New West KnifeWorks grows customers converted 31% with Klaviyo Marketing Analytics
31%
YoY growth in customers converted in first 6 months with Marketing Analytics
21%
YoY growth in Klaviyo revenue in first 6 months with Marketing Analytics
49%
of Klaviyo revenue from repeat buyers in first 6 months with Marketing Analytics
New West KnifeWorks has been making premium cooking knives, hunting knives, and other artisanal blades for more than 25 years. Initially, the team exhibited their knives at art shows; these days, they sell their hand-made blades through an ecommerce store and at gorgeous, gallery-style shops in Denver, Jackson Hole, Park City, Napa Valley, and at their factory store in Victor, Idaho.
Learn how New West KnifeWorks reactivates lapsed customers with RFM segmentation
Challenge
New West KnifeWorks used Klaviyo for email and SMS, and their lifecycle marketing had come a long way since the 2000s.
Customers used to sign up for the brand’s email list on a paper notepad—and all received the same long, newsletter-style sends, covering all product categories, sent via Constant Contact.
Since switching to Klaviyo, New West personalized the email and SMS experience, and shortened their sends. Hunters, chefs, and collectors now get messaging tailored to their interests. In-person and online shoppers get different automations at check-out, thanks to Shopify POS data pulling into Klaviyo.
The industry tells you to only stick to your engaged segments, and when people drop out of that segment, brands tend to forget them.
One key goal remained for New West and their digital marketing agency, A-Game Digital: reactivating New West’s dormant subscribers. Over the decades, they’d amassed thousands of them.
“The industry tells you to only stick to your engaged segments, and when people drop out of that segment, brands tend to forget them,” says George Rodríguez, founder and principal at A-Game Digital. “But when you’re creating a work of art that customers use in their kitchens every day, you can reactivate someone who bought years ago.”
New West just needed the right tool to do it.
Solution
At launch, Klaviyo Marketing Analytics caught Rodríguez’s eye.
“I’m a big fan of RFM modeling,” he says. “This is something catalog brands were doing 50 years ago. It’s a proven methodology.”
Ahead of New West’s annual National Knife Day sale in the fall, he and the New West KnifeWorks marketing team saw an opportunity to email all the brand’s RFM segments, including the inactive one, and use the occasion to drive reactivation.
The strength of the results surprised them. On one sale campaign sent to all 6 RFM segments, 15% of total campaign revenue came from their “Inactive” segment—infrequent customers who hadn’t bought in a long time.
“When we installed Klaviyo Marketing Analytics, we noticed we were able to bring back people who hadn’t purchased in 3+ years,” Rodríguez says. “It was really amazing how they responded and how they continue to engage.”
When we installed Klaviyo Marketing Analytics, we noticed we were able to bring back people who hadn’t purchased in 3+ years. It was really amazing how they responded and how they continue to engage.
Strategy
The sale kicked off a new era for New West KnifeWorks. They continued sending to their “Inactive” RFM segment regularly—typically alongside their most-engaged RFM segments, to protect deliverability.
“We’re still seeing viable engagement from our inactive customers,” says Rodríguez. “We don’t get the same engagement rate from them we get with champions, but it’s not hurting us and we’re getting sales from it.”
In the 6 months since that sale, they’ve sent 90 campaigns to their “Inactive” segment, and their deliverability score is good—as high as it was before they started broader sends.
Now, New West and A-Game plan to start using RFM segmentation and RFM-triggered flows to target discounts more efficiently and profitably, which will let them move away from site-wide sales.
“We’re going from an ‘Everything’s on sale!’ approach to a ‘Hey, you’re special to us, here’s an offer for you’ approach,” explains New West KnifeWorks brand manager Mike Milligan. “We want to re-train customers that this is a premium brand.”
They also want to focus discounts on the customers who are truly motivated by them. As a luxury brand, New West has discovered that some customers care more about quality, rarity, and customer service, while others are more price-sensitive.
Klaviyo gives them a way to serve all those different types of customers more effectively.
“A couple of summers ago, a guy came into the store and bought $105,000 worth of merchandise—knife blocks, hand-forged knives, steak knives,” Milligan recalls. “Klaviyo and RFM targeting helps us identify those segments and start to do something more like clienteling for VIPs, and still lets us sell a paring knife to a typical customer. That’s pivotal for a luxury brand.”
A couple of summers ago, a guy came into the store and bought $105,000 worth of merchandise—knife blocks, hand-forged knives, steak knives. Klaviyo and RFM targeting helps us identify those segments and start to do something more like clienteling for VIPs, and still lets us sell a paring knife to a typical customer. That’s pivotal for a luxury brand.