Best Buy Knows Customer Email Marketing

Written by Zac Johnson
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I recently purchased a copy of The Big Bang Theory DVD from Best Buy (in store). A few days after purchasing, I received an email from Best Buy following up on my order. I’m already a member of their Best Buy rewards program, so they already have all of my contact information from a previous purchase. It looks like Best Buy are one of the few big name retailers  that actually know how to email market this customer data, while keeping you interested and not coming off as spam.

Here is the mailing I received from Best  Buy after making my purchase.

First of all, it’s a great looking email and formatted very well. The three points I noticed right away was the customization of email (with name and membership rewards info), the targeted content (the item I purchased) and the possible upsells (related items based on my product purchase). This is a really great follow up email after making a purchase, and has call to action written all over it, while not being seen as spam.

But that wasn’t all… Five days after receiving the email above, I was sent one more email from Best Buy, which was the following.

In the latest email from Best Buy, they are assuming you’ve already used the product you purchased. Now Best Buy would like to have your opinion and a review on the product. Not only does this make the customer feel like they are important, but it also helps build the customer experience at Best Buy for future research on sales and testimonials. The email also throws in Best Buy’s social networking sites and ways to trade in your old electronics for Best Buy gift cards.

It’s rare to see a brick and mortar store like Best Buy do so well in the customer email marketing game, usually its the internet based online stores that are doing this well. I applaud Best Buy in their research and follow up emails. If you are selling ANYTHING offline/online and not following up with customer mailings like this, you are doing it wrong!

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22 Replies to “Best Buy Knows Customer Email Marketing”

  2. This is one of the first I've also heard about who is managing (and succeeding) at integrating the two marketing systems. I believe there is an excellent message in your post Zac for anyone who is working with local clients…or thinking about ways we can be of service to our local communities 🙂

  4. I really didn't expect that from a big store, though it seems they realized how much value can this bring 🙂
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  6. it helped me in building better relation with my customer and to plan my next marketing campaign. And I must say they did it with such professionalism that I am mesmerized. Thank you guys. Snail Mail

    1. Movies and TV shows would be easy enough to upsell. They just need to offer products that were bought by people who also bought Big Bang Theory or whatever the original purchase was. Amazon's large product database may make it harder to pull off via automated means.

  8. I got my Video Camera at Best Buy.Since Circut City went out of business a few years ago Best Buy is getting a lot of money.Go Best Buy 😉
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  9. Great use of targeting content to the individual. I worked for a startup six or seven years ago that was pitching a an email platform that would deliver just this kind of dynamic content generation in email. It lifted response like crazy, but was also very expensive and difficult to implement. It was a tough sell at the time. But, it was easy to see the potential for multi-sku retailers to make a killing once they decided to take the plunge. Best Buy is doing it very well. It would be interesting to see what kind of performance they get from this email vs. a more typical mass mailing.
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  10. I agree that this is some great e-mail marketing. We've been thinking of setting up something like this for our website. So this gives us some good ideas to copy. Reaching out to customers is important, but it can be tricky to not look spammy or intrusive.

  11. I'm still working on my site and will soon be putting this idea to good use. Thanks Zac!
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  13. Excellent Post Zack. Transactional email (email after a sale) gets a MUCH better response than regular promotional emails and as an email delivery expert I know that if a company is doing it right, it also gets a much higher delivery than regular emails.

    If any of you are sending just regular receipts after the email you are wasting an incredible opportunity to upsell and build a relationship – turning customers into brand evangelists.

    BTW – if you guys love Best Buy, you should check out one of our sites – https://www.pricemako.com which lists daily price drops and discounts from Best Buy (and soon other stores).
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  15. I am friends with someone at this company and they recently updated the template further. They are winning awards left and right for their work. Really great stuff. The number of custom emails sent is many many millions
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  16. Wow, this is some really good work. Loyalty cards are a great way to build up data about a client and then send targeted information.

    Also i love The Big Bang Theory!

  17. If any of you are sending just regular receipts after the email you are wasting an incredible opportunity to upsell and build a relationship – turning customers into brand evangelists.

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