Why Bite Squad Chose Inkit

Customer loyalty is critical to the success of any business, but building a strong, consistent retention program in Bite Squad’s industry can be challenging.

As a restaurant delivery service, Bite Squad operates in a growing and competitive industry. Customer loyalty is essential to compete and grow market presence. The brand’s retention rate is a key measure of success.

These factors make it incredibly important for Bite Squad to maintain a strong retention marketing strategy.

Direct mail is an effective channel for retention campaigns for one simple reason: The vast majority of Americans open and look through mail from their mailbox every single day (81 percent, according to USPS). Before finding Inkit, Bite Squad used direct mail for acquisition only.

During those early campaigns, Bite Squad’s Senior Marketing Manager Mike Black said the company found the traditional direct mail process “sluggish and manual.” How can a business run a successful retention campaign when it takes months of back-and-forth and negotiation (and massive batch sizes) just to send a mailer?

Bite Squad chose Inkit because “Inkit modernized direct mail to make it much easier to integrate with our systems,” Black said. Inkit offered Bite Squad the first direct mail campaign that successfully targeted and retained inactive customers. 

Inkit integrates with Drip, HubSpot, Iterable and Sailthru. Inkit is constantly creating new integrations, enabling all marketers to trigger direct mail right from their CRMs. This allows marketers to create and send direct mail as easily as email.

With Inkit, Black’s team uploaded its design into the plug-and-play dashboard and triggered campaigns right from their CRM. The team mailed dormant customers a strong retention offer.

Eighteen percent redeemed that offer and converted to active customers.

18% Redemption Rate: Why Targeted Direct Mail Works

The campaign netted an 18% redemption rate, performing far better than Black expected. Why did this retention postcard get such great results?

As mentioned above, in most cases targeted direct mail is an appropriate channel for reactivation campaigns simply because the open rates are so high. When your marketing automation platform allows you to identify a disengaged segment, you may only need a way to reach them. Targeted, triggered direct mail is the answer in this situation.

Targeted direct mail is also a natural fit for the food industry, and for Bite Squad’s audience in particular. Most people open their mail after they get home from work when they’re trying to figure out what to make for dinner. And the person who usually opens the mail is also frequently the person who is making decisions about dinner. People who commonly order food for delivery also regularly check their mail for deals, menus, and coupons – making Bite Squad’s offer all but a done deal.

Bite Squad also did an excellent job of designing their postcard to appeal directly to their target audience. The imagery was enticing; the text was clear and concise and the offer was hard to refuse. 

Following Bite Squad’s first targeted direct mail success, the company continues to run triggered direct mail campaigns with Inkit.

“Michael McCarthy [Inkit CEO] and the Inkit team are highly responsive. They are an ambitious team that is expanding what is possible with direct mail, ” Black said. “I hope to continue to see an incremental lift in our customers that receive direct mail marketing materials.”