Data-Driven Direct Mail for Customer Acquisition – Stio

Challenge

With its emphasis on technical performance, quality and versatility, the Stio brand of outdoor apparel and gear has quickly become a favorite among professional athletes, outdoor enthusiasts and those who simply enjoy mountain life.

Stio’s omnichannel marketing strategy included the deployment of direct mail in retargeting website visitors. The problem, according to Performance Marketing Channel Manager Natalie Northrop, was difficulty in quantifying the lifts the retargeting postcards were delivering.

“My concern,” says Natalie, “was that we were cannibalizing active traffic and wasting budget on site visitors who would’ve converted anyway.”

Solution

Natalie sought out a marketing partner that could accurately measure the impact of Stio’s direct mail spend.  “When we talked to LS Direct, their use of holdout groups to show incrementality was very unique. Once we started working with them using Boomerang direct®, its intent-based postal retargeting solution, we saw great incrementality and significant overall improvement.”

In addition to retargeting, Stio works with LS Direct on an annual lapsed buyer postcard mailer. Says Natalie, “In the past, we saw maybe 25% of the results we’re seeing now — very impressive.”

It’s also less labor-intensive partnering with LS Direct, which Natalie greatly values. “We used to have to do our own matchback process, which was really tricky to get right. It’s nice popping into their SmartDash^TM desktop tool and having all the numbers right in front of you.”

She also sees Stio’s partnership with LS Direct expanding in the future, including finding was to extend the brand’s reach with its retail stores.

“There are a lot of different avenues we can explore with LS Direct. It’s such a supportive team to work with, especially when it comes to creative. For example, they can make small adjustments to our creative, which really speeds the process. They also share smart design suggestions, such as using white space to improve the effectiveness of our mailers.”

Ultimately, it’s all about making the best use of Stio’s marketing spend. “LS Direct simply has a better way of targeting than other providers, and that clearly shows in our incrementality results. We  appreciate the assurance that our money isn’t being wasted on people who are already going to convert.”

About LS Direct

LS Direct helps brands connected at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Our dynamic marketing technology gives you the ability and speed to send highly personalized, intent-driven programmatic direct mail to convert prospects and website visitors, retain customers and reactivate lapsed buyers.