Onboarding New Customers Through Email

BRAND AND AUDIENCE INSIGHTS

While mainstream movie-streaming services like Netflix are great, they’re not made for the hardcore film lover. FilmStruck offers instant access to critically acclaimed films, hard-to-find gems and cult favorites from the world’s greatest independent film libraries. FilmStruck is dedicated to film and film discovery, offering serious fans the opportunity to dive deeper with a constantly refreshed collection of iconic art-house, independent and foreign films, ranging from Le Samourai to Solaris and Pulp Fiction.

SOLVING THE PROBLEM

With the launch of a new brand and new service in a competitive market space, awareness and education was very important in order to attract email and service subscribers. Our objectives were to increase traffic to the FilmStruck site and establish strong open and click rates within the email series. We also wanted the welcome series emails to nurture subscribers in a way that would increase and maintain subscription conversion rates during the initial 14-day trial period — i.e., curb the percentage of cancellations. Finally, we wanted to use the welcome series to increase app activity, views and adds to watchlist.

An email welcome series sets the tone for the relationship between the brand and their subscribers. As such, the series required strong brand positioning and informative content. In an effort to continually nurture, engage and inform new subscribers, we recommended welcome series of three emails. The series tone, content and design needed strong branding and storytelling that would invoke a sense of community overall, but would also vary slightly depending upon the stage in the free trial.

• Email #1 was sent immediately after sign up and was used to introduce subscribers to all benefits that FilmStruck offers, plus provide a few suggestions on how to get started.
• Email #2 highlighted bonus and behind-the-scenes content and special features, thus continuing to introduce more benefits of staying subscribed to the service.
• Email #3 focused on the exclusivity of a film collection that can be found nowhere else other than FilmStruck and called for users to download the new app.

RESULTS

Our final email designs were responsive and tailored to the brand, subscriber audience and the needs of their cinephile users. The welcome series launched in November of 2016 and has thus far seen great results.