June 19, 2012

Case Study

Email Marketing: 11% list growth turns branding promos into long-term investments for Ted’s Montana Grill

SUMMARY: Marketing campaigns can be a flash in the pan. You spend resources, get a result and move on. However, you can design campaigns to pay off for months to come if you incorporate email list growth tactics.

Last year, Ted's Montana Grill strengthened its email database through three campaigns that promoted a new brand and menu. See how offline and online channels -- including mobile -- added 11% more subscribers, and convinced current recipients to update their contact information.

by Adam T. Sutton, Senior Reporter

CHALLENGE

Ted’s Montana Grill had just updated its brand. The national restaurant chain has 44 locations in 16 states, and needed to show consumers its new style and menu.

Jessica Smith, Marketing Director at Ted’s, planned three campaigns with her team in 2011. Each would use online and offline ads to drive traffic to a landing page that offered a coupon. The campaigns would

highlight new menu items (each campaign would feature a different set),

emphasize the new brand, and

drive incremental sales via the coupons.

However, Smith didn’t want the three campaigns to be one-offs. She needed them to both drive immediate results and continue paying off in the months ahead.

"We wanted our media dollars to be an investment, long-term," she says.

She wanted to remarket to consumers after they responded. That way, the team could increase returns even after the campaigns had ended. Adding email registrations to the strategy seemed like a perfect solution.

"An additional email address is an additional member to our database, and we can communicate with them throughout the year," Smith says.

CAMPAIGN

The marketing team designed the three campaigns to achieve two goals in addition to those mentioned above:

Attract new email subscribers

Get current subscribers to update their contact information

The team followed three steps in each of the campaigns:

Step #1. Create a campaign landing page

The team’s overall strategy was to encourage consumers to visit a landing page where they could view new menu items and sign up to receive a coupon. The team changed the page's featured items and offer in each campaign, but the strategy remained consistent.

Here are key features of the landing page and how they supported the campaigns’ goals:

Images and branding

The right portion of the page included a large, high-quality image of a menu and a description. Smaller images of six products lined the bottom of the page, and could be clicked for a larger view.

These images -- as well as the logo, colors and other branded elements on the page -- introduced visitors to Ted’s new brand and products.

Email capture form

To receive the coupon, visitors were asked to sign up for the team’s Big Sky email program. The page used a five-field form to request information:

First name

Last name

Email address

ZIP code

Preferred Ted’s location

By integrating email registrations into the strategy, the team was able to build a list of new subscribers for later promotions.

Dynamic content

The team announced each campaign to its email database. The landing page detected visitors who arrived from these emails and adjusted its content. Instead of asking them to sign up, it asked current subscribers to update their contact information and to select a preferred Ted’s location. It even pre-loaded their current information into the form.

Getting current subscribers to update their information strengthens the company’s database, helps the team deliver relevant content, and helps maintain strong delivery rates. Also, getting subscribers to select a preferred location enabled Ted’s to segment its email marketing by this data point going forward.

Confirmation page

After submitting the form, visitors were shown a confirmation page with the following information:

"Thank you" message

Request to "follow" Ted’s on Facebook

Button to find a nearby location

Featured menu items -- although they were featured last on the page, the images and descriptions of these items dominated the page’s content

This confirmation page encouraged visitors to continue their engagement with Ted’s, and continued to emphasize the restaurant’s new menu items.

Step #2. Drive traffic to the landing page

Many of the campaign’s ads mentioned the coupon offer as an incentive. Others encouraged people to view menu items, such as Ted’s new burgers. All the ads brought visitors to the campaign landing page.

Here are the key channels used to drive traffic to the page:

Newspaper ads and inserts -- the team advertised in newspapers that served regions with a Ted’s location. The ads often included a nearby city name.

"We took a very local approach, both in the print investment and the digital investment," Smith says.

QR code -- many of the team’s offline ads included a 2D barcode and a call-to-action: "Scan the QR code with your phone to receive an exclusive offer." A different code was used in each region for tracking purposes.

Scanning the code brought visitors to a mobile landing page designed to render well on smartphones powered by iOS, Android and Blackberry operating systems. The landing page was a stripped-down version of the campaign’s main landing page. It included the following features:

Call-to-action to sign up for Ted’s email program to receive a coupon for a free order of onion rings

A five-field form

Product image

Sharing buttons

Online display ads -- the team ran banner ads on local websites, such as newspaper websites, in the target regions. Some ads promoted new menu items, such as Ted’s new burgers, and others promoted the free offer.

Emails to database -- Ted’s announced each campaign to its email subscribers. The layout of these emails adjusted in real time to the recipients’ devices, whether they were on a desktop or mobile device. The emails included messages and offers similar to those above, and brought visitors to the campaigns’ landing page.

The team also tested whether this dynamic email improved results. In the first campaign, the team split its list and sent the groups different emails:

Email #1 -- standard email

Email #2 -- email that adjusted in real time to desktop and mobile devices

Looking at the results, the mobile-optimized email was a winner (see the results below). The team used its design from that point forward.

Social media -- the team also kept its audiences on Twitter and Facebook in the loop. The campaigns were mentioned on each social network, and followers of the company could take action by clicking to the landing page.

The team tested Facebook ads, but only used them initially.

"That was an experiment that we did in certain markets," Smith says. "We didn’t really see a lot of activity with those, so we decided to pull them after the first campaign."

Step #3. Fulfill the offer via email

After people filled out the form, Ted’s could have delivered the coupons on a confirmation page. However, the team decided to deliver them via email. Here’s why:

Weed out fakes -- some people enter false addresses, hoping to receive the coupon on a confirmation page. By delivering the coupons via email, the team created a barrier that prevented these people from gaming the campaign.

Welcome new subscribers -- the team allowed the email to serve as a welcome to new subscribers, giving them an immediate positive experience with Ted’s emails. It also familiarized new subscribers with the email address and style they could expect in later messages.

RESULTS

"These were phenomenal results," Smith says.

Ted’s email list grew 11% in 2011, due largely to these campaigns, she says. The year prior, the list had only grown 1%.

Ted’s also increased its Facebook audience 57% in 2011, which brought its total number of "likes" up to more than 16,400.

The campaign drove more than 44,000 guests into a Ted’s restaurant to redeem one of the offers.

31% of the landing page’s conversions earned a new email subscriber.

"It is definitely significant growth for us," Smith says. "It is larger than we have experienced [before]."

Mobile email results

The team’s email test also showed good results. The message that adjusted for desktop and mobile devices had the following results compared to the standard message: