ButcherBox drives 5.5x YoY growth in SMS revenue with Klaviyo

ButcherBox is on a mission to make high-quality meat more accessible.

Initially launched via Kickstarter in 2015, the subscription business has grown into a massive, $600M+ brand, shipping customers monthly boxes of 100% grass-fed beef; pork raised crate-free; free-range, organic chicken; and wild-caught fish, among other proteins. A certified B Corporation, ButcherBox operates with a focus on sustainable agriculture, animal welfare, and a better food system.

Learn how ButcherBox improved their customer experience by adding Klaviyo SMS

Challenge

ButcherBox’s core challenge: Frozen meat is perishable.

ButcherBox was sending real-time delivery alerts via email, thanks to an API-based integration between their custom, in-house logistics system and Klaviyo. But the messages didn’t always reach customers’ lock screens and get immediate attention.

There was a distinct need to let customers know right when their box arrived. Pre-SMS, that was a gap in our experience.

As a subscription business, ButcherBox needed their customers to be excited to re-order—and delivery experience is an important element in getting that next order placed.

“There was a distinct need to let customers know right when their box arrived,” says Mike Kumlin, senior marketing technology manager at ButcherBox. “Pre-SMS, that was a gap in our experience.”

Solution

ButcherBox had never used SMS before, but it was the perfect channel for time-sensitive delivery alerts.

And using Klaviyo SMS just made sense: ButcherBox had already stored hundreds of profile properties in each mature customer’s Klaviyo profile, from NPS and purchase history to survey responses.

“Knowing that our data was going to be accessible for us through Klaviyo SMS without having to re-engineer any data exchanges was a big selling point for us,” Kumlin explains. “It was exciting to have our customer data, email, and SMS all in Klaviyo under one roof.”

Knowing that our data was going to be accessible for us through Klaviyo SMS without having to re-engineer any data exchanges was a big selling point for us. It was exciting to have our customer data, email, and SMS all in Klaviyo under one roof.

As a one-person team implementing SMS, Kumlin also appreciated support from his Klaviyo onboarding specialist, who “doubled my team size, essentially,” he says—and gave him confidence he had covered his compliance bases.

And when ButcherBox launched SMS delivery alerts, positive responses started pouring in.

“It instantly validated all the work,” Kumlin says. “SMS was serving our customers in a way that email wasn’t able to, letting people know what they needed to the moment they needed to. That alone justifies the channel—and then there are thousands of other ways we can use it.”

Strategy

It’s been more than a year since ButcherBox started with Klaviyo SMS, and the team has already used their expanded Klaviyo toolkit in a few different ways:

• To grow their SMS list: ButcherBox drove 63K+ SMS sign-ups in the past year, with help from conditional blocks in emails with sign-up CTAs. Visible only to customers not yet signed up for SMS, these blocks highlight the convenience of real-time SMS delivery updates in transactional emails; in campaigns, they highlight the early access SMS customers s get to new products and sales.
• To send multi-channel reminders of upcoming boxes: When a customer’s ’s box is about to ship, ButcherBox makes sure customers get a chance to order everything they want, to maximize satisfaction and AOV. So 3 days before billing, the customer receives an automated email reminder to add any additions and deals to their box; 2 days later, if they haven’t engaged and they’re subscribed to SMS, they get a text reminder, too.

Next on ButcherBox’s roadmap: Continuing to build out their SMS program, with features like SMS consent at check-out, with help from their new ecommerce platform, Shopify Plus.

It’s more stable than their prior platform—a customized WordPress site that crashed around BFCM—and the team can now access real-time ecommerce data, thanks to a tighter integration with Klaviyo.

“Things just work a lot more seamlessly and intuitively, now that we’re using Klaviyo for email and SMS with Shopify Plus,” Kumlin says. “Our ecommerce data is already formatted in a way that makes sense, and is being served to us in real time in Klaviyo. It’s added layers of sophistication and ease of use to the buying journey, on the customer side and our end. It’s been a breath of fresh air.”

Things just work a lot more seamlessly and intuitively, now that we’re using Klaviyo for email and SMS with Shopify Plus. It’s added layers of sophistication and ease of use to the buying journey, on the customer side and our end. It’s been a breath of fresh air.