How Plum Porch grew email subscribers from Instagram with POPSMASH
In this case study, we'll cover how Plum Porch, a small gift shop on Cape Cod, grew their email list with an Instagram giveaway using POPSMASH and how you can do the same.
What we'll learn
- How they achieved a 54.9% entry conversion rate
- How they also grew Instagram followers and engagement
- How they automated the process only to take a few extra minutes and increase their overall marketing ROI
In case you want to skip around, below is a table of contents for this Shopify email marketing lead generation case study.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Now let's dive in!
The Story of Plum Porch
Plum Porch is a small brick-and-mortar gift shop on Cape Cod run by two sisters. They spend less than 1% of their revenue on marketing and thus look for the highest ROI opportunities in terms of time and investment.
They have an active Facebook following where they do weekly Facebook Live shows. However, they have a smaller Instagram audience with 3,000 followers. They wanted to get their Instagram following more involved in their other activities by getting them on their email list.
Plum Porch saw using POPSMASH as an opportunity to engage their Instagram audience and get them on their email list to better track, nurture and convert those customers.
Why this approach works for Shopify stores of all sizes
Why did we use Plum Porch as our first case study?
There's a reason most case studies show large brands: It's often easier to do things at scale with large budgets. But those things often don't work well for small businesses with tiny budgets, especially with the recent ad and privacy changes impacting ROAS.
But by showing how this works for a small business like Plum Porch, it's easy to see how well these results scale to businesses of any size -- especially businesses with much larger Instagram followings.
Why? Because a business with 10X, 100X, or 1,000X the number of followers could use the same prize and approach and get significantly outsized results. The results scale better than any other marketing tactics available today.
Your Instagram followers are already interested in what you offer, that's why they follow you. This approach gets them into a channel (email marketing) that's easier to track, nurture, and covert.
How Plum Porch grew their email list from Instagram using POPSMASH
If you're unfamiliar with POPSMASH, it works by using Instagram giveaways as an incentive to email opt-ins.
Plum Porch used POPSMASH to run an Instagram giveaway for their followers and grow their email list by getting their Instagram followers onto their email list.
Instagram giveaways are a useful incentive for a few reasons:
- Instagram users love them and are familiar with them
- They drive 4X more engagement and 60X more comments than normal posts
- They fit in nicely with normal content and paid promotion
- They are one of the most cost-effective ways to drive meaningful action (like email opt-ins)
- They scale well to any level of audience
This a long-term strategy that is effective when used consistently by running 1-2 Instagram giveaways per month. Here's how Plum Porch did it.
How Plum Porch structured their Instagram giveaway
Plum Porch relied on tried and true methods in running an effective Instagram giveaway using our tools and guidance. We've summarized it below.
The Instagram giveaway prize
Plum Porch used a $100 gift card, which is less than $50 in actual cost to the business, assuming keystone.
Another good prize option is using a popular, relatively low-cost product. For example, Hydroflask drives significant engagement using $30 water bottles as giveaway prizes.
The Instagram giveaway entry rules
Plum Porch used a simple and easy-to-follow set of entry rules to drive maximum engagement:
HOW TO ENTER:
💜 Follow us!
💜 Tag 2 friends in the comments
💜 Subscribe to our newsletter at our link in bio👆for 🔟 BONUS entries!
That's it. These rules are simple and easy to follow, with the added benefit of adding virality by requiring users to tag friends.
The Instagram giveaway post image
Plum Porch used an image of their brick-and-mortar store overlayed with the text 'Giveaway' to grab attention. The most important part of the giveaway image is showing 'Giveaway' in big letters to catch users' attention scrolling through their feeds.
The Instagram giveaway post caption
Plum Porch used an engaging giveaway caption that included details about the giveaway, the prize, and the entry rules.
💰 $100 G.I.V.E.A.W.A.Y! 💰
🙌Hey all! We're back from our annual trip to the market and we’re psyched about all the amazing gifts 🎁 we found that are already arriving in store! So…we’re doing a 💰$100💰 GIVEAWAY to celebrate 🥳 another wildly successful shopping trip!
What's the prize⁉️ The winner will receive a $100 gift card to spend on absolutely anything in our store, on our website or in our Dress Boutique that’ll re-open in March! 👗💃🏻
The giveaway is open now until 10PM EST on Tuesday, 1/31.
HOW TO ENTER:
💜 Follow us!
💜 Tag 2️ friends in the comments
💜 Subscribe to our newsletter at our link in bio👆for 🔟 BONUS entries!
⭐️GOOD LUCK!⭐️
This giveaway is not endorsed, administered, or sponsored by Instagram. Winners will be chosen fairly and at random by third-party facilitator @popsmash on January 31st and notified within 48 hours via direct message from @theplumporch.
Full example of the Instagram giveaway post
So how does all of this come together? Here's the full example of Plum Porch's Instagram giveaway post.
What were the Instagram giveaway results?
This strategy works when done consistently, which is easy given it only takes a few minutes to set up. Running 1-2 Instagram giveaways per month using this process is optimal.
So how did Plum Porch do on their first giveaway with only 3,000 followers from a single Instagram giveaway in just 48 hours?
- 142 entries (users who commented and tagged friends!)
- 78 email subscribers
- 54.9% entry to email conversion rate
- 140 new Instagram followers (a 4.1% increase in just 48 hours)
- 11.7% engagement rate
Here's a screenshot of their campaign results in the dashboard (used with permission).
What's the most exciting thing? A Shopify store with 10X, 100X, or 1,000X followers could use the same approach with the same prize and get substantially better results since it scales so well.
How did they automate the process to put their Shopify email marketing lead generation & list building on autopilot?
Well, given this is a POPSMASH case study, I'm sure you already know the answer is 'they used POPSMASH.'
But how did they do it? How does it work?
The short answer:
- They created a POPSMASH campaign, which only takes a few minutes
- They created a post for their Instagram giveaway
- Then POPSMASH automated the rest, including tracking and verifying entries, handling T&C, etc.
We built POPSMASH to streamline the process, fit into your existing workflow, and only take an extra couple of minutes to set up. It works equally well for small stores, big brands, and the agencies they partner with. We'd love to help you like we helped Plum Porch.
How to do this for your Shopify store
Every Shopify store wants to grow its email list because email marketing is an amazing revenue channel with a great ability to track, nurture and convert customers.
But growing an email list is hard. Email doesn't have the discoverability of social media, where it's much easier to find prospective customers. But email marketing is also much more challenging to convert than social media.
The answer is to use both together by leveraging social for discovery, and email for conversions like Plum Porch did here.
If you want similar results for your Shopify store, you can try POPSMASH for free in the Shopify app store.
