• by Jess Nelson , September 1, 2017

Email remains a dominant marketing channel partly because of its flexibility -- any marketer from any industry, across B2B and B2C, can generate sales and acquire new customers via email.

Email can benefit different types of companies, as evident by the results of both Tito’s Vodka and OrangeTheory Fitness. Health and alcohol may be polar opposites, but both the liquor company and fitness organization have had seen positive results as customers of Emma, an email marketing provider based in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Email is a channel that works, and continues to work as a marketing channel,” says Colby Cavanaugh, SVP of marketing at Emma. “Because of that, it sometimes get neglected and companies don’t invest in email. They just let it run.”

Cavanaugh says a problem in email marketing is often bandwidth, so Emma provides email consultation services as well as technology solutions to help brands get personal with their audience. 

Tito’s has a particularly strong following with their newsletter, says Cavanaugh, detailing how the craft brand has seen open rates as high as 90% and click-through rates as high as 36%. The company’s welcome email, sent as soon as someone subscribes to their email newsletter, averages a 64% open rate.

Tito’s relies heavily on segmentation, according to Cavanaugh, and tests on how to get “the audience small enough to provide value.”

One successful strategy has been segmentation based on demographic and geographic data. The company often hosts in-person brand engagement events in cities across the nation, so targeting folks in terms of location has been helpful in driving engagement.

OrangeTheory Fitness is a health company with fitness studios throughout the United States. Cavanaugh says they test their campaigns “like crazy” to see what works best and what provides the best value on a franchise basis. 

Orangetheory Fitness specializes in 1-hour high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts, and sends an email when every customer leaves with their workout statistics.  

“You get an email after you walk out of the door, with all the statistics on your workout,” says Cavanaugh. “OrangeTheory sends the right content, at the right time, and in the right location.”

The post-workout email also serves as a reward for customers, and could be motivating factor to get back to the gym.  These automated behavioral emails have the highest email open rates according to Cavanaugh.

“Getting into shape is not a one-time activity, so OrangeTheory provides a great use case in leveraging data in the spirit of driving customer engagement. You’re going to OrangeTheory with a purpose, and you’re looking for validation. It’s great marketing, but it’s also just really great customer service.”