How POPFLEX drove more than $11,000 in revenue ahead of Black Friday from a single campaign

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POPFLEX is a women’s apparel brand that blends functional activewear with feminine design. Specialty product launches are the main driver of sales throughout the year, with limited promotional events.

POPFLEX’s merchandise rarely goes on sale. So, every year during Cyber Weekend, customers look forward to purchasing their favorite items at a discount. But Sam Livits, COO at POPFLEX, and Brittney Brandt, visual content lead at POPFLEX, saw a chance to build excitement even earlier during the month of November. They engaged POPFLEX’s predominantly female and community-oriented subscribers by creating a simple, thoughtful newsletter.            

A heart-felt message from the founder

Like many brands, POPFLEX planned to increase the number of marketing messages they sent to their customers over Cyber Weekend—but they wanted to be considerate of their audience.

We wanted to prepare our subscribers and let them know that they could expect to receive more emails from us than normal. But we didn’t want to make it feel salesy—just the opposite. We wanted the email to feel like an exclusive heads-up.

Brittney Brandt, Senior graphic design and visual content lead, POPFLEX

The newsletter was written personally by POPFLEX’s CEO, Cassey Ho. She made sure to tell subscribers that they should expect an increase in brand messages over the holidays. Ho also included a snapshot of herself, taken in her home kitchen, holding a tray of freshly-baked cookies to help humanize the message.

Ho also wrote the gift guide that was included in the newsletter, so that subscribers could shop her favorite items. But what made this particular gift guide feel like a genuine recommendation—not just a marketing ploy—was the fact that Ho included some products on her list that were not from POPFLEX.

That newsletter did extremely well in terms of sales, even though nothing was technically ‘on-sale’ yet.

Sam Livits
, COO, POPFLEX

Set up for success

Livits and Brandt found that the newsletter written by Ho accomplished their 2 main goals: There was an early uptick in sales and it prepared their subscribers for the upcoming Cyber Weekend promotions. 

For the first sales drop in late November, Livits and Brandt contacted their segment of highly-engaged customers. 

These are customers who have spent at least $500 or placed at least 5 orders in the last year. That email had a 65% open rate and a click rate of 29.5%.

Sam Livits, COO, POPFLEX

After that first send, Livits and Brandt continued to send a promotional campaign every day until December 1—but each email went to a different audience.

Some emails went to our entire subscriber list and others went to segments of our audiences who had varying degrees of engagement. We tried to make sure that we weren’t overwhelming our subscribers who don’t open or click on our emails frequently.

Brittney Brandt, Senior graphic design and visual content lead, POPFLEX

Something old and something new 

Livits and Brandt emphasized that just because something worked well one year, that doesn’t mean you should do things exactly the same the next year. There’s always room to learn and grow. While they’re still planning on sending out another newsletter from Ho ahead of the Cyber Weekend sale, they’re sweetening the deal.

In 2020, we offered all subscribers the same promotion—25% off products sitewide. This year, we’re going to try out different discount tiers. For example, subscribers will be eligible to receive a certain discount if they spend $100, but if they spend over $200, they’ll get access to a higher discount.

Sam Livits, COO, POPFLEX

Livits and Brandt may make Cyber Weekend promotions look easy, but that’s far from reality. They’ve invested time and resources into making sure their holiday season is hit—for both POPFLEX and its customers.

Be proactive with your planning—we started back in January and February of 2021. Q4 is really where you can push your business beyond its limits and project a new performance baseline for the year ahead.

Sam Livits, COO, POPFLEX

Brandt added:

Be straightforward and personable. Cut to the chase and present the details of your promotion in a clear way. But also remember that Cyber Weekend falls after Thanksgiving in the US. Go the extra-mile to be personable with your audience and let them know you’re thankful for their business.

Brittney Brandt, Senior graphic design and visual content lead, POPFLEX