Email Marketing by the Book

Recently in MarketingSherpa, there is an outstanding article about how ScottsMiracle-Gro has effectively leveraged SMS to attract new email subscribers for Lawn Care Update, the company’s highly successful email newsletter which has more than 1.5 million subscribers.

The article was written following an interview with Mindi Staley, Senior Specialist, Interactive Marketing at Scotts. Mindi will present this case study at next week’s Email Evolution Conference in Miami.

Story Highlights

ScottsMiracle-Gro has a longstanding relationship with Major League Baseball (MLB). Those of you who are baseball fans know that many major league ballparks use Scotts grass seed and fertilizer to keep their parks in looking great.

With the objective of attracting new subscribers for Lawn Care Update, Scotts partnered with Major League Baseball last year to conduct a test in three MLB ballparks – Chicago, Cincinnati, and Boston – to determine if fans would respond to a between-innings offer to use their cellphones to text their request to receive product information from Scotts.

After responding, fans received an email with a link to a landing page (hosted by ExactTarget) where they would be invited to opt-in to Scotts Lawn Care Update email newsletter. Fans also were given the option to opt-in to Lawn Care Update via SMS.

The test was successful, and this season Scotts rolled out the campaign in eight MLB ballparks. At each ballpark, fans entering the stadium received a personalized “Groundskeeper’s Guide” pamphlet displaying the logo of the MLB team, and most importantly, lawn care tips directly from each ballpark's grounds keeper.

The result? Of all fans who responded via SMS to Scotts’ offer to receive product information and special promotions, 40% opted in to receive Lawn Care Update. This is easily the most effective use of SMS for direct response I have seen.

Have You Seen ExactTarget’s New Interactive Marketing Hub?
ScottsMiracleGro is a great example of how a consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands can use ExactTarget's Interactive Marketing Hub platform to engage customers using  Email, Mobile and Landing Page technology -- all from a single console!