'Note-worthy' results for Samsung Galaxy S22 Series launch

Launch of the Galaxy S22 Series Launch in the Middle-East

The Flourish team, based in the UK and Dubai, recently worked with the Samsung Gulf team to ensure smooth planning, delivery & deployment of Galaxy S22 Series pre-order campaign across the GCC, in multiple languages.

Flourish have worked with Samsung on previous campaigns in the UK, Gulf and Australia, including the implementation of a full CRM programme and contact strategy back in 2011, followed by email identity, creative, concept testing, advanced categorisation and fluid email designs. Throughout recent years, Flourish has been an integrated marketing partner for Samsung Gulf which meant that our team have gained an in-depth understanding of the brand, audience and successful campaign strategies. Since launching the Galaxy S6 and over subsequent launches, we turned email into the best performing channel for driving sales for the brand.

Objectives & Strategy

The main objective for the campaign was to drive pre-orders from all segments. A challenge we had was to encourage Note users to upgrade to the new S22 Ultra whilst securing pre-orders through the Samsung e-store directly, due to the fact that Samsung was no longer launching new Notes following the introduction of Foldables (Fold & Flip). Using a multi-channel approach combined with segmentation and series of thoughtfully designed communications aimed at cold, warm and hot prospects, we aimed to create a buzz around the latest product from Samsung and make users see the benefits of not just the product itself but the reasons to pre-order directly from Samsung’s online store.

Convincing loyal note users to switch out their existing device for the S22 was part of the challenge. The process was broken down into a timeline of phases which included Priming or ‘Teaser’, Pre-Order, Launch and Post-Launch over a 6-month period from January 2022.

We planned a strategy that involved complex segmenting, arranging the audience into intent based audiences (handraisers), high propensity audiences such as Note Owners and loyal customers, upgraders, switchers and likely to churn/hold and churned. We did this for data across the geographical regions of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE, whilst breaking the product launch down into a 6-month schedule of timely communications in ‘waves’.

Using a phased approach, we were able to collect and analyse user data insights along the way to establish which prospects were colder, warmer and hot leads and advise how the content could be tailored at each stage to become more personalised.

Our team designed, built and delivered a series of email campaigns supported by Push, SMS and Web Push activity which secured a high number of orders from the targeted middle eastern regions, with our activity directly resulting in 20% of the overall pre-order total – a result that was more than twice the amount achieved in the launch of the S21 campaign.

Execution

Our creative team sparked the concept of the new Galaxy S22 Series being ‘Note-worthy’, enabling us to build a series of creative routes aligned with the aim of converting existing Note users. This was then devised into a series of beautifully designed emails and corresponding assets, delivered in 4 waves as part of our launch timeline.

The creative was focused on highlighting the features that existing Note users love and promoting how the innovative features of the Galaxy S22 Series are now even better including the fact that it is the first S-series model to utilise a built-in S-Pen. The product also reflects many of the benefits of the previous Note model including a larger screen, faster processor, and longer lasting battery. Alongside this, we determined exciting propositions to position the e-store as the best place to pre-order. Benefits include trading in your old model, 0% installment, free delivery, and additional points available through the Samsung loyalty rewards programme.

The creative was also translated into Arabic so that the campaign assets could be delivered to audiences in multiple countries.

The Flourish team prepared the over-arching concept, CRM strategy planning, copywriting, design, moving imagery, development and delivery of the campaign, working with the Samsung Gulf team, whose office Flourish had been integrated with since 2018. Thanks to the work that Flourish have provided since 2011, laying foundations for Samsung’s CRM programme on a global scale, we were able to take what we had learned, as well as utilise some existing fluid email templates on which to base our creative.

The series of final emails included a range of interactive elements and high-quality moving imagery, combined with tantalising copy to make the emails even more engaging, to try and encourage as many direct ecommerce pre-orders as possible.

Pre-order ‘Wave 1’ consisted of emails sent in February 2022, supported by Push, SMS and Web Push notifications. Users were incentivised with a free gift offer and we found that SMS clicks totalled 4x the amount reported in the previous S21 launch campaign. This phase of the campaign also triggered a high number of website visits over a 3 day period.

Pre-order ‘Wave 1.2’ consisted of another round of email comms, supported by SMS. This phase was aimed at a user sub-section of the original list that were identified as high propensity leads, and creative was customised for each segment in order to optimise engagement and conversion. This achieved a staggering open rate and click through rate, a huge increase from a similar S21 launch campaign email.

Pre-order ‘Wave 2’ used a combination of email, Push, SMS and Web Push communications. This resulted in further orders and website visits with the email comms achieving a successful open rate and above average click-through rate. The sales results by this stage now exceeded figures from the previous S21 launch as a benchmark, during the second week of the campaign.

Pre-order ‘Wave 3’ was activated towards the end of February into early March. This phase also used a combination of email, Push, SMS and Web Push. These comms were driving last chance messaging and driving urgency as a tactic to encourage prospects to take advantage of the free gift with purchase offer, describing how quickly the new Galaxy S22 was selling in pre-orders. This round resulted in further orders as a direct result of CRM activity.

During Pre-order ‘Wave 4’, we launched a combination of Push, SMS and Web Push communications only, in the days following the end of the previous phase. This was to try and capture those segmented prospects that had not yet made a purchasing decision but had engaged with previous parts of the campaign – SMS was sent to a much smaller audience group consumers and achieved a high click through rate, whilst Push was deployed to a much wider audience, with a display rate of 66% and demonstrating a higher result than the previous campaign launch benchmark. Further sales were made as a direct result of this CRM activity and another large round of website visits.

Effectiveness

There were over 50% more pre-orders during the pre-order phase of the campaign, compared to the similar campaign for the S21, across UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar and 20% of these were from CRM. We also recorded a high level of engagement, measuring 35% of those that pre-ordered engaging with email (23%), SMS (13%) and Push (11%). This shows the importance of creating cross-channel campaigns to maximise the impact and conversion opportunities.

We discovered that there was a 2.8x higher open rate during the on-boarding phase of the customer journey, compared to average onboarding stats from previous similar launches, and the click-through-rate was 1.75x higher than the average benchmark for previous onboarding emails. We also found that:

• 41% of the people that upgraded to the S22 Ultra had previously owned a Note device.
• 40% of pre-orders came from new customers and 47% of customers had purchased directly from the e-store previously.
• 11% of pre-orders came from people who were switching back to a Galaxy product.

The campaign has been regarded by all parties involved as a great success. Samsung also hold internal competitions between divisions to compare and reward the best campaigns – this campaign won the award for smart segmentation. Some of the emails we designed were also accepted onto the ‘Really Good Emails’ online collection.

Not only were we able to use data to tailor our customer journey and achieve a high number of pre-orders during the early part of the phased S22 launch campaign (which was still ongoing at the time that this case study was written), but we have also been able to identify key demographical information that will be useful to Samsung in any future campaigns for related product marketing. Our data will help to provide a well-informed, data-driven strategy plan for the brand moving forwards and reaffirms the value of Samsung’s investment in CRM marketing to help achieve their company goals.

To find out how our teams can optimise, elevate and transform your CRM marketing to achieve great results, get in touch.