How Independent Publisher Food52 Used Email to Handle Thanksgiving and Cyber Weekend

Food52, a site known for its recipes, community and carefully selected products, wants people to eat thoughtfully and live joyfully. In order to accomplish that, the content and the commerce halves of the company must work together. Black Friday, Cyber Weekend and other holiday sales represent about 35 percent to 40 percent of the company's total revenue for the entire year, according to brand president and co-founder Merrill Stubbs. "We all love this time of year because it's so buzzy and fun," Stubbs said, "but there's a fair amount of pressure. It's our moment to shine and to be creative and helpful. We don't want to let anything fall through the cracks." The brand redesigned their Shop pages the week before Thanksgiving and invested in back-up servers that could handle any wild traffic increases; with lessons learned from previous years (on Black Friday 2016, the site's sales tax calculator broke down, making it a "tax free weekend" for shoppers) and additional marketing support from Agency Within, the many teams of Food52 were as prepared as they could be. Most emails, especially those including marketing messaging, had backup plans in case sales weren't hitting their goals; editorial franchises and creative imagery shoots had been planned in advance to provide both fresh content and much-needed advice; and, with the help of online services like Google Drive's products and Slack's messaging service, the company was ready to enjoy the holiday, be there for its readers and direct them to its hundreds of unique products. "We're not a discount company," said CEO and co-founder Amanda Hesser. "While there's a focus for us on Black Friday and the whole weekend, we know we're a trusted resource for our readers. It's important for us to stay true to ourselves as a company." Adweek spent several hours over multiple days with the team, including in their Slack channels, over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Wednesday — The Plan Before The Storm 7 a.m. — A minor hiccup: a promo code was scheduled ahead of time and advertised on the site but not activated on the back end, meaning 38 customers didn't get the discount they were promised and had problems checking out. The customer care team at Food52 reached out to those affected, explained that the code should now be working, and everyone hoped for the best. That particular promo would run through Sunday, so the marketing team believed those customers would return or those sales would be made up. 12 p.m. — The issue from that morning was addressed during the last in-office holiday planning meeting, where representatives from each department attended either in person or via Google hangout; a majority of Food52 staffers had already begun traveling home for the holidays. The biggest solution to come out of that meeting was yet another Google sheet, a list of the marketing messages, promotional emails, site-wide banners and promos, the upcoming holiday menu maker (which will be released on Tuesday with over 200 possible recipes), and anything else that needed to be double-checked before going live. Each item was assigned an "owner" and a backup quality assurance checker. Stubbs jokingly noted that it would almost take more time to build this document than it would to do everything on the list; everyone agreed before eagerly continuing to itemize the next five days of messaging. It was decided that each day, they would review the following day's emails. [kickout id="5"] The meeting also gave each team the opportunity to update everyone else on the progress they had made and were expecting to make; one social video alone got 2,000 more views since the meeting had started. The creative, buying, marketing and social teams were still working out exact images for posts and promotions across the site and on their distributed platforms. Every link on every scheduled post and email has to be double-checked in addition to seeing if Food52's merchant/vendor partners would have enough stock for some of these high performing items. Some vendors make each item to order and would not have the capacity to fulfill all of them if a tsunami of shoppers placed orders within a small timeframe; one porcelain butter keeper artisan sold about 1,000 units through Food52 the weekend previous, and therefore would have to be swapped out in any promotional emails. 1:30 p.m. — Suzanne D'Amato, editor in chief, took the early shift this morning to work The Hotline, a Food52 year-long feature that gets extra attention during the holiday season. She answered "burning" questions submitted by readers from 8 to 10 a.m. before passing the baton to another member of her team; they were on a two-hour rotation through Thanksgiving evening. A few folks had questions about dry-brining their turkeys, while a few brave home cooks wanted opinions on serving food past its expiration date during their family's Thanksgiving meal. [kickout id="3"] From this point forward, D'Amato and her team would be dealing with their readers' 11th-hour problems as well as their own family's meals; she and her husband only just remembered that they'd need to cook breakfast, too, as everyone had become all-consumed with planning for the dinner. "We're trying to really be there for our readers and think about the great recipes they come to us for," she said. "This is a time to transition from Thanksgiving into all the other upcoming holidays, too, so we're exploring what this time of year really means to people." Between the editorial and video production teams, over the next few weeks, new and experimental series about cooking, family, mistakes and greatest moments will be released over the next few weeks. [kickout id="1"] 2:30 p.m. — Another "last" meeting for the Shop team, the buyers responsible for maintaining vendor relationships, new featured products, and the online store's inventory. Today, they were checking over the next few marketing emails to reflect changes or product swaps Stubbs and Hesser requested to ensure a smooth check-out process for customers. Like most of Food52's staff, the Shop team has been planning with the marketing and merchandise teams for months and has frequently coordinated with over 450 vendors for the site. The process included yet another extensive Google document (which reminded this reporter of those conspiracy theory boards full of red strings and newspaper clippings, but far more organized and color-coded). A few teams had access to the doc and were assigned a color for any last-minute comments. The team only wanted to make changes they believed would