As a regional bait and tackle distributor, Nabatak has a very specific customer archetype and we sure do have fun with them. After building a custom e-commerce website with more than 1,500 products and sending out a few emails pushing sales and specials, we wanted to get a bit more focused and find a way to really drive online sales.

After an in-depth discovery process, we realized the starting point had to be collecting as many email addresses as possible from their existing customer base. Although the site had launched, most of their customers were still calling, or even faxing in, their orders. The plan was to build Nabatak’s email list and then eventually entice customers to place orders online by offering discounts and online-only flash sales.

Since we were marketing to bait shop owners, we knew we could take a few creative liberties and not worry about taking ourselves too seriously. This casual tone and less than highbrow humor proved to be a great way to engage with our target audience and drive some pretty impressive results.

A three-pronged approach was developed to accomplish this goal. Since we had every customer’s physical address, we created eye-catching direct mail pieces that explained how to sign up for the email list and the benefits of doing so. In the same spirit, we printed stacks of order stuffers that would go in every order that was shipped out. Finally, we created an internal employee contest to collect email addresses when customers called in orders.

When it was all said and done, we collected just shy of 200 email addresses in 2 months. All this activity led to thousands of dollars in online sales.