Blinds.com Drives 175% Email List Growth

At Connections this year we recognized over 30 companies as finalists for our Power of One Awards. The marketing team from Blinds.com, a leading retailer in the window blinds and shade business, was recognized as a finalist for their "Entice and Engage" campaign that generated 175% growth to their email list. Featured below is a summary of how Blinds.com went about achieving these phenomenal business results.

THE BLINDS.COM STORY

The Blinds.com team wanted to grow their email list with engaged prospects that could be reached across a number of platforms—not just email. The team knew that creating an easy opt-in process would make their campaign more successful in attracting new subscribers, so they required only an email address to sign up—but still used ExactTarget’s double opt-in feature to ensure engagement. The company also knew that incentives could help drive sign-ups, so its list growth campaign was structured around a sweepstakes with a grand prize of $5,000. The sweepstakes campaign, known as “Entice and Engage,” was successful in collecting email addresses of engaged consumers, who have significantly higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. 

THEIR STRATEGY

To promote the “Entice and Engage” campaign, Blinds.com created broad awareness across multiple communication and advertising channels, including: 

• Website. The Blinds.com homepage teased the contest through pop-up boxes and sidebar ads. To make sign-up easy, the team used ExactTarget Web Collect to create an email collection field in the ads—reducing the number of clicks and increasing follow-through.
• Email. The company used ExactTarget Email to send four campaign messages to the sweepstakes contestants, including promotions, reminders, and an announcement of the winner.
• Social Media. Blinds.com used their social media presence to boost campaign performance by including a sidebar graphic on their blog, sending tweets with a dedicated link to drive sign-ups, and creating a fans-only Facebook tab to encourage likes and sweepstakes entries.
• Online. The company’s search engine marketing team also set up a re-targeting campaign that promoted optimized text ads featuring the sweepstakes to recent homepage visitors.

THE RESULTS

Blinds.com enjoyed great success with their “Entice and Engage” list growth campaign using ExactTarget, with phenomenal results: 

• Achieved 175% of the original email list growth goal 
• Increased revenue per subscriber by 865% (based on the email addresses collected during the campaign)

WANT TO ACHIEVE SIMILAR RESULTS?

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