Beer Cartel witnesses a 36% increase in total revenue using Dotdigital

Richard Kelsey and Geoff Huens started Beer Cartel in 2009 with a dream to provide beer drinkers access to excellent Australian and international beers. The best friends started their humble business in a tiny Kennards storage shed and have gone on to build a multimillion-dollar beer empire.

Challenge

2020 saw a significant increase in people purchasing beer online for consumption at home. It was indicative of the shift in consumer behavior, allowing marketers to create new digital experiences. With the sudden rise in online demand, it was important for Beer Cartel to keep up with changing dynamics and meet customer expectations. The brand also wanted to convert its first-time purchasers into loyal and repeat customers, ultimately aiming at database growth and increased revenue.

Solution

In response, Beer Cartel partnered with Dotdigital in 2020 to amplify its marketing automation journey.

“The COVID-19 crisis led to a surge of online shopping, introducing first-time online shoppers to already existing lists. As a result, we doubled our efforts towards marketing campaigns to deliver an exceptional customer experience,” said Richard Kelsey, Co-founder and Director at Beer Cartel. “Thanks to Dotdigital, we were able to surface key customer data, capitalize on lapsed customers, easily onboard new customers, and analyze and segment customers based on their interests.”

Leveraging Dotdigital’s capabilities, the retailer integrated multiple automated campaigns, such as the welcome series, review program, Beer Club reactivation program and the Christmas in July campaign. As part of the welcome program, the team segmented its customers based on their interaction. The segmentation helped Beer Cartel to decide on email frequency and the type of content to target customers to foster brand-customer relationships.

The brand retargeted and capitalized on lapsed customers via the Beer Club reactivation and subscription programs. The team also integrated creative thinking into the messaging and styling of the triggered emails, with compelling and personalized subject lines to drive higher engagement.

“Dotdigital has allowed us to segment our customers and approach them with tailored campaigns, showcasing our relevant product ranges and catering to their interests. We have seen higher engagement rates across our email campaigns, resulting in revenue growth. We saw an incredible spike for our ‘May the fourth’ campaign, playing off Star Wars Day, and our Christmas in July campaign also performed exceptionally well in terms of engagement,” added Richard.

Results

In the past 12 months, Beer Cartel has witnessed an increase of 36% in total revenue and a 40% surge in orders. Furthermore, paired with retargeting campaigns, the company also saw 31% overall growth in its database and a 10% uptake in repeat customers. Additionally, Beer Cartel had a 27% increase in email marketing revenue.

Looking ahead

Beer Cartel is exploring the potential to leverage Dotdigital’s AI-enabled product recommendations and SMS marketing to drive hyper-personalized campaigns and strengthen its cross-channel strategy.