Campaign of the Month

Wickedly successful Halloween campaign beats 56% ticket sale target

The delivery of the message drove 48% more clicks compared to the previous year.

Wyevale Garden Centres used dynamic lists to specifically target families with children and embedded animation for visual impact, making their Halloween event a success.

Brand: Wyevale Garden Centres

Agency: more2
more2 is a specialist multi-channel retail agency and consultancy with a passion for growing retail businesses.

Designed and developed by: Kashif Zaman

Website: wyevalegardencentres.co.uk

Campaign details

Subject line: Spooky fun for little ones this half-term
Clicks: 48% higher than the previous year
Sold 60% available tickets

Context

Who is the campaign targeted at?

Customers who have purchased children’s products or have engaged with children’s content in previous emails.

Objective

  • Raise awareness of Halloween events
  • Sell 56% of all available tickets

What makes this a performing campaign?

Annual events are a great way to increase footfall in garden centres outside of peak times such as spring and summer. As Halloween is a good opportunity to attract families with children, more2 and Wyevale decided to focus on them as a target audience. more2 supported Wyevale in creating the necessary data feed for the campaign, allowing Wyevale to focus on tactical planning and creative.

First, they created a dynamic list to segment customers who had either purchased a children’s product in the past or interacted with related content in their newsletters. A dynamic list was preferred in this case because it ensured the email was sent to the most up-to-date customer segment, while also gathering contacts from different pools of data.

To stand out in the inbox, Wyevale used a different email design to the regular gardening newsletter template, taking it one step further by embedding animation to grab the customers’ attention. They designed moving Halloween ‘monsters’ illustrations with the title ‘Little Diggers’ and ‘Little Monsters’, making the target audience of the email immediately obvious upon opening.

The copy used was also playful in nature, with examples like ‘make sure your Little Diggers don’t miss out’.

The Results

Sometimes it’s not only fun but effective to break away from the regular email template. This campaign proves that. With the right segmentation and visual strategy, email marketers can successfully stand out in the inbox and contribute to business results.

The subject line ‘Spooky fun for little ones this half-term’ clearly summarized the message of the email and resulted in a 31% open rate. The delivery of the message drove 48% more clicks compared to the previous year, also helping the team sell 60% of all available tickets – compared to a target of 56%.