CASE STUDY24-day Countdown Sweepstakes increases acquisitionnearly 50% and hightens engagement for weeksleading up to holiday

The ClientFounded in the year 2000, fotokasten* is a German provider of

high-quality photo print products with the motto, “Erlebe deine

Bilder”, meaning “Bring your photos to life”. As a pioneer in the

segment, the company from the small town of Waiblingen in

southern Germany has grown steadily to become one of the

country’s foremost online photo and print service providers, and

a market leader in the premium segment.

fotokasten’s is known for top quality, fast delivery, and a high

level of customer service. They offer a range of over 200

customizable items; from photo books and calendars to mugs

and housewares. Customers are able to design their own

individual items using fotokasten’s unique software, which is

available both online and offline.

fotokasten started using Selligent’s marketing engagement

platform in 2010, at which point the company had 423,000

contacts in its database – a figure which has grown steadily to

over one million customer profiles today.

COMPANYfotokasten

WEBSITEwww.fotokasten.de

INDUSTRYRetail / Photo Publishing

CAMPAIGNHoliday season countdown sweepstakes

COUNTRYGermany

PROGRAMSAcquisition/Loyalty

Sweepstakes

Daily Countdown Campaign

Social Media

RESULTS

● 7.200 daily users

● 45% newly registered users

● 57% open rate

● 74-80% CTO rate

* German for “photo case”

Target Groupfotokasten attracts a heterogeneous customer

demographic. About 60% of existing customers are

women, while 40% are men. The average age of

fotokasten customers is 37 years old.

Starting Point & Market Environment

CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

AGE

40%60%

22%

29%26%

23%

MEN

WOMEN

20 - 29

30 - 34

35 - 39

40 - 44

Photo books are currently the industry’s best-selling

product category. According to the German Association

of the Photographic Industry (Photoindustrie-Verband),

around 1.3 million photo books were sold in Germany in

2006. By 2012, the number had grown to 7.2 million. This

represents a 500% rise in demand in a matter of six years,

while the average revenue per photo book has climbed

to €30.00.

(Source: http://www.photoindustrie-verband.de/artikel/

Foto-und-Imagingmarkt-2012-auf-Wachstumskurs)

Attracted by positive growth forecasts, a large number

of new service providers have flooded the market over

the past few years. Accordingly, competition is at an all-

time high. The spread of providers includes online-only

vendors such as PosterXXL and Photobox, all the way to

brick-and-mortar retail chains such as dm, Rossmann,

and Kaufland, who offer photo services at store locations.

Despite this highly competitive market environment,

fotokasten successfully cemented its position as a leading

provider, in no small part thanks to target-group-oriented

audience engagement campaigns.

OUR AIM IS TO MAKE OUR CUSTOMERS AND SWEEPSTAKE PARTICIPANTS ENGAGE VOLUNTARILY AND IN A PLAYFUL MANNER WITH FOTOKASTEN EVERY DAY. THIS INCREASES CUSTOMER RETENTION AND BRAND LOYALTY

Sarah Busch, CRM teamleader, fotokasten GmbH

Marketing AutomationIn the beginning, fotokasten primarily used the Selligent

platform to send its weekly email newsletters, leveraging

functionalities such as A/B multivariate testing and

target group segmentation. As the company’s use of

the platform evolved, the focus shifted to automated

email campaigns and marketing initiatives such as the

Holiday Calendar Sweepstake. Today, initiatives such

as congratulatory birthday messages and two-tiered

shopping basket reminders form part of the standard

communication and are fully automated.

All segmentation and content is driven by product and

purchase data sourced from Selligent’s integration with

their commerce platform Magento. fotokasten also

relies on Selligent to measure customer satisfaction via

the Net-Promoter-Score (NPS) system.

Advent calendar After: 11/30/14

Before: 12/24/14 Execution: Every hour

List - Parana contacts

Input

Yes

Click View Success

Success Success

InList

Found N

ot Found Success

Web link: Door

Advent LP Participation conditions

Thanks and good luck

You are already participating

Advent calendar confir-mation of participation

The Advent Calendar SweepstakeThe holiday shopping season is a

peak business period for fotokasten,

since many products are suitable as

personalized gifts. In fact, the holiday

season accounts for around 50% of the

company’s annual sales. One of the

main tools to drive engagement and

loyalty among existing customers is the

annual Advent Calendar Sweepstakes,

now in its fourth year.

The German tradition of an advent

calendar consists of festive wall

calendars replete with small doors

marked with numbers 1 to 24, counting

down December days to Christmas

with small gifts behind each door. In

order to engage the largest possible

number of customers, the Advent

Calendar Sweepstakes was specifically

implemented in the fotokasten online

store – and not as is often the case – on

social media.

One major argument in favor of

implementation in the “owned media”

sphere of fotokasten’s own website

was the SEO implication. Consumers,

partners and competition aggregation

sites share the sweepstakes pages

across their own social networks,

thereby creating valuable backlinks to

the company website.

From December 1 to 24, every day

participants had the chance to win a

prize concealed behind the respective

calendar door. Prizes included products

from fotokasten’s assortment, as well

as items from contributing sponsors.

All participants also had a chance of

winning the Grand Prize. Repeated

participation in daily drawings increased

the chances of winning the Grand

Prize. This provided an incentive for

participants to visit the website on a daily

basis. In order to maximize efficiency of

back-end workflows, fotokasten decided

to implement the entire sweepstakes

competition using the Selligent platform.

The first step consisted of creating entry

forms for all 24 doors of the advent

calendar within the platform. This

allowed for a simplified administration

of participant data. fotokasten also

used the Selligent software to randomly

determine the winners of the daily

draws, who were then contacted directly

through Selligent’s software.

In the run-up to the campaign, the

sweepstakes was advertised across

all relevant online channels: via email,

newsletters, social media, as well as a

teasers on the fotokasten online store

landing page. Further multiplying the

message, advertising extended to the

channels of sponsoring partners for a

broad audience reach.

One small, but crucial element of the campaign proves how even a simple measure can skyrocket participation numbers: the reminder email. After participating in the sweepstakes, users were given the option to receive daily reminders for the sweepstakes.

SELLIGENT INC. 745 Atlantic Avenue | Boston, MA 02111 | 1 (617) 918 7840 www.selligent.com

0

201320122011

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000When the campaign first launched in 2011, fotokasten

attracted an average of 2.250 participants per day.

The next year, daily participation climbed to 2.500

users, but results also showed spikes in participation on

days when the newsletter announcing the sweepstakes

went out. This led to the introduction of the reminder

email function in 2013, which proved highly successful:

The number of participants rose to 7.200 users per

day, a total of 25,890 unique users, of which only 55%

had previously been registered with fotokasten. During

last year’s campaign (2013), a total of 10,600 participants

(41%) chose to use the reminder function.

57% 74-80%OPEN RATES CLICK-TO-OPEN (CTO) RATE

Results & OutlookPowered by our marketing software, fotokasten was able to drive more personalized and target-

group-oriented customer engagement. A/B Multivariate Testing and target group segmentation

provided valuable guidelines for structuring and analyzing collected customer data. fotokasten also

retained full visibility of customer satisfaction throughout the campaign via real-time NPS metrics.

The example of the Advent Calendar Sweepstakes demonstrates the huge impact a relatively simple

engagement marketing tool (reminder email) can have on contributing to successful campaign

outcomes: The reminder email achieved open rates at up to 57%, as well as a Click-to-Open (CTO)

Rate around 74–80%.

For the 2014 edition of the Advent Calendar Sweepstakes, fotokasten drew on past experiences to

improve communication initiatives even further.