Case Study
How the Sundance Catalog Overcame Inbox Placement Hurdles and Reinvigorated Email Subscribers
Robert Redford’s Sundance Catalog connects consumers with a collection of unique offerings—from apparel to jewelry—that reflect the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains and the diversity of the American experience.
The Results
To overcome challenges with inbox placement and form a deeper connection with their email audience, Sundance Catalog worked with Zeta to test an innovative tiered email structure. The three-week test delivered such a significant lift in deliverability, opens, clicks, and overall engagement that Sundance Catalog applied the strategy to all future email communications.
The Challenge
Make Email a More Productive Marketing Channel
Sundance Catalog faced a pressing problem. They were encountering significant inbox placement issues with their ISP which was having a detrimental effect on their revenue and overall email program performance. The lack of engagement from less active subscribers was contributing to poor deliverability, creating a ripple effect that threatened to damage long-standing relationships with their most dedicated customers.
The Solution
A Tiered Approach to Email
To solve the inbox placement issues, the marketing team at Sundance Catalog turned to Zeta for help. Working collaboratively, the email team at Zeta helped architect a tiered email strategy that broke Sundance Catalog’s email list into smaller, more manageable subsets and focused efforts only on their most engaged, campaign-relevant recipients.
Subscribers were assigned to their respective tiers based on a combination of subscription tenure and email engagement, with the ability to move between tiers in real-time depending on behaviors like age of subscribe date, or open and click history. As a result, Sundance Catalog gained the ability to capitalize on their most engaged audiences without oversaturating the remaining recipients.
Engagement as a Conduit for Change
With Zeta's expert guidance, Sundance Catalog fixed their inbox placement issues and refined their email strategy by delivering tailored messages to the right shoppers at the right time. By strategically reducing send volume and prioritizing audience targeting, the brand concentrated their campaigns on highly engaged consumer recipients. This shift led to substantial year-over-year growth and a measurable reduction in the overall cost of their email marketing program, all without altering the content of the emails themselves.
Reinvigorate Your Email Program with Zeta
