Wondercide’s Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns Drive 600% ROI with Lexer

Direct mail isn’t dead. In fact, direct mail used in conjunction with digital campaigns can be massively successful. After Wondercide used the Lexer Customer Data Platform (CDP) to identify high-value customers who’ve lapsed or disengaged from email, they sent personalized direct mail postcards and drove a return-on-investment of 600%.

In an increasingly digital-first world, brands and retailers might underestimate the effectiveness of non-digital tactics like direct mail.

Although the spend and volume of direct mail has fluctuated over the past few years, direct mail remains a highly effective tactic for engaging consumers, with roughly two-thirds of marketers reporting a good or very good return and response rate using direct mail.

That efficacy is compounded with personalized, data-driven direct mail strategies, as Wondercide and Lexer demonstrated with their CDP-powered direct mail campaigns.

Wondercide is an American retailer that provides worry-free bug sprays for pets, families, and homes (think mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, and beyond). Using the Lexer CDP and strategic guidance from the Lexer Success team, Wondercide executed two highly targeted direct mail re-engagement campaigns, the first of which drove an overall return of 600 percent.

Here’s an overview of the strategy Wondercide executed with Lexer to drive this massive return.

The guiding question: How can I re-engage customers who aren’t addressable via email?

In our work with brands and retailers, we’ve found that it’s common for a large segment of lapsed and inactive customers to have also opted-out of email. That means that using email as your primary retention channel could lead to missed opportunities for re-engagement.

Wondercide faced this challenge, with about one-third of their lapsed customers being unaddressable on email. After using Lexer's CDP and customer segmentation tools to group customers by their relative value, last order date, and channel addressability, they defined three key segments for their re-engagement campaigns:

1. High-value, opted-out customers whose last order was within the last year.
2. High-value, inactive customers whose last order was 1–2 years ago.
3. High-value, lapsed customers whose last order was more than 2 years ago.

Using these customer insights to inform their approach, Wondercide worked with Lexer’s tools and team to develop direct mail postcards with targeted creative and messaging for each segment.

The strategy: Segmented, personally-relevant messaging delivered to each customer’s mailbox.

Wondercide sent two rounds of the direct mail postcards to each segment in 2020, and in 2021 are implementing an always-on automation of these send-outs. The first send involved A/B split testing to optimize creative for the second send.

Using customer insights from the Lexer CDP, Wondercide sent each segment a targeted message to reward opted-out customers, re-engage inactive customers, and re-introduce lapsed customers to the brand.

The first send resulted in:

• 1493% ROI for the opted-out segment.
• 271% ROI for the inactive segment.
• 62% ROI for the lapsed segment.
• 600% ROI for the total campaign performance.

Months later, using the best-performing creative from the first send’s A/B tests and excluding recipients from the first send, Wondercide sent another round of personalized direct mail postcards to high-value inactive, lapsed, or opted-out customers, resulting in:

• 310% ROI for the opted-out segment.
• 203% ROI for the inactive segment.
• 155% ROI for the lapsed segment.
• 239% ROI for the total campaign performance.

Wondercide learned that they could effectively engage customers who would’ve otherwise been impossible to reach via email. By taking a multi-channel approach to customer engagement, they were able to differentiate their brand, delight their customers, and drive an incredible return.

“An added bonus to direct mail is it’s super easy to test messaging and creative, which can make your campaigns that much more profitable as you hone in on ideal content per cohort,” says Emily.

The lessons learned: Direct mail works—and customer data can be applied to non-digital engagement strategies, too.

Although digital continues to be a vital strategy for today’s businesses, you can’t forget the value of non-digital strategies as premium engagement channels for high-value customers.

As Wondercide learned, segmenting customers by channel addressability can have a massive impact on the results of your re-engagement campaigns. Some customers are best reached through email or social, while others may need a push from non-digital channels like direct mail to make their next purchase.

By using a CDP like Lexer to combine your data and understand how customers behave across channels and touchpoints, you can make informed decisions about where, when, and how to engage your customers. With data at the heart of a multi-channel engagement strategy, you can deliver exceptional customer experiences wherever your customers prefer to engage, be it online, offline, or a combination of the two.

“Lexer helped us get crystal clear on what audience we were speaking to per cohort,” says Emily, “as well as the ideal high-level message to test out for each.”

Lexer helps customer-centric brands like Wondercide genuinely understand their customers and engage them with the experiences they deserve. As the only CDP built specifically for retail, our tools and team help you master your customer data at every touchpoint—from marketing to sales to service—so you can deepen customer loyalty and drive profitable growth.

Interested in learning more about how Lexer can help you improve customer engagement and maximize results? Use the calendar below to book a demo with one of our retail experts.