Sales for the Black Friday–Cyber Monday period for Fairytale Brownies rose about 16%. But marketing coordinator Kari Gayes says the desserts merchant saw a slight drop in average order value because “we are offering a wider selection of gifts at a slightly lower price point this year and had more promotions earlier in the year than usual.”
Fairytale Brownies expanded its keywords and added in several long tail keywords for more effective conversions. “We also uploaded a data feed to the Google Merchant Center so our products are available in Google Shopping,” Gayes says.
In terms of email promotions, Fairytale used the same Black Friday-Cyber Monday offers from last year, she notes. “We just resent the message on Cyber Monday, one which lifted web sales almost 40% over last year for Cyber Monday’s web sales.”
The company sent a reactivation email to buyers and inquirers it hadn’t heard from in 13 months on Oct. 19 offering a 30% discount sitewide for 48 hours offer, Gayes says. “This put a lot of customers back on our email list right before our November/holiday promotions began.”
November sales for Fairytale Brownies increased about 10% over 2009, again with a slight drop in AOV. “We did notice an earlier surge in orders than last year as well,” Gayes says.
Fairytale Brownies mailed about 100,000 fewer catalogs in November compared to the month in 2009, by trimming unprofitable segments from the file.
The only other major change the company made to its circulation strategy was testing more offers to prospects, Gayes says. “While last year all prospects received an offer of free shipping on $50 orders, this year we are testing three offers against each other, including free shipping on $75, 20% off $75 and 20% off $125.”