Where the retention playbook was written: four years, $1.36M to $12M.
Background
Lafayette 148 had mastered department stores and direct mail — over $200 million in total annual sales proved it. Email existed, but the strategy needed an owner: someone to sort through the options across email marketing, paid media, and DTC, and turn campaigns into a retention system. That was Stephen's job, in-house, for four years.
What we did
The whole email strategy was rebuilt around seasonal launches and a monthly sales cadence, with an ESP migration to unlock more sophisticated lifecycle marketing.
Underneath it all, we developed a centralized CRM — the thing that turned all the customer lists into a retention engine. Predictive and behavioral models identified who was a VIP, who was drifting, and who was worth a win-back — and the email program acted on it.
That's what made the retention work compound: cart abandonment, post-purchase, birthday campaigns, each triggered by real customer behavior rather than a send calendar. Those automations alone drove $1.8 million a year in incremental revenue — money that arrived whether or not anyone sent a campaign that week.
Our proudest party trick: sending birthday cards to VIP buyers — first by email, then a physical card with this illustration. Of the thousands of customers who received one, 16% placed a new order. Not opened, not clicked — ordered. Turns out Lafayette's best customers loved getting birthday wishes from the CEO herself.
The results
- Added 80,455 new email subscribers to list, 10.7x growth from 7,500 email subscribers to start.
- Over a four-year period, annual email revenue grew from $1.36 million to $12 million.
- Developed high-impact email flows for an additional $1.8 million in annual revenue.
Campaigns are what you send. Retention is what you built.
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