Work / Silent Stage Gallery
Events and email ยท Account management
Silent Stage Gallery: from a convention booth to a holiday season
The problem
Silent Stage Gallery sells limited-edition art sculptures and prints to collectors worldwide. It had a large email list it had never used, and it had never engaged customers through owned media. Its convention booth needed stronger organization, and the holiday season needed a plan. The goal was to use the buzz from a live event at DesignerCon in Pasadena to carry into holiday sales.
What I did
- Strategy. Six steps: build awareness before the booth, convert at the event, carry the momentum into holiday sales, promote by email and social, segment the audience, then analyze.
- Behavior triggers. The messaging leaned on trust, belonging to a collector community, value, and the fear of missing out on very limited runs.
- The booth. New design and identity for the DesignerCon booth, a custom price sheet, postcard flyers with a test code and a test product offer, a signing schedule posted in sync with the artists, and pre-orders for pieces not in stock. Staff on rotating shifts collected emails on iPads for giveaway entries.
- The company's first email program. Welcome announcement, event teasers, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sequences, and abandoned-checkout recovery, all built as Mailchimp templates, with A/B tests and CAN-SPAM compliance. I also added a sign-up pop-up to the store.
- Management. Event and staff planning, shift schedules, inventory control, and direction of an on-site photographer and videographer.
The result
View as a table
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook visits | +333% | traffic source |
| Store revenue | +286% | total store |
| Mobile visits | +261% | device |
| All visits | +235% | online store |
| Added to cart | +220% | customers |
| Orders | +209% | customers |
Source: my case study, from the store's analytics. Dollar figures are confidential.
View as a table
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Cart recovery | 12% | average across stores: 7% |
| Email share | 18% | of store revenue via Mailchimp |
| Repeat customers | 41.7% | up from 33.9% the year before |
Source: my case study, from the store and email reports.
How this was measured: from the store's own sales reports, in my case study. This is total store revenue for the month, not only email- or event-attributed.
How this was measured: from the store's analytics, in my case study.
How this was measured: from the store and email reports, in my case study.
How this was measured: from my case study, across 54,168 delivered emails.
How this was measured: from the store's analytics, in my case study.
How I got there
I started with a SWOT and a reach, act, convert, engage plan, tested email by audience segment (starting with none, then two to five criteria such as engagement, demographics and purchase behavior), and kept reviewing the numbers weekly.