truly "move the needle." If they needed to offer a higher-priced item in a discount email that they hadn't previously, they were fine with "chasing the money." The four people in a conference room full of mismatched and bespoke wooden chairs completed an elevated logic puzzle of checking what goes where, which email is sent to whom (and when!), which products no longer fit the theme, etc. Some emails are sent to nonshoppers of the site, some are sent to long-time shoppers or customers who have bought that specific item in the past, but none will feel too promotional in nature. Thursday — Thanksgiving 12 p.m. — Teams checked in together on Slack to review stock inventory, Black Friday's email messaging and how they were pacing so far on sales. With all systems go, and thousands of readers trying to figure out if they had already messed up their turkey, the marketing team anticipated the day's sales to top out at least 180 percent higher than last year's Thanksgiving Day sales. Thus, they decided to move forward with Friday's Plan. [kickout id="4"] Friday — Black Friday 10 a.m. — With Thanksgiving in the bag, Food52 put even more focus on the marketing emails and sales forecasts in order to reach their goals for this year. Though using free shipping as a promotional tool worked well in the past, the teams decided not to use free shipping as a promotional offer this year so it wouldn't impact overall margins as much. There was much discussion that morning about pacing; by 10 a.m., sales were up 92 percent by 10 a.m. vs. Black Friday 2016. Still, it didn't seem enough to reach sales targets. From midnight to 10 a.m. last year, sales made in that time frame accounted for 15 percent of the day's total sales; this year, the pace was at 11 percent for that time range. Should the next emails be sent out in segments rather than to larger groups in order to hit a more targeted audience? If their pacing overall was higher in sales, did they need to move their last marketing email earlier in the day to match the online shopping habits of their customers? Different teams began to show different numbers and percentages, which added to the confusion of deciding what to do with the all-important emails. [kickout id="6"] But soon, the numbers got crunched a bit further: Food52 actually doubled product sales from 2016 on Black Friday by 10 a.m. As email schedules got shuffled around, the social and editorial teams made sure to adjust any corresponding posts related to those marketing offers; the itemized quality assurance/double-checker doc was also edited to reflect any changes. By the end of Black Friday, the company had its third largest day in sales to date for the shop (the site launched in 2009 and the Shop launched in 2013). For this day, Food52 had more than 116 percent growth YOY, though the overall sales missed the day's goals by almost 16 percent. Saturday — The Start of Cyber Weekend 10 a.m. — While Friday's numbers didn't reach the company's highest hopes, it was still a huge day in sales. To keep that momentum going and make the entire weekend as strong as possible, the marketing and commerce teams came up with a few contingency plans for more targeted emails. The team decided that the site's second-best current seller, a (limited-time only) $99 French oven, would be the best bet to be included in marketing toward non-shoppers in a standalone email, which would make an email toward previous shoppers a possibility for Monday if needed. An extra product push could also come from a $250 Italian pressure cooker that recently came into "unlimited stock" from its vendor, or from Mediterranean vinyl kitchen mats. The social team also chimed in that product-specific posts do well on their platforms, as opposed to posts mentioning broader offers; one video drove 400 clicks to the Staub French oven within one hour. Prior to any decisions made this weekend, the social team was only planning on posting one additional commerce-related post more than a typical day; their focus was on the tentpole initiatives, editorial series, and key messaging for their commerce teams. With a mix of hard and soft sells for featured products, the team wanted to keep the site's personal touch and voice while being slightly more aggressive with their frequency. "We're a one-stop shop for recipes you want to cook and the tools to cook them with," said Connor Bower, a social media manager who joined senior social media manager Kaitlin Bray and her team of one from the ad operations team a couple of months ago. For this day, the shop had 150 percent growth YOY compared to 2016. Sunday 10 a.m. — This day's check-in noted different emails that would be sent to shoppers and non-shoppers for later that afternoon. These included one solely dedicated to the vinyl kitchen mats discussed on Saturday (to be sent to Food52's shoppers) and one giving both a discount of 20 percent off orders of $100 or more and information on limited quantity items (to be sent to the site's non-shopper constituency). Hesser felt it seemed a shame to not send the second email to their shoppers as well, but Grace Ouma-Cabezas, senior marketing director, decided it would be best to save for a potential "three-emails-in-one-day" Cyber Monday situation. Yesterday's strategies, however, seemed to be mostly a success with sales just 4 percent off from the original target per discussion in Sunday's slack check-in. Talk then turned to the wording of Monday's first email and whether it was at all confusing for customers; someone confirmed that they didn't receive any complaints about the wording last year, but that if the team felt it was possible to be clearer, they should aim for that. Sales grew more than 154 percent YOY and—for the first time that weekend—blew past the teams' goals by more than 54 percent. Monday — Cyber Monday 12 a.m. — Team members were up late—or early—to make sure the new promo code for the site was in working order, along with any site-wide banners and text that needed to be swapped out. With Black Friday and Thanksgiving behind them, the team is progressing to the rest of the holiday season with new recipes, coordinating its 7th annual holiday swap program, its upcoming holiday menu maker and so much more. As of Monday afternoon, the shop was tracking 40 percent ahead of its goal for Cyber Monday, an already ambitious goal. "It's been a challenge to fit into this temporarily crazy holiday sales world," said Hesser, "but we're not competing in that race to the bottom. We spend all year sourcing gifts for our customers, and we always want to do something special for our readers, too. It's important to be consistent."