Background
Moz provides an all-in-one Search Engine Optimization (SEO) toolset. They “aim to simplify SEO for the entire marketing industry.” Their customers are inbound marketers who work in agencies or in-house.
Over the years, thousands of customers cancelled their accounts due to Moz’s software lacking the features they needed. Sequently, Moz had added those features but these customers weren’t returning.
Moz needed these customers to try their software again, but customer reengagement (winback) email campaigns were largely unsuccessful.
Problems
Re-engagement emails had very low click through rate as compared to our other marketing emails.
We hypothesized that customers were not comprehending the new features set even when they opened the emails.
As a result, the rate of former customers signing up for a second free trial was unacceptably low.
State of Moz Winback email prior to my work
Desired Outcomes
Drive free trial signups among former Moz customers. Goal: increase daily signups by 300
Increase email engagement and user comprehension of Moz Pro's new feature set
Research
The former customers we surveyed believed Moz’s software was ‘lacking features’ as compared the SEMrush (a major competitor) even though these features had been added.
Email analytics showed low click-through rate which implies low engagement with email content.
The message boards and forums we monitored inaccurately stated Moz Pro's feature set. This demonstrates ineffectiveness of current messaging strategy.Ideation
Re-examine content and layout:
1. Break out paragraphs - format for scannability
1. Break out paragraphs - format for scannability
2. Highlight feature parity (and in some cases superiority) with iconography
3. Use motion design to increase initial engagement with email
Process
I collaborated with the content team to break information into short, scannable text chunks. From there I communicated my ideas with quick sketches and then developed a visual style with high contrast colors.
I sketch first and try to fail fast.
New animated email header uses eye catching motion to highlight new features.
Note the staggered icons using gestalt principles to highlight the dissimilarity of individual features.
Validation
We tested the new content breakout with a pilot segment of customers
(see the graph's rise in free trials just before June 16th)
(see the graph's rise in free trials just before June 16th)
We saw a significant lift in engagement.
We pushed the content to our general audience and BOOOM! We quadrupled our goal in a matter of days.
Graph showing free trial sign-ups as a result of my team's email.
Results
“The Winback Campaign was more successful than we imagined...” -Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz
Despite being sent in 2016, this email is still used as an example of best practices for email winback campaigns.