How do you connect with an audience that seems reluctant to engage?

That’s a question that guides our lean marketing team.

I’m Teri Lanier, a graphic designer at Viridian Bay, a home and garden decor company in South San Francisco. Most of our demographic is over 65 years old, and they can be difficult to engage online.

We joined Klaviyo in January 2024, and, in just 6 months, Klaviyo AI has revolutionized how our small but mighty team works. We said goodbye to batch-and-blast sends and hello to a new segmentation strategy that:

• Streamlined our campaigns
• Increased engagement
• Boosted revenue
• Lowered our unsubscribe rate

Now, we’re experimenting with several aspects of our email marketing program, largely because Klaviyo teaches us how to do so.

Here are the 4 Klaviyo AI tools that have improved our workflow:

1. Save hours of time by generating segments with AI

Our team is tiny—just 3 people. We don’t have a dedicated email strategist, and we all do a little bit of everything. That’s why the most useful Klaviyo AI feature we work with, by far, is Segments AI. If I had to come up with the correct logic by myself, it would take me hours to figure out the approach.

Thankfully, Klaviyo AI does that for us. The user-friendly interface and intuitive design empower us to accomplish a great deal, even without being experts in every aspect. We find it easy to fine-tune the segment definition if AI doesn’t understand our prompts perfectly.

We just launched a new flamingo candle holder in a catalog. We plan to send an email to customers who we already know are flamingo fans. We identified customers who have browsed flamingo products on our website in the last 60 days, and we’ll be sure to include them in our “Just Arrived” email campaign next week. Because this has been so useful in the past for niche decor themes, we know this segmented messaging approach will drive new orders.

Image source: Viridian Bay

2. Smart Send Time drives higher open rates—and revenue

We used to send our emails at 5:30 a.m. PST so our East Coast subscribers could read them first thing. What we didn’t realize is that some subscribers wanted to get our emails even earlier.

That’s right—some of our West Coast subscribers were not only opening and engaging with emails as early as 3 a.m. PST, but buying as well. Early risers became early shoppers.

The more we implement Klaviyo’s Smart Send Time, the more Klaviyo learns about our customers’ individualized shopping habits. Then, we can stagger our emails throughout the day so our subscribers are more likely to open them.

3. Subject line generation makes us more efficient

At Viridian Bay, we’re all competent copywriters—we’ve been writing product descriptions in our catalogs for years. So we can certainly write our own email subject lines and body copy.

But the subject lines that Klaviyo AI generates are more creative and engaging—and we tend to get more clicks. Plus, it’s fun to use.

Klaviyo’s subject line generator takes into account recipient behavior, demographics, and past interactions, tailoring our subject lines so they’re personalized to the segment. We can also A/B test our subject lines, which helps us put our best foot forward. It even shows us which ones resonate best with our subscribers, helping us strategize down the line.

Image source: Klaviyo

3. Predictive analytics for SMS helps us focus on the right shoppers

We recently tested predictive analytics with an SMS audience. The expected date of next order tool allowed us to focus on customers who were most likely to spend this month and were highly engaged.

I’d say it worked: on what is usually a slow day between sale promotions, we had one high-value conversion, and no one unsubscribed from the SMS channel—a big win.

Image source: Klaviyo

Klaviyo AI opens us to immense potential

Some of the analytic tools we use are like a secret language to me. Yet, it’s thrilling to realize the immense potential we have at our disposal with Klaviyo AI.

I’m on a journey, slowly absorbing a whole new marketing vocabulary into my toolkit. During Klaviyo’s enlightening webinars, I find myself pausing to Google terms like CLV, CTR, and AOV. It’s a learning curve, but each AI tool that Klaviyo presents in a webinar makes me feel like I’m getting a free marketing masterclass. That’s a powerful gift.

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