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In a MarketingSherpa case
study, Edible
Arrangements used customer service to increase sales.
The e-commerce team increased same-day delivery orders on the Web 8% with simple promotion in a handful of channels (Sutton, 2013). Who is Edible Arrangements? Edible Arrangements (www.ediblearrangements.com) has been offering same-day delivery for its fruit baskets, fruit bouquets and other sweet gifts for more than a decade. While they had extended the deadline for same-day orders to 5 p.m. a few years ago, only to the people knew about it. "It's kind of our hidden gem," said Kaitlin Reiss, Vice President of E-commerce, Edible Arrangements International. "A lot of people don't realize that we have same-day delivery, even though it is not something new for us, so we realize that we still need to do even more to promote it." (Sutton, 2013) Same-day service is not an option for every company or even every franchise location. Edible Arrangements has more than 1,100 storefronts worldwide, which makes it easier to expedite local deliveries. Most stores offer the 5 p.m. deadline for same-day orders. Some go even later, Reiss said, but the extension was impossible at some locations. The team chose to make 5 p.m. the standard to attract business from commuters who might want to pick up an order on the way home (Sutton, 2013). Because their consumer is changing, there are a lot more last-minute orders, so the company wanted to make sure that they were available when consumers needed a last minute birthday, anniversary, or any other special occasion gift (Sutton, 2013). When the ecommerce team decided to focus on promoting this offer, they achieved the following impressive results as reported by Sutton of Marketing Sherpa: · 8% increase in same-day orders on its website since promoting the service · Slightly higher open rate and average order value for emails with same-day messaging The MarketingSherpa case study provides an excellent case study of how the team raised awareness and increased their orders and highlights 2 major contributing tactics: |
1. Promoted the Offer on the website
Before Edible Arrangements spread the word, it promoted the service on its website to reinforce the message to visitors. This was done primarily on the homepage with a countdown timer. The timer ticks down the hours and minutes each visitor has left to place an order for same-day delivery. The counter adjusts for each visitor's time zone and uses 5 p.m. as a universal deadline.
They used a timer and not a clock. The timer is expressed more in words than digits. Below the top portion of the homepage — which has a logo, navigation bar and search box — visitors are greeted with large text that clearly expresses the offer:
"Want it in today? Order in the next [X] hours and [X] minutes."
The image below shows the countdown clock and can be found at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm
Before Edible Arrangements spread the word, it promoted the service on its website to reinforce the message to visitors. This was done primarily on the homepage with a countdown timer. The timer ticks down the hours and minutes each visitor has left to place an order for same-day delivery. The counter adjusts for each visitor's time zone and uses 5 p.m. as a universal deadline.
They used a timer and not a clock. The timer is expressed more in words than digits. Below the top portion of the homepage — which has a logo, navigation bar and search box — visitors are greeted with large text that clearly expresses the offer:
"Want it in today? Order in the next [X] hours and [X] minutes."
The image below shows the countdown clock and can be found at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm
Edible Arrangements also incorporated a display ad on their own home page that hovers over the right portion of the homepage's "hero shot" shows a graphic of a speeding truck and the words "Instant Gratification" in large capital letters. Below in smaller text is this message: "Same-day delivery is our specialty." The image below shows the “hero shot” and can be found at
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm
Testing the ads
The timer and the graphic have been tested to help optimize clickthrough rates, Reiss said. For example they tested a textual format of the timer against a digital format (i.e., "12:00"). In additional, the "Instant gratification" message was tested against copy that emphasized the company’s refrigerated delivery trucks (Sutton, 2013).
Promotion off page helped raise awareness as well
While the promotion on the homepage helped Edible Arrangements connect with current customers and prospects, they went one step further and included social media as well. The team has active profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Pinterest. It occasionally mentions the same-day service in posts, hoping to catch the interest of someone who has put off gift shopping for too long. They also run ads on search engines and websites. Soon, the team will test messaging to promote the same-day service in the PPC and display ad networks it uses (Sutton, 2013).
Using Web Analytics
The headline conveys a clear deadline and message. It creates a sense of urgency for the consumer that can overcome inertia and gets the prospect to act immediately. Seeing the tangible time available in a simple headline is enough to get your attention. Providing the “Instant Gratification” image and offer on the right side of the homepage also helps reinforce the service as a differentiator in the market for gifts and arrangements (Sutton, 2013).
Edible Arrangements understands that transaction data is a vital piece of information when analyzing online business performance (Wells, 2013). They also appreciate that while promoting customer service is a vital differentiation, revenue is much more tangible to many business owners and being able to report an 8% increase in same day sales is a solid metric. In order to report this revenue and order metric, Edible Arrangements must be utilizing ecommerce web analytics on their website. Having the e-commerce data in your web analytics application makes it easier to perform the analysis and also provides quantitative results on their testing. This has allowed Edible Arrangements to test different ads and ad copy, and optimize the offer that provides the best results in terms of click throughs and ultimate orders.
