Email Strategy Roundtable: H&R Block Opens Up About Their Email Program
I recently had the pleasure of catching up with Michael Pruitt, who managed the email program in question in my earlier post, A Seasonal Mailer’s Case Study: H&R Block. It was a wonderful, rare opportunity to talk shop with a company who we’ve highlighted on the Bronto Blog, and Michael was nothing short of gracious and welcomed my questions.
In my post, the biggest question was why I stopped receiving H&R Block promotional emails in February, well before tax day on April 15th. It turns out that I was on a special list of “prospects” – people who had purchased the service in the past, but not in recent years. I have not used their service in at least 3 years, if I remember correctly. The assumption is that these people have found other preparers, and if H&R Block can’t convert them during this early winter “peak” season (which I incorrectly guessed was closer to tax day), then they’re not likely to convert at all, and therefore are dropped from the subsequent mailings.
My initial thought was that this could be a dangerous assumption, given the nature of procrastinating tax-payers, which Michael admitted was a risk. But they were right – I never would have converted, as I had a simple 1040EZ form that I didn’t need help with, and could file independently for a lower fee elsewhere. They saved money and improved their ROI by not mailing me (at what must be an increased volume leading up to the big day).
This bold line of thinking got me wondering if this strategy could be used elsewhere, like in the holiday push during December. Certainly testing and analysis of past holiday campaign performance would be necessary. But what if, on December 12, you dropped everyone who had not responded to your holiday promotions up until this date, nor your holiday promotions last year and/or the year before? What about Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day – holidays that may be sensitive to subscribers who don’t have a loved one to buy for? Interesting food for thought…
Another hot point in the discussion was the effectiveness of their newsletter that I loved so much. Lately I am finding with my clients that educational, content-driven emails are out-converting promotional messages. Michael agrees here: the newsletter works very well for them, but it doesn’t work well on lapsed customers like me, and he’s considering dropping the non-openers as the campaign progresses. This makes sense on one hand, if these people are already not engaged. I wonder if valuable content might bring these folks back into the fold, or if they’re offer-driven comparison shoppers, or if like me, they just aren’t good candidates for H&R Block services anymore. Then again, I just bought a house, and my life is getting more complicated, tax-wise, as I get older and approach marriage, kids, etc. so I may become a viable customer further down the road. Is it better that they drop me, or risk paying money to mail to someone who may convert one distant day?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these ideas – please join the discussion in the comments below!
Julie Waite
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto
Follow Bronto
Don't miss a single post! Receive Email, Mobile, and Social strategy insights from the Bronto Blog by subscribing now!
About the Author
Julie Waite has a broad sales and marketing background with over 10 years in start-up and enterprise corporations in a wide variety of B2B and B2C industries. Her experience includes four years as a Bronto client herself, which helps her to understand the needs of her clients. As an Email Marketing Strategist, she works one-on-one with clients to improve and optimize their email marketing campaigns to meet their business goals, whether that be to increase conversions, brand loyalty, customer retention, and/or list growth. When not writing for Bronto Blog, Julie loves cooking, traveling, and is a self-proclaimed movie geek.
Did you have an opportunity
Did you have an opportunity to ask Michael if he considered running a test group (or if he actually did run one) as they moved closer to tax day out of the "non-special list of “prospects” – people who had purchased the service in the past, but not in recent years".
Making the assumption that the entire group of prospects would not re-engage could be costly - only a smart test strategy would uncover if this is accurate or not.
For other retailers with seasonal pushes like Holiday, Valentine's Day... I would strongly recommend that they test a segment of non-engaged as they move closer to the holiday rather than stop altogether. Just because a subscriber didn't order last year after 12.12 or after 2.10 doesn't mean they may not now - i.e. maybe last year they traveled for the holidays and purchased earlier in the season where this year they will be sending e-cards or maybe last year they were single and this year they have a girlfriend and want to send flowers on Valentine's Day.
I think you pose an
I think you pose an interesting question re: dropping non-responders after a certain period of time. I would be open to this idea, if - and only if - they have not purchased in the past X number of seasons AND they also have not been engaging whatsoever with the emails I've been sending for a significant period of time. If, like I'm assuming you were doing with the H&R messages, folks are still opening, but not converting, I would hesitate eliminating them from further marketing.
Kimberly: Maybe Michael can
Kimberly: Maybe Michael can weigh in here on what testing they did, as I don't know how they came to this conclusion.
I'm definitely all for testing, with the goal of removing those who haven't purchased in 2-3 years or more to maximize ROI at a point when I could prove they are least likely to convert. This is similar to the strategy of reducing frequency on those non-engaged subscribers who haven't opened or clicked a message in a long time.
Julie, Glad you were able
Julie,
Glad you were able to get some great insight from H&R Block, and thanks to Michael for opening up!
I'm happy to see that they've done some extensive analysis on their email subscribers and executed a strategy based on what they learned; that's a very promising sign that they are focused on providing value to their subscribers. I do agree with you, however, that testing could have provided concrete direction versus hunches and assumptions.
It is also important to know, and execute, based on what your subscribers and customers respond to whether it be incentives or information. In their industry, I'm not surprised H&R Block's subscribers responded positively to the newsletter but that may not be the case for every industry, especially online retail. That's why lifecycle campaigns and trigger messages -- with or without an incentive -- can be so powerful. Providing valuable, targeted messages that hit subscribers at the right time is a winning combination for a reason. Sounds like H&R Block is working their way toward that with their yearly campaigns.
Finally, I believe marketers should take a look at the source through which new subscribers are added to their lists. If the subscriber converted through, or signed up to receive, an incentive, it's likely a safe assumption that incentives are what this group will be most responsive to in the future. You can determine that concretely through testing.
-Kelly@Bronto
Regarding the question about
Regarding the question about testing...we based the decision on historical response/conversion rates, which nose-dived after a certain period of time. You have a point however and perhaps we should dig deeper and carve out the "more engaged" audience members. Thanks for the insight!
Post new comment