Kristy Alexander, founding father of Apple Rose Beauty. Image offered by Apple Rose Beauty.“I went into company America for about 10 years and was on the quick observe, being promoted each couple of years,” Apple Rose Beauty founder Kristy Alexander instructed us. “I used to be up for an additional promotion once I determined to journey round the world. I discovered myself in Thailand, volunteering with a corporation that helped rescue girls from human trafficking. That actually modified the course of my life.”While in Thailand, Alexander met two survivors of human trafficking, Apple and Rose. She based her cosmetics firm in 2015, naming it after the girls to honor them and spotlight a bigger mission — to assist cease human trafficking. Alexander employs human trafficking survivors and helps organizations that rescue and rehabilitate girls like Apple and Rose.Apple Rose Beauty, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida,is a luxurious skincare firm. Its natural face care merchandise are formulated for individuals with delicate pores and skin. “I developed the merchandise for my very own pores and skin,” stated Alexander. “I’ve delicate pores and skin and I’m additionally delicate to fragrances. I needed to create a pure line that was flippantly scented or had no scent in any respect and delicate for delicate pores and skin, however nonetheless very efficient.”Alexander credit her dream of opening a cosmetics enterprise to a chemistry class she took at age 15 in her native nation of Trinidad and Tobego. While taking the class, she analyzed cosmetics and found it was one thing she actually loved.Using email to construct sturdy buyer relationshipsWhen began the firm, Alexander knew she wanted a sturdy email advertising and marketing strategy. She needed a versatile, scalable email advertising and marketing system with built-in automation options. She selected ActiveCampaign, a advertising and marketing automation platform that features email advertising and marketing and CRM capabilities. “The know-how brings collectively what individuals consider as email advertising and marketing, advertising and marketing automation, and CRM,” defined Maria Pergolino, ActiveCampaign’s CMO. “We convey these applied sciences along with sturdy automation in order that corporations can run campaigns and elevate their voice to a number of audiences.”“I used to be searching for one thing that was versatile when it comes to automation and speaking with my prospects,” stated Alexander. “ActiveCampaign stood out from different CRM corporations that had inflexible automations which didn’t permit me to consider versatile methods to speak with my prospects utilizing ‘if…then…else’ situations. The different piece was that I wanted a platform the place I might personal and develop my buyer relationships.”In the early days of rising her enterprise, Alexander labored with an advisor and tried a number of CRM instruments. “I’m most likely a kind of individuals who tried all of them,” she stated. “We kissed a lot of frogs first earlier than we received right here.”Five years later, having constructed a sturdy email listing, Alexander confronted one other problem — reaching prospects accustomed to touching and feeling her merchandise during a time when this grew to become unimaginable — the pandemic.Using know-how to strengthen offline buyer relationshipsAlexander makes use of ActiveCampaign for email advertising and marketing, however she additionally leverages its Facebook integrations to robotically add her buyer listing for Facebook paid promoting. She’s in a position to customise campaigns on Facebook with messaging that’s tied to buyer conduct.When COVID-19 hit, Apple Rose Beauty was doing most of its enterprise offline via partnerships with retailers like Macy’s, native marketplaces, and different bodily areas. Alexander’s strategy of cultivating sturdy offline buyer relationships helped her quickly pivot to the on-line area. Prior to the pandemic, on-line gross sales had been solely about 30% of her enterprise.Said Alexander, “I’d all the time heard of the significance of email advertising and marketing, nevertheless it was by no means my focus prior COVID. We onboarded our prospects from no matter channels that we received them and we tried to get their email addresses so might remarket to them. We did a lot of in-person activation in retailer and in markets.”In-person suggestions helped Apple Rose Beauty residence in on who their prospects had been — the individuals who had been actually drawn to the model. This gave Alexander and her staff a strong understanding of their prospects’ challenges and ache factors which knowledgeable the improvement of the model positioning.“When COVID hit, I hadn’t realized how a lot that in-person suggestions was helpful for our model or how a lot it knowledgeable our complete go-to-market strategy. Post-COVID, we missed that on the spot suggestions. We had been nonetheless sending emails, however they had been the conventional one-way communication. And we thought, how can we recreate the sort of relationship that we initially had with prospects interacting with them in individual?”Making email conversationalThe incapability to speak with prospects in individual impressed Alexander and her staff to rethink how they had been utilizing automation and particularly how they had been leveraging ActiveCampaign. They transitioned to a extra conversational sort of email advertising and marketing, asking prospects to answer again to them.“When COVID hit, we had been on this state of not figuring out what was happening. We had been used to seeing our prospects and so we had been actually questioning how they had been doing and the way they had been coping with the pandemic. That’s what our preliminary emails had been about — simply reply again and tell us the way you’re doing. What do you want?”Asking prospects how they had been doing helped kick off the means of transitioning Apple Rose Beauty from offline to on-line gross sales. Their prospects knew the firm had a web site, however they had been used to purchasing in individual at Macy’s or native markets in Jacksonville, or in Atlanta the place Alexander relies. “With skincare, it’s very sensitive feely, it’s giving prospects a possibility to odor the product and see the way it spreads on their pores and skin,” stated Alexander. “So, we had been a very excessive contact firm pre-COVID, each regionally and all through the U.S.”Get the every day publication digital entrepreneurs depend on. Skyrocketing on-line gross sales and a new enterprise strategyWith the give attention to e-commerce and a new customized email communication strategy facilitated by ActiveCampaign, Apple Rose Beauty was in a position to develop their on-line gross sales by 300% in 2020. “We had been in a position to develop a sort of relationship with our prospects that a lot of shops aren’t essentially in a position to in a web-based setting. They actually really feel like we care. And it’s not simply advertising and marketing or selling to them, however they really feel like they’ll have a dialog with us,” stated Alexander.Alexander notes that about 70% of the enterprise is now on-line, a full flip from pre-pandemic instances. While they’ve begun a sluggish return to in-person occasions, she has no plan to return to the means it was earlier than. “We can scale a lot extra with email advertising and marketing and with on-line gross sales, she stated. “We’ve additionally transitioned our acquisition mannequin to utilizing extra paid promoting and internet advertising. Where as soon as our new prospects had been coming from these in-person markets, we’ve now transitioned to on-line buyer acquisition.” Example of an Apple Rose Beauty welcome email. Image offered by Apple Rose BeautyThis strategy has enabled Alexander’s small staff of three to attain six figures gross sales yearly and proceed to develop. She credit the sturdy relationship she’s constructed together with her prospects—plus her targeted digital transformation strategy — for this success. “Customers are the lifeblood of the firm, proper? If you don’t have prospects, you don’t have a enterprise. Pay particular consideration to that buyer relationship as a result of that’s essential to nurture and to take care of. You wish to make it possible for, as a model, you may have management over communication and messaging so you possibly can keep targeted on nurturing that relationship.”Read subsequent: More case research from Jacqueline DooleyAbout The Author Jacqueline Dooley is a freelance B2B content material author and journalist overlaying martech business information and traits. Since 2018, she’s labored with B2B-focused businesses, publications, and direct shoppers to create articles, weblog posts, whitepapers, and eBooks. Prior to that, Dooley based Twelve Thousand, LLC the place she labored with shoppers to create, handle, and optimize paid search and social campaigns.
https://martech.org/how-a-smart-email-strategy-helped-apple-rose-beauty-thrive-during-the-pandemic/
How a smart email strategy helped Apple Rose Beauty thrive during the pandemic
