At VerticalResponse, we asked our customers what type of information they wanted from us. The answer? More case studies! You all want to know how other VerticalResponse customers are using email marketing and what they’re getting out of it. So we’ve started to talk to our customers to find out and we start our case study series with a retailer out of Tennessee, ValuePetSupplies.com.

Background

As part of their family pet business, the Piech family started ValuePetSupplies.com. Their goal is to offer pet-related products for the pet owner’s everyday needs at the most competitive prices possible. ValuePetSupplies.com is 100 percent online–and ships from a family-owned warehouse in Livingston, TN.

Problem

ValuePetSupplies.com uses search engine marketing and social media to generate leads. Even though they were advanced in these areas, as of January 2009 ValuePetSupplies.com wasn’t running any customer retention programs. Zachary Piech, Owner of ValuePetSupplies.com, could see this was a problem based on the company’s customer retention rates.

Discovery

Piech shared his problem with a friend of his, and was lucky enough to have chosen a VerticalResponse advocate! His friend sat him down at a computer and supervised while Piech signed up for VerticalResponse and sent his first campaign. After Piech launched the first email marketing campaign, he was convinced this was something he needed to do.

After sending out a few successful campaigns in January and February, Piech was so impressed with his return on investment that he hired a marketing and sales manager to manage his marketing and retention programs.

Solution

ValuePetSupplies.com now sends out an average of 30 email campaigns a month with VerticalResponse to a customer base of over 100,000. “We start our campaigns the first of every month and probably have five or six campaigns going at a time, each targeted to specific types of buyers,” said Nick Carter, Marketing and Sales Manager for ValuePetSupplies.com.

These email marketing campaigns have provided insight to ValuePetSupplies.com on which products work well in emails, and which type of customer will respond to the different offers. They use this information to segment lists and send very targeted messages.

Results

Before ValuePetSupplies.com was sending emails campaigns on a regular basis, current customers created 20% of the monthly revenue. With the help of VerticalResponse, the company has increased this to 30%. “The return on investment numbers are mind-boggling. On our monthly campaign it is not unusual to see 7595% return on investment,” said Carter.

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