Promix Nutrition Uses Postcards to Get Into Customers’ Homes

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The first postcard campaign that PostPilot created for performance supplements company Promix generated a 1,143% ROI. 

CEO Albert Methany liked that. But he liked something else even more: The ability to connect with his customers offline. 

“The physical thing is really important,” he says. “Presenting the brand outside of the digital space makes it feel differentiated and memorable.”

According to the U.S. Postal Service, almost 75% of households look at the advertising mail they receive. As opposed to email or online ads, mail can feel more enjoyable than annoying. And it often hangs around the house—on a counter or stuck to the refrigerator door. 

In this case study, we’ll explain how Promix used automated postcard campaigns to set itself apart from the digital pack—and win back valuable VIP customers who had ghosted the brand. 

The Problem: Brand Recognition in a Crowded Market 

Methany understands excellence. 

As a track and field athlete at the University of Florida, he competed in the S.E.C. championships and later became a professional triathlete. Methany is a registered dietician and a top personal trainer. 

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In 2011, dissatisfied with the quality of nutritional supplements on the market, Methany started Promix. The brand is built on clean ingredients sourced from family farms, and its products are tested to exacting standards. Promix has quality customer service and kick-ass branding. 

Historically, it was what Methany calls a “higher-touch” brand. People heard about it from friends or fellow athletes. 

Promix initially sold through Amazon, which became more difficult over time. As the company grew, it scored shelf space in national grocery chains. (“Never again,” Methany says.) 

Today, Promix is primarily a direct-to-consumer operation. But Methany knows that physical touch points matter. 

“Legacy brands do well on Amazon,” Matheny says. “There’s a perception that people have from their physical presence in retail stores. They recognize it, they trust it. There is more credibility.” 

Credibility is key in the hot supplements market. Almost 80% of Americans now take supplements, the Council for Responsible Nutrition says. There’s no shortage of companies jockeying for some of that action, from basement startups to multinational powerhouses.

That also makes it hard for a brand—even one as distinctive as Promix—to stand out. 

His customers, who skew young (24 to 35 years old) don’t engage with email. 

Digital advertising is increasingly expensive and to Methany, often feels intrusive. He doesn’t want Promix to feel like just another DTC brand scrabbling for attention in people’s social feeds. 

“We’re not a company that jams people all the time,” he says. 

Methany wanted to connect with customers in a different way, to: 

Create deeper and more meaningful customer relationships

• Reach customers who weren’t engaging with digital marketing 
• Build credibility and brand recognition 

Then, someone he knew suggested he try PostPilot. 

The Promise: In Their Homes, Not Their Phones

Postcards aren’t new. They aren’t trendy. But they are effective. 

A recent study showed that direct mail is easier for consumers to understand than digital media. It’s more memorable and more likely to drive customer behavior. 

“It’s a high-quality physical product,” Methany says. “It’s well designed. Personal.” 

 The Promix team didn’t have experience with direct mail, or the bandwidth to learn how to create a new campaign from scratch—much less optimize it for the best results. 

So Promix took advantage of PostPilot’s industry-leading Campaign Concierge Service. The company’s direct-mail experts and designers have launched and managed thousands of campaigns. They know what works, and can handle campaign strategy, segmentation, branding, graphics, coupon codes, and more. 

PostPilot suggested that Promix start with a VIP winback campaign—sending postcards to high-value customers that hadn’t placed an order in at least 180 days. 

The design team created a card that aligns with Promix’s brand. It’s clean and minimalist in organic tones. The hero image showcases some of Promix’s best-selling products, their labels clearly legible. 

The front of the card promises a rare gift: 20% off a brand that rarely discounts. 

The full-price ethos is part of the reason Methany was able to grow the company profitably for a decade, he says. He wants to protect his pricing. He also wants to be able to track the effectiveness of his campaigns. 

On the back of the card, a QR code makes it effortless to get his customers back to his website. The unique code ensures that the team can track who placed each order—and that the discount won’t be blasted across the universe. 

“In the past, we’ve had problems with attribution,” he says. “PostPilot makes it very clear. There’s nowhere else they could have gotten that code.” 

The personalized message—signed by the CEO—tells customers that they matter. 

And an expiration date helps drive conversions by creating a sense of urgency. PostPilot can automatically adjust those dates to correspond to when cards are expected to arrive in the mail. 

The Payoff: Customer Love + Sky-High ROIs

Promix’s kickoff campaign automatically sent one of these postcards to any customer who had purchased at least four times before, but hadn’t bought anything for at least 180 days. 

At 180 days, there’s a good chance a customer is gone for good. Convincing a VIP to come back is a big win. 

PostPilot initially sent 770 postcards on behalf of Promix, at a cost of just $377. They brought in $4,300 in sales, for an impressive 1,143% ROI. 

Here’s how the numbers break down: 

LOD in the campaign name stands for “last order date.”  For example, LOD=25 means that a postcard is automatically sent if a customer doesn’t place an order in the 25 days following the previous order. 

‍NO is the number of prior orders (in this case, four). 

‍Not only did the campaign generate over $4,000 in sales—more than half of those sales were at full margin (the total sales minus $1,900 coupon sales). Some customers came back and bought twice. Others may have forgotten about the coupon, but still kept the brand top of mind. 

“The ROI is huge,” Matheny says. “But allowing a digital-first brand like us to have a physical presence—I value that even more than ROI. If you see brands in different contexts, it actually builds more brand recognition, a perception that they’re bigger than you think, more credible.” 

The Postscript: Even Bigger Results

PostPilot’s fully-managed service can test different offers, creative variations, and personalization for customers to optimize campaign performance.

We created another campaign for Promix that went to customers who had gone for 25 days without placing an order.

The objective of the “Running Low” campaign was to persuade people to replenish their supplements by offering them a 10% discount. 

To date, the Running Low campaign has generated $47,300 in sales on 1,918 cards. That’s a whopping 5,031% ROI.

Direct mail can fuel your growth. Contact us today to get started.

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