able to sync with their ecommerce provider, Shopify, INGLOT Canada is able to create continuity between their in-store and online experiences, down to the latest SMS update sent.
By tying it all together in one database, Marcin says he’ll continue to test new channels that help deliver a personalized experience for each customer, regardless of who they are, or which channel they use to engage.
