Maison Miru recaptures revenue with automated flows in Klaviyo

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A few common threads run through Trisha Okubo’s life: She pursues success at the intersection of art and science. She finds elegance in simplicity. And everything’s better with pie.

Okubo started Maison Miru with her husband, Mark Tonkelowitz, in 2016. They wanted to create functional, stunning, affordable jewelry that’s easy to mix and match for any occasion.

The brand is perhaps most famous for their flat-back “Nap Earrings”—earrings so comfortable, you can fall asleep with them on and not poke yourself awake. Maison Miru’s Nap Earrings are implant-grade titanium, which is the same material surgeons use to patch bones back together. Like all of Maison Miru’s products, they’re also nickel-free, which makes them great for people with sensitive skin or allergies.

From the start, Okubo’s craftsmanship and focus on high-quality materials attracted a loyal following of diverse fans.

You don’t have to be tall, thin—you don’t have to be a certain type of person. We’re trying to break down barriers.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru

And Klaviyo, with its simple, adaptable marketing automation capabilities, has been the perfect partner to help Maison Miru scale its thriving online business.

Klaviyo: the “backbone” of Maison Miru’s customer management

Maison Miru used MailChimp for the first three years they were in business. Okubo and Tonkelowitz were drawn to Klaviyo because of recommendations from their peers at the larger companies they admired. Tonkelowitz turned to a former coworker, who was working at Outdoor Voices, for advice.

We asked, ‘What are you guys doing with all your data?’ Klaviyo was at the top of his list for how they communicate with customers because they are able to segment them in so many different ways.

Mark Tonkelowitz, Chief technology officer, Maison Miru

Neither of us were marketers, so we were so happy to find Klaviyo. It’s really been the backbone of our company in terms of customer management. Shopify runs the store itself, but how do we keep in touch with our customers? Klaviyo has really been our tool to do that.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru

Since the iOS 15 update, Klaviyo has shined even brighter. Apple’s new policy requires users to opt in to data tracking for targeted advertising—meaning personalized ads don’t work as well, attribution is harder to confirm, and businesses need to shift focus to the Customer-First Data™ they can collect on owned channels like email and SMS.

First-party data is a trend that, frankly, should have been there always. But everyone’s realizing the importance of it now, and Klaviyo is really helping us use it to connect to our customers.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru

Maison Miru increases revenue with automated flows

Maison Miru started seeing a return on investment almost immediately after switching to Klaviyo. Klaviyo’s seamless integration with an array of Maison Miru’s favorite Shopify tools makes it possible to run a sophisticated marketing operation with a small team.

Maison Miru recaptures 2% in revenue with browse abandonment flow

Early in their engagement with Klaviyo, the Maison Miru team employed a browse abandonment flow to plug a leaky sales funnel in one of their long-standing promotional campaigns.

To attract new customers, Maison Miru had been offering a pair of earrings for just the cost of shipping. But they discovered that not many people who subscribed to their email list went back and completed their purchase of the free earrings.

In Klaviyo, Maison Miru created a new, automated email flow that nudged people after a couple of hours to come back and receive their reward. This simple step generated a 2% revenue boost.

Abandoned cart and checkout flows to boost annual revenue by 4%

Maison Miru reports similar success with their abandoned cart and abandoned checkout flows. The latter flow, which has been in place since Maison Miru adopted Klaviyo, contributes a 3% annual revenue increase, according to Tonkelowitz.

What’s unique about the former flow, new as of 2022, is that it targets a part of the purchase funnel that was inaccessible to the Maison Miru team before they adopted Klaviyo: people who added items to their cart but did not initiate checkout, Tonkelowitz explains.

And it’s working: Tonkelowitz expects this new flow to add an extra 1% to annual revenue. At that pace, the combination of these flows should increase revenue by 4% each year.

Klaviyo flows replace unwieldy manual stockout process

In addition to increasing revenue, Maison Miru also uses Klaviyo to respond more effectively to customer needs. Back-in-stock flows are a prime example.

We were managing stockouts with a Google doc of about 200 people to email when we ran out of items. Things like automated back-in-stock management feel small, but they make a huge difference.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru

Post-purchase flows help Maison Miru respond faster to customer feedback

When Maison Miru employees noticed many questions coming in about specific types of jewelry, they turned to automated email flows in Klaviyo to improve the customer experience.

Now, as part of Maison Miru’s transaction flow, a post-purchase email goes out two days after a customer places an order. The email is personalized based on the item purchased and shares tips on how to care for and wear the new jewelry.

Klaviyo helps us solve customer issues before customers even have a chance to have an issue. We’ve been happy with the set-it-and-forget-it nature of Klaviyo.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru

Klaviyo helps Maison Miru attract more engaged subscribers

The main engine of Maison Miru’s list growth, in the beginning, was a promotional offer for a pair of nickel-free, signature stud earrings for the price of shipping if a customer signed up for the mailing list.

Maison Miru recently ended this promotion and is currently experimenting with other welcome offers, plus opting customers into their mailing list at checkout. Company email campaigns now routinely garner a 3% click rate and a .12% conversion rate, according to Okubo.

Over time, Maison Miru has cultivated a subscriber list full of engaged customers who are willing to buy their products just about any time the company reaches out. The secret? Carefully tracking open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates through Klaviyo.

Okubo says her team aggressively purges their subscriber list of people who don’t open emails. Maison Miru’s email list was about 50K subscribers strong when they first joined Klaviyo. Despite several purges, that figure stands at 110K subscribers today.

We’re looking for the right customers, not necessarily a target number. It’s a healthy list. That’s what matters to us.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru

Maison Miru looks forward to enhancing the customer experience—at scale

The team at Maison Miru is excited to combine returns solution Loop Returns with Klaviyo, so that every email in the returns process can be Maison Miru-branded and personalized. They will also use Klaviyo’s integration with survey software provider Typeform to collect customer data on topics like jewelry sizing and continue improving audience segmentation.

Maison Miru also uses Judge.me to solicit customer reviews. By integrating this software with Klaviyo, they’ll be able to automate responses to customer feedback based on whether the review was positive or negative.

Most Shopify stores use dozens of apps. The fact that Klaviyo offers 200+ pre-built integrations means Maison Miru can control the entire customer experience with a single tool.

As a former project manager, I’m impressed by Klaviyo’s ease of use.

Trisha Okubo, Co-founder, Maison Miru