Vita Coco has revolutionized how consumers drink coconut water. From elegantly simple and electrolyte-packed Coconut Water to protein-infused water PWR LIFT, Vita Coco puts a healthy spin on better-for-you beverages.
Challenge
During large sale periods, it can be difficult to retain subscribers if they see a better deal or one-time discount being offered to first-time buyers or non-subscribers.
With Black Friday around the corner, Vita Coco wanted to target top-of-funnel shoppers with a big sale while also being mindful of its existing customer and subscriber cohorts. They needed to be able to offer their existing subscribers a special discount so they didn’t churn to get the seemingly better first-timer deal.
To do this, the team needed to strategically segment their campaigns between first-time shoppers, existing customers, and subscribers, all while trying to reduce CAC.
Solution: Email Segmentation & Personalized Offers for Subscribers
Vita Coco tapped Lunar Solar Group to help with its retention strategy for its Black Friday sales. They segmented subscribers from their holiday email promotions and leveraged Klaviyo Quick Actions to offer a discount that could be applied to their next subscription.
To ensure subscribers would convert, their sales offer was even better than that given to prospective customers on Black Friday, ensuring that new customers and subscribers alike would be happy with their holiday shopping experiences.
“We knew we wanted to stop subscribers from churning during large sale periods. With Stay AI we were able to segment out subscribers and send them a special discount that could be directly applied to their next subscription order via one click.” – Erica Ruzhinsky, Sr. Growth Marketing Manager
Existing subscribers were then excluded from the sales events targeted to first-time shoppers to avoid any confusion or frustration resulting from a separate deal offered to that cohort.
As a result, not only did Vita Coco maintain subscribers through this sale period, but their churn rate decreased in November and continued to decrease through December. Even better, Vita Coco saw an 11% increase in subscription save rate within their program.
To cut back on acquisition costs, Vita Coco leveraged the capabilities of Stay’s ExperienceEngine, and A/B tested various welcome offers and gift-with-purchase options to identify the highest-converting offers and then optimize for a reduced CAC.
By identifying the best landing page offers and a compelling price point, the team reduced CAC by more than 40% while also increasing first-time purchases.
Going a Step Further – Winning Back Churned Subscribers
Alongside their efforts to retain existing subscribers during sales periods, Vita Coco and Lunar’s team worked together to win back previously churned subscribers by implementing proactive email and retention flows and campaigns.
For example, a 30-day win-back email campaign was sent to churned subscribers, highlighting the value and flexibility of a Vita Coco subscription while offering them a deeper discount than their previous subscription benefit (15% off vs 10% off). The win-back campaign also highlighted subscription plan value adds such as the flexibility to gift, change location or order date(s), pause, or skip an order thanks to Stay’s easy-to-use, self-service Customer Portal.
“We’ve gotten really good feedback from customers using the custom user portal. It’s easy, intuitive, and looks amazing.” – Erica Ruzhinsky, Sr. Growth Marketing Manager
By reminding subscribers what they were missing and offering a slight discount to nudge them back, Vita Coco could reactivate subscribers proactively and saw a 32% conversion rate from this campaign.