Reaching your target audience in the right way is what every marketer is concerned with, and brands invest a lot of money to acquire new leads and customers. For outdoors specialist Obelink, email marketing cannot be missing in their marketing mix. This was proven again last year during their anniversary campaign. For the 60th anniversary, a 360 degree campaign was created where the entire customer journey was mapped and social media, influencers and email marketing were optimally combined.
Germans as biggest fan
In 1959 Jan Obelink founded the company. The second and third generations are now in the management. Obelink sells online through their own webshop and has a large physical megastore in Winterswijk, on the German border. Germany is very important to the family business for that reason. Not only is Germany the largest sales market, but Germans also very much like to physically come to the store. Obelink has become a true cultural concept for our Eastern neighbors. A visit to the store is seen by Germans as a day out including a snack and a drink. Some German consumers have also created an Obelink fan group on Facebook, in which thousands of Obelink fans have now united, says Heleen Beijers, team lead marketing. "The Obelink Fans Facebook group was founded by diehard fans. We have regular contact with the administrators and of course we obtain a lot of information about our target group through the Facebook group. By now we are even known as 'Das Grosse O'."
Channels
Consumers uniting themselves in a fan group, it sounds like every marketer's dream. Yet Obelink does not use the Facebook channel directly to reach their target group. That is mainly through Google (organic and paid), through e-mail marketing and through influencer marketing. Obelink is deliberately not active on marketplaces because they also sell a wide range of their own products and want to invest in brand building and long-term loyalty. "Loyalty is paramount". Says Heleen.
Email marketing
Email marketing is another important channel for Obelink. An e-mail campaign was set up for the 60th anniversary of the camping and outdoors specialist. The campaign mapped out the customer journey from start to finish and included e-mail guidance for consumers up to and including when they returned home. "People could sign up to travel with us and from there we wrote out the different types of customer journeys. Using information in terms of destination, age, children, etc., we were able to map everything out very specifically." If a consumer had indicated they had children, they were sent some entertainment for the kids during the car ride just before departure, and if one was going on vacation with a caravan they could expect an email with tips and videos on how to pack it.
"On average, one in four Germans (27.5%) open an e-mail and only 4% click through. So it is important to address the user as specifically as possible with relevant content. Because Obelink personalized the mailings based on the customer journey, they achieved exceptionally good results. If you want to get started with email marketing, it is also important to take the mobile user into account and test which days you reach the target group the best. In Germany, Saturday is a good day with high click-through rates in the B2C market."
Andreas Giese - CEO Dexport
Recognition
The automated e-mail campaign was a great success and generated a lot of praise. With the campaign, Obelink even managed to secure a nomination for the CrossBorder Award 2019 last year. "We received an awful lot of positive feedback and, not unimportantly, we were able to enrich and expand our database with thousands of e-mail addresses, which we can of course use again to provide our customers with the best possible service."
Have you set up an international marketing campaign last year like Obelink and would you like a chance to win this year's CrossBorder Award? Then check out the conditions on the site and register!
