The Magic Behind HSN's Marketing

The Omni-Channel Effect: HSN’s Seamless Approach to Engaging Customers

For 41 years, HSN has put convenience at the forefront of the shopping experience, giving customers the opportunity to purchase quality products from the comfort of their homes.

HSN’s marketers have always been digital-minded when it comes to the customer experience, so it’s no surprise that they embraced an automated, personalized omni-channel strategy with open arms.

This case study showcases how HSN continues to put customer needs first by seamlessly connecting the email and mobile experiences, ultimately driving loyalty and engagement.

Automate for an Easier Workload

Any opportunity to win back some valuable time is a score for marketers. That’s why HSN and Movable Ink worked together to investigate where automation could reduce the manual workload. HSN’s marketers saved hours in production time while providing the same engaging experience for their customers with web cropping.

Web cropping instantly pulls up-to-date information located on HSN’s website into their emails to reflect the most accurate and relevant deals at all times, with no extra lift from the marketing team.

To do this, HSN created an in-app carousel of cropped-in items from HSN’s Weekly Deal Drop on their website. This automated and reusable module displays items within a customer’s in-app message with limited time offers that reset each week.

Drive App Traffic Through Email

HSN’s marketers know how important it is to celebrate major milestones. In this campaign, HSN used their 41st birthday as an opportunity to promote app downloads via an email communication. Once the customer downloaded the app, the same creative appeared in their in-app messages promoting the exclusive app-only deals.

The "Appy Birthday" promotions updated weekly on Mondays throughout July and featured top brands with dedicated deal days. With the help of time targeting, this messaging promptly alerted customers with the most up-to-date information.

Remind Customers What They’re Missing

An extra push never hurts. That’s why HSN took customers’ abandoned carts as an opportunity for conversion. Sending a reminder of what customers left in their carts via push notification resulted in a reach of over 300k unique users in 2022.

Abandoned cart push notifications allow the customer to see what they’ve forgotten without lifting a finger. They look down at their mobile home screen and are immediately drawn to make their next move.

Partnering with Upland Localytics, HSN was able to track what customers abandoned in their cart and display images of relevant items using Movable Ink.

Capture Zero-Party Data for Effective Retargeting

Zero-party data is one of the most valuable ways to gather customer preferences.

HSN sent out a poll to ask customers to vote on what their go-to summer color is for clothes. The options provided were radiant red, vibrant yellow, bright blue, or classic white. HSN captured the recipient’s initial response and retargeted relevant, color-personalized fashion recommendations in a future communication.

Not only was this campaign customer-centric, but it decreased HSN’s production time from 1 week to 15-30 minutes, enabling HSN to personalize at scale and focus more time on strategy, testing, and creative brainstorming.

Results:

30% Increased Conversions
1000% Increased in Total Clicks

Conclusion

The past decade has made it extremely clear that personalization and automation are a critical piece to any omni-channel strategy.

HSN’s marketing team has proven to be a best-in-class illustration of what a successful, streamlined, and multiple- touchpoint presence looks like.

We’re eager to see what innovations HSN’s marketers implement next!