Pourri Smashed Its Black Friday Goals with PostPilot

Odds are you’ve seen—or spritzed—a Pourri product before. 

Its Poo-Pourri, Pet-Pourri and Home-Pourri scents aren’t just memorably named, they’re effective. And they’re in millions of homes around the U.S.  

But even with a robust social strategy and 100,000-door-strong retail penetration, the brand faced challenges leading up to the 2022 Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale season. 

In this case study, we’ll look at how Pourri’s first campaign with PostPilot delivered slam-dunk sales during the noisiest advertising week of the year, lifting overall DTC revenue by 10%. 

Elijah Schneider, CEO at Modifly, Pourri’s creative media agency, was so impressed—and the process was so seamless—direct mail is now an indispensable part of his marketing toolkit.

The Problem: Ads Prices Up, Effectiveness Down 

Pourri divides its digital advertising spend between Facebook, Instagram, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, and a number of influencer sponsorships. 

But with increased competition among brands and the tracking limitations in iOS, the cost of reaching each potential customer has been going up — and the ads may not be getting in front of the right people. 

If every Pourri sale brought in hundreds of dollars in profit, that might be workable. But  most people aren’t buying odor eliminators in bulk. 

“The problem with spending so much on social is it's a $10 product,” Schneider said. “With the ecosystem of ads being so expensive right now, having really profitable results is not really a thing.”

"PostPilot allowed Pourri to hit their goals on Black Friday,” Schneider said. “They made it happen."

That’s especially true in the leadup to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when brands are barraging customers with ads and offers, and driving up digital marketing costs. 

Retail helped make Pourri a household name, but it put a middleman between the brand and its customers. Plus, it wasn’t the best channel for limited-time seasonal launches. 

Looking for a ​​more cost-effective and DTC-friendly channel, Elijah Schneider, CEO at Modifly, Pourri’s creative media agency, decided to test a postcard marketing campaign with PostPilot. 

The Promise: Reach the Right Customers at the Right Time

Seasonality is big in the home fragrances category. Customers like swapping out their summer scents for “Oh, Spritzmas Tree” Poo-Pourri or “Fresh Snow” Home-Pourri.

But there are challenges. Pourri has a narrow window to get the word out about limited-time launches. Customers may not be reachable on social media or email. 

And short-term promotions like holiday bundles are difficult to distribute through retail channels

With PostPilot, Pourri’s DTC offers can hit mailboxes at precisely the right time. Unlike with old-line direct mail companies, PostPilost campaigns can launch in days. And in contrast to social platforms, brands own and control the customer data. 

Brands can quickly build awareness around seasonal products, promote sales, and strengthen a brand’s credibility, without being held back by filters, unsubscribes, or other barriers

Plus, postcards have staying power.

“When you're scrolling on a digital ad, you have three seconds or less,” Schneider said. “Customers bring postcards up to the house and leave it on the countertop. It's sitting there until they're ready to buy.” 

The Postcard: Fast, Easy and Effective 

Pourri’s team was new to direct mail, so they sought out support from the specialists at PostPilot for their first campaign.

“Most brands understand social and Facebook, but when you have something like this that's really different, there's a high level of education needed and a lot of random questions,” Schneider said.

PostPilot’s Concierge Service provided all the answers, recommending layouts, offers, segments, and timing. Pourri was on a tight deadline for BFCM, but it took only a couple of days to turn around a final postcard design and get approvals from the brand and agency. 

Using Pourri’s customer database, the postcard went out to people who had shopped with the brand before. It offered 40% off holiday bundles and 30% off sitewide.

The cards were personalized to maximize response rates, included a QR code to get customers to the site, and had a coupon expiration date to add a sense of urgency. 

“It was a large sample size of high-intent customers who already knew who we were,” Schneider said. “With a really incentivized offer across a physical touch point that others weren't doing.”

Strong support from the PostPilot team made it easy for the agency and brand to get creative, Schneider said. 

The Payoff: Fast Results Above and Beyond Other Channels

Schneider remembers when he saw the email saying the campaign was live and the postcards had been sent out. 

“A day and a half or two days later, we started seeing the numbers come into the dashboard,” he said.

Ultimately, the PostPilot campaign was Pourri’s best-performing channel on Black Friday, Schneider said, driving about a 10% incremental lift on revenue. 

The brand sent postcards to several different customer segments—people who had placed one order in the past, those who had purchased multiple times, customers who hadn’t bought in at least 30 days, etc. 

The blended ROAS was a dazzling 4.5x. 

The results illustrated the value of only paying to reach real customers. And measuring performance by matching orders with postcard recipients— a task the platform handles automatically—is far more straightforward and accurate than relying on a tracking pixel. 

“PostPilot allowed Pourri to hit their goals on Black Friday,” Schneider said. “They made it happen.”

The Postscript: Applying Direct Mail Across Brands

Schneider is now leveraging postcard campaigns for other Modifly clients. 

Automated winback campaigns are a no-brainer tool for ongoing revenue for Pourri. He planned a special Valentine’s Day launch and the rollout of a co-branded collaboration.

“It'll be an additional arm of the marketing mix on an ongoing basis, not just for winbacks, but also for new updates and releases,” Schneider said.

For subscription businesses, he plans to use postcards to reengage churned subscribers. For one-time buys, he’s leaning on the channel to spread the word about new product releases and category extensions.

The latter is especially significant, he explained. 

“Typically, you want a big launch plan behind that,” Schneider said. “You don't want to just put it out there into the world and not tell everybody. This is a great way to run a really heavy promotion and a big announcement.”

Schneider views direct mail as a golden opportunity for brands, not because it’s a new channel (it’s not!) but because PostPilot’s technology has made it as seamless as sending out an email campaign.

“PostPilot makes it so easy to run with it and the results are there for everybody I've seen and talked to,” he said. “I don't know why companies wouldn't do it.”

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