Boulevard pampers salon prospects: Direct mail totals 4X ROI

Sales reps who are regularly using their Sendoso budget are closing more deals and have more opportunities in the funnel.

When navigating the space between tech and beauty, Boulevard used Sendoso to bridge the gap and gift their clients with a little bit of luxury.

Boulevard is a scheduling, point-of-sale, and payments platform designed to power salons and spas. Their team needed a direct mail marketing solution to reach B2B clients at every stage of the sales cycle.

Sendoso’s corporate gifts and automation helped the Boulevard team stay on budget. It also increased their opportunities by nine-fold and quadrupled their ROI.

B2B marketing leaders at Boulevard chose Sendoso because of its emphasis on personalization and customization. But the team was also sold on Sendoso’s logistics, integration, and the ability to stay within budget.

Scaling the direct mail personal touch

Direct mail campaigns are a key part of Boulevard’s sales strategy.

With a small team managing the startup’s marketing strategies, it became clear that manually purchasing and packing gifts was too time-consuming.

“It was a classic startup situation where I was running growth marketing while packing boxes for FedEx,” laughed Bernice Lopez-Brennan, Boulevard’s vice president of marketing. “That’s no way to scale.”

They turned to Sendoso to eliminate the pain points of manual labor and accelerate the deal cycle. The team was excited to begin combing through Sendoso’s gift options to build relationships.

“Creating personal connections is a key part of the Boulevard brand, and we use Sendoso to live up to that,” emphasized Lopez-Brennan.

Direct mail tiers built for outreach

First, the team mapped out a budget for gifts. Each one was sent directly from Sendoso using the Salesforce integration.

Then, they built out gift tiers for different stages of the sales cycle. The team even created a Sendoso Slack channel to swap send ideas and share customer experiences.

Top-of-funnel prospects who registered for a demo were sent a $5-10 coffee eGift to incentivize attendance. After the demo, reps followed up with an eGift for a $25-50 lunch.

It was a small step, but it landed impressive results. The campaign was budgeted for less than $2,000 but yielded nearly nine times that amount in open opportunities and four times that amount in ROI during one quarter.

Further down the funnel, the sales team sent warm prospects a box of cookies using the Sendoso Direct option. Through Sendoso Direct, users can send perishable items customized with branding and personalized notes. The cookies were a hit and won over the front-line salon hairstylists.

“I sent a cookie box to a prospect following a demo call,” recalled Account Executive Pier Iberti. “The prospect responded, ‘WOW! You guys are slick, what a great touch! You won the hearts of our entire front desk staff.’”

Targeting high-value prospects

Clients who needed a little more convincing were identified as high-value prospects. Reps curated high-end client gifts for VIPs. Boulevard reserved their most expensive branded gift boxes for decision-makers or enterprise-level salons.

The company’s CEO was even trained on Sendoso’s platform. He sent personalized gifts to ten high-value prospects and secured a deal with a celebrity stylist to the stars.

“That excited our CEO about Sendoso,” said Paid and Social Media Manager Katlyn McCue. “He sent a few of these custom boxes and got a crazy high response rate that led to actual closed deals.”

The tiering strategy grew, and Boulevard expanded to around 100 sends per month. Teams managed their own Sendoso budgets, gifting ideas, and leveraged direct mail to bring clients across the finish line.

“One of my demos was a no-show and I later found out that he had fallen ill,” said Account Executive Lauren Benon, who sent a lunch eGift card and a personal note. “He replied immediately to tell me how thoughtful it was (and also rescheduled the demo). Clients love Sendoso!”

Personalized gifts warm prospects

Sendoso’s customized personal touches connected with prospects on an individual level.

It became even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reps typically conducted in-person demos at salons to help walk through workflows. However, business closures and limited hours forced reps to use Sendoso for their outreach.

“Being able to still offer a personal touch and show that we go the extra mile has been huge,” said Lopez-Brennan.

The team received many heartfelt messages from salon owners and hairstylists who said the Sendoso gift cheered them up during a tough time.

“I just have to say thank you so much for the lovely gift,” wrote one client. “The gift itself is so thoughtful and just perfect. I couldn’t be more happy with the customer service I have received since joining Boulevard. This alone makes the switch to your company a great decision for me and my company.”

“We’re all about serving the personal care industry and making our technology amazing for our clients,” said Lopez-Brennan. “Sendoso made that tangible, and served as an extension of what we do as a company.”

Investing in customer experiences

Boulevard quickly saw the connection between utilizing Sendoso and closed deals.

“Sales reps who are regularly using their Sendoso budget are closing more deals and have more opportunities in the funnel,” said McCue.

They plan to use Sendoso to build post-sales gifting campaigns that celebrate anniversaries and milestones, such as processing a certain number of transactions or appointments scheduled in Boulevard.  

No matter the occasion, the “personal touch” philosophy is here to stay — at Sendoso, Boulevard, and B2B companies across every industry.

“If you’re a revenue-driving organization, you have to be more personal and intentional in your outreach,” Lopez-Brennan said. “Especially today, if you want people to consider your product, you have to take that extra step to stand out from competitors and show you care.”

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