Direct mail spices up CafePod’s marketing
6.75x return on investment 
12.2 % conversion rate
How CafePod used Direct Mail to re-engage customers beyond the inbox, generating a 6.75x return on investment.
When your best customers stop responding to digital, find another way in
When your best customers stop responding to digital, find another way in
CafePod was founded in London in 2010 with a simple ambition: to make high-quality coffee exciting and easy to prepare at home. Since then, the brand has built a customer database of more than 150,000 people. Digital marketing was already doing its job.
The challenge was reaching the customers it could no longer reach through email, particularly those who had opted out or had stopped engaging with digital communications.
That created a clear opportunity for another channel to pick up where digital left off.
Direct Mail is definitely a channel we want to exploit. With so many of our customers opting out of receiving digital marketing,
it’s a great way to re-engage with our valued customer base... Given the results of the two trial campaigns, we planned 3 or 4 more campaign sends for the year, focused on new product launches & key promotions.
Simon Wren - Digital Director, CafePod
The channel had to:
ZAP~POST was built for exactly that.
Direct Mail, with digital tracking built in
CafePod's answer was to test Direct Mail with an audience that digital marketing wasn't reaching effectively.
The team created an eye-catching design around a compelling offer, with a strong call to action designed to move customers from the mailbox back to the website. Crucially, the campaign wasn't treated as an untrackable offline exercise.
Each campaign included a campaign-exclusive QR code and discount, sending customers to a specific landing page so responses could be tracked. That gave CafePod a clear way to connect the physical mailer with the digital conversion journey.
The first test performed well enough to justify scaling the approach, with a follow-up Black Friday campaign sent to a larger audience.
A physical extension of the customer journey
Reach: Customers who had opted out of email or were no longer engaging digitally
Re-engage: Put the brand back in front of an existing customer base
Incentivise: Use a compelling offer and campaign-exclusive discount
Track: Connect the physical mailer to online activity through QR and landing-page tracking
Proof that the mailbox can still move an online customer
The test campaigns gave CafePod a measurable reason to keep Direct Mail in the marketing mix.
Your customer database is bigger than your email list
For modern coffee and subscription brands, the customers sitting in your CRM aren't necessarily all reachable through the same channels.
Some have opted out. Some have stopped opening. Some simply need a different kind of prompt to bring the brand back into their consideration.
CafePod's results show how Direct Mail can sit alongside digital marketing as another way to activate an existing customer base, with a physical touchpoint that still leads back to a measurable online conversion.
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