Visiting the web site at www.ediblearrangements.com showed that the Immediate Gratification “hero shot” was still present, but the time clock was no longer there. Using their metrics, Edible Arrangements would be able to see if the 8% increase in same day sales held up over time, or if the offer turned out to not have staying power. The fact that it no longer occupied the main headline would infer that they had used their web analytics to test out of this offer.
In researching their website, I spent a considerable amount of time on the home page and after approximately 2 minutes the following prompt below appeared from http://www.ediblearrangements.com/fruit-baskets.aspx?ArrangementID=2174:
Testing the ads
The timer and the graphic have been tested to help optimize clickthrough rates, Reiss said. For example they tested a textual format of the timer against a digital format (i.e., "12:00"). In additional, the "Instant gratification" message was tested against copy that emphasized the company’s refrigerated delivery trucks (Sutton, 2013).
Promotion off page helped raise awareness as well
While the promotion on the homepage helped Edible Arrangements connect with current customers and prospects, they went one step further and included social media as well. The team has active profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Pinterest. It occasionally mentions the same-day service in posts, hoping to catch the interest of someone who has put off gift shopping for too long. They also run ads on search engines and websites. Soon, the team will test messaging to promote the same-day service in the PPC and display ad networks it uses (Sutton, 2013).
Using Web Analytics
The headline conveys a clear deadline and message. It creates a sense of urgency for the consumer that can overcome inertia and gets the prospect to act immediately. Seeing the tangible time available in a simple headline is enough to get your attention. Providing the “Instant Gratification” image and offer on the right side of the homepage also helps reinforce the service as a differentiator in the market for gifts and arrangements (Sutton, 2013).
Edible Arrangements understands that transaction data is a vital piece of information when analyzing online business performance (Wells, 2013). They also appreciate that while promoting customer service is a vital differentiation, revenue is much more tangible to many business owners and being able to report an 8% increase in same day sales is a solid metric. In order to report this revenue and order metric, Edible Arrangements must be utilizing ecommerce web analytics on their website. Having the e-commerce data in your web analytics application makes it easier to perform the analysis and also provides quantitative results on their testing. This has allowed Edible Arrangements to test different ads and ad copy, and optimize the offer that provides the best results in terms of click throughs and ultimate orders.
Visiting the web site at www.ediblearrangements.com showed that the Immediate Gratification “hero shot” was still present, but the time clock was no longer there. Using their metrics, Edible Arrangements would be able to see if the 8% increase in same day sales held up over time, or if the offer turned out to not have staying power. The fact that it no longer occupied the main headline would infer that they had used their web analytics to test out of this offer.
In researching their website, I spent a considerable amount of time on the home page and after approximately 2 minutes the following prompt below appeared from http://www.ediblearrangements.com/fruit-baskets.aspx?ArrangementID=2174:
Edible Arrangements also provides an “order by phone” option on the site. They should consider adding a call tracker tool that allows them to track phone orders that originated from their website such as Easy Call Tracker.This would be an excellent way to add additional analytics and measurement to their ecommerce results. Jane Clinton, WVU IMC Master’s Student provides a few of the Easy Call Tracker options as including:
Dynamic Call Tracking: This is the basic, traditional way of tracking phone calls. It uses a specified phone number for a campaign and integrates reporting data to Google Analytics
Visitor ID Tracking: This option can use existing phone numbers. You must add a widget to the website to display a six-digit Visitor ID. When a person calls, the call center asks the caller for the Visitor ID number and connects the transaction with the visitor profile in Google Analytics. As a result the order can be tracked through the entire transaction process.
Click to Call: Visitors click a link on the website to have a customer service representative call them. The unique visitor ID can be tracked.
Attribution Solution: This is for companies that require an offline (phone) purchase with an online confirmation.
Lastly, Edible Arrangements could incorporate retargeting tools to help them with consumers who leave the site without making a purchase, by serving up a banner ad to get them to return and place an order.
References:
Clinton, J. (2014, February 21, 2014) Easy Call Tracker. Discussion Week 7. Retrieved February 24, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu
Countdown headline. Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm
Edible Arrangements Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: www.ediblearrangements.com
Hero Shot web page. Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm
Sutton, A. (2013, October 24) Ecommerce: Edible Arrangements Countdown Ad Lifts Same Day Orders 8%. Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/countdown-ad-ecommerce-same-day-orders
Wells, M. (2013, October 21) Lesson 7: Advanced Google Analytics. Retrieved February 22, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu
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