How Splash Wines focuses on retention after Cyber Weekend to achieve a 40% repeat purchase rate with email
177%
increase in Cyber Weekend sales driven by Klaviyo YoY
63%
of Splash Wines’ online revenue attributed to Klaviyo during November & December 2020
40%
return rate of Splash Wine customers
You can easily spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of Bordeaux—but for those who know, you can find a high-quality bottle of wine at any price point. Splash Wines, a family-owned and operated business, specializes in delivering some of the world’s best wine to their customers’ door—at affordable price points.
As Cyber Weekend and the holidays get closer, Garrett Imeson, chief marketing officer at Splash Wines, is tasked with deciding what offers will appeal to wine connoisseurs—and communicating these deals to his customers.
And Imeson has a secret weapon: Email marketing. In November of last year, 68% of Splash Wines’ online sales was attributed to Klaviyo’s platform. And while Splash Wines has been in the business for 3 generations, Imeson isn’t stuck in his ways. And for 2021, he’s deciding to switch up his strategy with some help from Klaviyo.
The price is right
While 2020 was plagued by inconsistencies with the shipping industry and issues with suppliers, Splash Wines got in front of shoppers with the ultimate value proposition—delivering deals that their customers have come to know, love, and expect.
We boiled our Black Friday/Cyber Monday strategy down to a simple concept—we promoted our best prices of the year, which is 18 bottles of wine at $4.99 per bottle, or $89.82 total. We ensure Black Friday and Cyber Monday feel special to our customers—it’s something that they don’t see everyday.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
And while Splash Wines aims to bring their customers incredible values all year, Cyber Weekend is when they go above and beyond, coordinating with partners and wineries to ensure they’re giving shoppers something truly unique.
Philosophically, we’re always offering our customers a very competitive deal throughout the year, but we will bend over backwards and talk to our suppliers to make sure we get the best deal possible during Cyber Weekend so we can pass it on to our customers.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Imeson emphasizes that Klaviyo has been essential for him to scale Splash Wines year over year as their customer base continues to grow. The platform also allows Imeson to reliably communicate with his shoppers throughout Cyber Weekend.
Without that level of outreach to customers that we get and the ability to scale that outreach with our growing customer base, it would’ve been hard to communicate our message, so Klaviyo has been an instrumental partner to the growth of Splash Wines through Cyber Weekend and the holiday season for years.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
And for tentative shoppers who aren’t quite ready to click the confirm purchase button, Imeson has a foolproof solution to entice them to buy—abandoned cart automations.
If you don’t have an abandoned cart, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. When you start digging into those automations, you realize just how insanely valuable they are. And if you don’t have them, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a great excuse to set them up
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Order wine, drink, repeat
For Imeson, the focus isn’t just getting new shoppers to purchase wine during their Black Friday blowout, it’s also about retaining Splash Wines’ customers—through the holiday season and beyond.
Retaining customers and making sure they come back is probably the most important thing we do—getting the wine in the glass is half the battle. We have customers reorder about 40% of the time, and they reorder an average of 5 or 6 times with us, so it’s a very strong point of pride for us as a company. So, when we get an influx of customers like we do on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we’re always thinking of new ways to try and retain those customers.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
One of the ways Imeson plans to retain his customer base during the holidays is by using Recharge, a subscription and recurring payment service.
There’s going to be some level of uncertainty about people locking in things they want, so we’re giving people the opportunity to lock in their $4.99 price point throughout the holiday season by prepaying for shipments and confirming that no matter what happens, they’re getting their 18 bottles of wine $4.99 throughout the holiday season.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Imeson added that determining the best price to offer on a bottle of wine is dependent on the customer. Purchase data offers valuable information to personalize communications. By segmenting emails based on the average price customers spend on a bottle of wine, Imeson can tailor his content to make it relevant to his customers.
There are going to be customers of ours who love wine between $4.99 and $8.99, so why would we send them an email about a $15 or $20 bottle of wine? Meanwhile, there are customers of ours who are looking to try something in a higher price range, so we know we’ll have a better chance promoting the same email with them.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Imeson finds that when they segment emails based on buying recency, it works especially well, since Splash Wines is a consumable brand.
Are people drinking a bottle a week? Are they drinking a bottle a month? We generally sell 15 to 18 bottles at a time, so we need to figure out how quickly somebody goes through 15 bottles, and it can be very different. We’re constantly working on refining when the ideal point is to get back in front of somebody knowing that people go through the product at different rates.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Imeson admits that while he and his family may have a shared passion for wine, their data science expertise is lacking. The Klaviyo platform helps Imeson and his family by collecting and leveraging these valuable customer insights.
None of us have a data analysis background, but Klaviyo makes it so much easier for us to be data-oriented. Having all our customer data compiled together makes it so much easier to take an analytical approach—even though that’s not necessarily our strong suit.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Tried, tested, and true for 2021
How do you know if changing your traditional Black Friday deal will pay off? If you ask Imeson, he’ll tell you that the key is to test new campaign concepts early in the year.
We came up with 10 deals that are all centered around a theme—and we saw a really positive response to that campaign during the summer. To make Black Friday/Cyber Monday bigger this year, we’re going to offer our core deal for Black Friday and then follow that with 10 days of different deals. That will give us the ability to offer deals across our price and product spectrum like we’ve never done before.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
By using Klaviyo to test this campaign earlier in the year, Imeson was able to easily measure the performance of the campaign and determine that it would be a smart move to implement something similar for Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2021.
While Imeson may be mixing things up this year, he insists that the focus of Cyber Weekend should be on your brand—and your core values.
My biggest advice is knowing what has gotten you to the point of success, understanding your philosophy as a brand, and using Black Friday and Cyber Monday to stick to that. Black Friday/Cyber Monday is the ultimate megaphone. As much as you can think about tactics and all these things you want to do, make sure at the end you’re staying true to your brand.
Garrett Imeson, CMO, Splash Wines
Read about another brand and how they use email marketing segmentation to drive revenue during the Holiday season: