How Bones Coffee Company and ATTN Use Direct Mail to Win Back Hard-to-Reach Customers
ROAS Achieved
Generated in Revenue from BFCM Winback Campaign
overview
Reigniting a Cult-Favorite Coffee Brand’s Customer Engagement
Bones Coffee Company is a family-owned business known for its unique flavors and small-batch roasts. Limited-edition beans and collaborations with buzzy names like Marvel’s “Loki” and the Orlando Magic keep fans coming back — which is especially important because coffee drinkers are loyal to their preferred brands and tough to win back. In this case study, learn how ATTN and Bones Coffee used direct mail to bypass crowded email inboxes and re-engage lapsed customers during the critical Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend.
The challenge
Reactivating ‘Lost’ Customers — Before They’re Gone for Good
Most of Bones Coffee’s returning customers place their next order within 30 to 45 days (coffee fans need to re-up regularly, after all). If someone hasn’t come back after a couple of months? Odds are they’re gone forever.
An initial test ATTN ran in the fall – using the direct-mail company PostPilot – proved successful in bringing Bones’ inactive customers back into the fold. Because of the results they saw, the team set their sights on an even larger audience for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Some of these customers hadn’t purchased from the brand in a year or more, so they were far from an easy sell.
The solution
Personalized Postcards for Each Segment
To maximize the effectiveness of the postcard campaign, ATTN targeted 20 unique customer segments based on complex layerings of a customer’s last order date and total orders made over time, and ongoing engagement with the brand website – to name a few. The team crafted tailored messaging and highlighted products that were likely to resonate with each cohort, such as new releases for customers who had engaged with the brand more recently, or timeless classics that were fan favorites among dormant users..
The double-sided postcards were vibrant and visually appealing, featuring QR codes, eye-catching imagery, and discount codes to incentivize quick and easy check-out. Following the success of the earlier test, ATTN took a much bigger swing for the BFCM period, 4X-ing what it spent on Bones’ initial postcard campaign.
The results
Valuable Insights and Nearly $700K in Incremental Revenue
The strategic gamble paid off in a big way, generating nearly $700K in revenue during the BFCM sales period. More importantly, it won back thousands of inactive customers, getting them interested in and excited about the brand again. The postcards were cost-effective too, with an average ROAS of 15.86 across all segments.
ATTN and Bones also gained custom insights into retention behavior from the campaign, which the team can leverage moving forward to identify and re-engage customers across different touchpoints, building sustained growth and long-term loyalty.
“We took a calculated risk and the reward was well worth it, both in revenue and insights.”
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