Brands in the biking industry are segmenting their campaigns for more tailored content. Here’s how:
Optimizing Campaigns
Content & Messaging
Generating & Maintaining Leads
The following companies were included in the competitive set for this analysis:
From January 2020 to December 2021, brands in the competitive set saw 401K total website visits from email marketing. From 2020 to 2021, there was a -21% decrease in traffic.
From 2020 to 2021, read rates and website traffic have seen a positive correlation for the competitor set 88% of the time, except for three instances where traffic to the site and read rates were opposing in February 2020, July 2020 and November 2021.
In 2021, 99.7% of all website traffic from email marketing across the competitor set came from desktop devices. Mobile traffic accounted for 0.3% of email traffic, a -24% drop in mobile traffic from 2020.
A higher percentage of click through on desktop can stem from a lack of mobile email optimization or a reader base that is more comfortable doing research about biking on larger screens.
In 2021, all brands in the competitor set, except for SRAM and 100%, saw a decrease in web traffic generated by email marketing.
In 2021, only Specialized and Salomon increased their monthly campaign cadence where Rapha and SRAM decreased their cadence. Amongst the competitor set, the average monthly email campaign cadence is 5 emails a month in 2021.
In 2021, brands in the competitive set are segmenting their email distribution by sending emails to niche groups of subscribers rather than their entire subscriber base. Brands saw a -42% decrease in average individual campaign recipients.
From 2020-2021, brands in the competitive set saw an average read rate of 19%. In 2021, Specialized has the highest average read rate at 29%.
Emails in the competitive set with read rates greater than 50% were sent the most within the hours of 17:00, 16:00 and 00:00 UTC.
The competitive set focuses most of their content on product specific emails such as product highlights or new product launches while top performing emails based on read rates indicate subscriber interest in community and exclusivity such as limited edition collections, giveaways and ‘about us’ information.
While emails based on storytelling are sent out frequently, these email typically receive an average read rate of 21% which is lower than the top five categories that see an average read rate of 36%. Storytelling emails from the competitive set include the science behind the product, biking films and series as well as introductions to the sponsored team.
Top Performing Email Category:
Limited edition emails focus on exclusive drops that are generally released once in the product line.
These emails focus on collaborations or products that serve very niche or specific focus in the biking community.
Tactics:
Re-engage your email subscribers by hosting a giveaway. This enables readers to click through to your website in order to enter and keep browsing.
Tactics:
Specialized sent out an About Us email twice at two different dates to two different email lists. They focused on a short email that highlights the benefits of shopping with Specialized.
Tactics:
A staple email for most online retailers, new product emails communicate launches for readers to stay up to date with the latest of the brand’s offerings. Note that new product emails are different than product highlights which focused on sharing product regardless of if they are new or not.
Tactics:
New collection emails are similar to new product emails however they have the opportunity to build a stronger story around the set of products being promoted.
Tactics:
Currently Specialized, Salomon, 100% and Rapha have newsletter sign up pop ups on their homepages when landing on the site.
Specialized, Salomon and 100% are collecting numbers for SMS marketing as well.
Specialized and SRAM currently do not have a welcome email flow.
Salomon’s lead capture pop up offers 10% off an order when visitors subscribe for both email and sms marketing. After subscribing, visitors receive their discount and the ability to add a pre-made Salomon contact to their phone to build a sense of ‘friendship’ with the brand.
Rapha’s pop up and welcome email does not focus on an promotional content but instead urges subscribers to set their email preferences to receive only content that is relevant to their interests. Similar to the homepage pop up, the preference page allows viewers to select their product preference, riding style and country.
100%’s welcome email flow incorporates two emails, three days apart. The first email is a simple introduction to the brand and what subscribers can expect. Similar to Rapha, 100% asks viewers to choose their preferences. Three days after the first email, a second email with links to all of 100%’s social medias is shared including a Spotify account hosted by their athletes.
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