Dormify And The Magic Of Email Marketing To Millennials

Dormify, a dorm decor startup, seems to have cracked the email marketing code for millennials and Gen Z buyers.

The New York-based e-tailer has seen a 92-percent increase in revenue from email marketing and has doubled its web conversion rate.

“Before you can market effectively to a younger audience in particular, you need to establish a solid brand and product offering that will appeal to them,” said Dormify’s CMO Nicole Gardner. “We worked hard in our initial stages of the business to establish a voice that appeals to our audience base coupled with compelling, high-quality products.”

Its success at maximizing revenue from its email campaigns, Gardner told RetailDive, comes from calculated analysis of 18 metrics, which it used to constantly readjust its frequency, tone and overall strategy for close to a year.

“Within each of these groups, customers have different interests and needs that we can address,” Gardner said. “Ultimately, even with our strong creative, we found ourselves sending too many messages that lacked relevance for specific pockets of recipients, and without relevance, we ran the risk of training our subscribers to ignore us.”

Instead, the company relied on writing spiffy copies that would instantly grab the attention of its audience. “Our brand is young, fun, and witty, so we’ll use a twist on a song lyric or fun saying that goes with a topic at hand to stand out in a cluttered inbox,” Gardner added.

As part of its outreach strategy, Dormify has integrated its email marketing campaign with its eCommerce platform through Dotmailer and Magento. This has allowed it to bring in automation to the process. The company saw a 22-percent increase in revenue from automated emails, according to RetailDive.

Under its initial three-step campaign, once a user signs up, they get an automated welcome message from the website that includes a dynamic coupon code. The second email gives users background and can encourage them to complete their abandoned transaction. The third email aims at connecting with the users on alternate social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram, and encourages them to share their purchase over other platforms.

This strategy, Gardner said, has helped emails from Dormify stand out in the daily sea of promotional mails that hit everyone’s inboxes. “You can increase your email impact over time by becoming more selective about the content, frequency and audience for each campaign,” Gardner added. “Segmentation has helped us bring the personal touch to our email marketing, and that has strengthened our brand with an audience that has challenged other marketers.”