Ashley Furniture HomeStores of Charlotte, North Carolina and upstate South Carolina make up eight of the 377 independently-owned regional retail stores that exclusively sell the Ashley Furniture brand across the United States. The chain’s furniture stores cater to mostly middle-class mainstream consumers, but boasts high-end and budget furniture lines as well.
Challenge:
In a tough economy, executives at Ashley Furniture HomeStore knew they had to find new ways to effectively reach consumers, both to encourage them to spend money and to make sure the money was spent at their shops—and not at a competitor’s. Newspaper advertising, traditionally one of this retailer’s main marketing channels, no longer offered the results it once did. The chain wanted to find more effective, efficient, and direct means of marketing to interested buyers. The company decided that digital marketing—including mobile marketing—was the answer.
Solution:
Earlier, Ashley Furniture HomeStore had launched several digital marketing campaigns, using SMS and email messaging which were powered by mobileStorm. The campaigns were so successful, store officials decided to expand its reach and put on a four–day “Secret Sale” to be announced only by SMS and email.
The mobileStorm 4.0 digital messaging platform offered Ashley Furniture HomeStore the best way to accomplish this goal. Management and tracking of email and SMS coupon campaigns was critical, and mobileStorm 4.0 allowed the company to deliver it all from a single system—the only one of its type in the world. Common thinking in the marketing industry is that promotional email and SMS messages are often mistaken for spam. To prevent this, Ashley Furniture HomeStore has cultivated permission-based message relationships with consumers. Their efforts have resulted in healthy, highly-interactive contact with a growing base of active subscribers. A positive and relevant subscription and sending policy ensures that consumers want to continue to receive messages.
In building its extremely high-quality contact list, the retail chain gathered subscriber information when it used mobileStorm 4.0 to launch a series of promotions to swell opt-ins and build a database. These included:
Free Gas Giveaway.
Ashley Furniture HomeStore implemented a multi-channel campaign in which it advertised its free gas contest via TV, radio, newspapers, and even Facebook. Interested consumers were prompted to text keywords like GAS and DRIVE to a short code—ultimately generating more than 1,000 text-message subscribers.
Email coupon.
The retailer sent its first mobileStorm-powered email campaign, offering coupons, to 27,000 of its customers.
One-day secret sale.
This “12-hour private event” was announced only via SMS and email to subscribers, on the evening before the sale began. It generated $30,000 in just one day.
$500 shopping spree.
The furniture chain puts on a weekly contest in which customers participate, via SMS, to win a shopping spree. With this campaign, the company also gathers demographic information on its customers, adding to the database of people who ultimately received the Secret Sale coupons.
The Launch:
Ashley Furniture HomeStore’s Secret Sale ran July 10-14, 2008 and was announced only to message subscribers via email and SMS. The retailer sent 34,743 permission-based messages in all—28,743 emails and 6,000 texts. These messages were sent to subscribers on the morning of July 10, the first day of the sales event.
Email and SMS were the only way the Secret Sale was promoted—no coinciding print or other media were employed. The campaign included digital coupons for discounts on furniture, accessories, and mattresses.
Results:
With the Secret Sale that ran July 10-14, 2008, Ashley Furniture HomeStore generated $138,460 in revenue across all its stores after it gave out $24,491 in discounts. Of revenue generated by coupon type, after discounts, $85,438 was attributed to text messages and $53,022 to email. Because of mobileStorm’s ability to report campaign results, the furniture retailer was able track the conversion rate for each coupon code. The company therefore was able to find which coupon was the most frequently redeemed, as well as which coupon generated the greatest amount of revenue.
Conclusions:
Leveraging an intelligent, comprehensive approach to developing digital relationships with consumers in the region, Ashley Furniture HomeStore demonstrated a significant return on investment. After discounts, for every dollar spent the furniture chain generated approximately $122 with mobileStorm SMS and about $76 with mobileStorm Email.
“These new forms of digital marketing via email and especially SMS have really impressed us out of the gate, and shown us a clear path to offset declining response rates and poor ROI in some of our other forms of advertising,” said Charlie Malouf, co-owner and COO of Ashley Furniture HomeStore of Charlotte, North Carolina and upstate South Carolina.
“We have been most surprised with the revenue generated from a simple 160-character text message with a sale offer. No doubt about it, this has been a game-changer for us,” Mr. Malouf continued. “With two simple SMS campaigns, we’ve generated over $100,000 in new business. Our efforts with mobileStorm’s permission-based digital messaging platform will increase and continue over time. We’ll not only use email and text messaging as a means to drive business, but in the future, we’ll also use these forms of new media as a way to effectively communicate directly with our customers. We’re still learning and have a long way to go, but the early indicators have been quite promising.”
