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Krissy Jones browses Defender Ammunition’s Shopify admin interface, scrolling through a lengthy list of apps she has installed over the years.
“I feel like I've had relationships with every app developer on the planet,” says Jones, the ammunition company’s operations manager.
Many apps haven’t met her needs and were quickly uninstalled. Seguno, though, made the cut and has been her email marketing provider since 2023.
How has it avoided the discard pile? Jones points to Seguno’s “we’ll help you figure it out” mentality. It’s a trait she doesn’t see among other app developers — and is thankful for since marketing isn’t her forte.
“To have an app developer say we're willing to help you with this, share what we've seen works and doesn't work, and make recommendations — that alone is worth its weight in gold,” she says. “Because I don’t want to figure that out. I don't have time to figure that out.”
With onboarding support, she transitioned her email program from sparse sending to one in which automations generate roughly 11% of monthly ecommerce sales.
The evolution of an ammunition brand
Defender Ammunition was launched in 2013, when Jones and her husband moved to the outskirts of Fayetteville, NC, to manufacture and distribute rifle and pistol calibers. They tap the U.S. Armed Forces family, employing veterans and spouses of veterans.
Wholesale operations dominated the early days, with staff walking into gun shops, shooting ranges, and law enforcement agencies to build relationships within the Fort Bragg community and beyond. Now, Defender Ammunition’s in-house ammunition constitutes about 70% of the business.
Marketing for an ammunition brand is challenging. Social media platforms prohibit advocating ammo sales in organic posts and paid ads.
“We’re limited in what we can do because of restrictions in promoting ammunition,” Jones explains. “It makes email marketing that much more important for connecting with people.”
Growing sales passively with email automations
Defender Ammunition has been on Shopify since 2016 and cycled through a few ESPs. Jones’ hesitancy around emails has guided her strategy. Before Seguno, subscribers received newsletters once per quarter and email automations weren’t part of the lineup.
“I've been careful because I don't want to devalue the brand,” she says, expressing irritation with brands that incessantly email subscribers.
Reservations remain, but Seguno’s experts have persuaded her to embrace email a little more.
Defender’s email program now includes several automations for ecommerce customers and a few for wholesale accounts. (Nearly 40% of business sales come from ecommerce, about half come from wholesale, and the balance is from showroom purchases.)
The data backs up the strategy:
- Email nets an 89x return on investment. The company makes $89.51 for every $1 paid to the platform.
- About 34% of all email-generated sales stem from six automations. An abandoned checkout series performs exceptionally well, garnering the most conversions and revenue. It gets triggered 43% less than the most commonly sent automation (welcome emails) but returns 36% more in revenue.
“The value is there. It definitely has an impact on the business,” Jones concedes. “The bottom line is that emails generate revenue.”
She also segments newsletters based on customer type. It’s handy for the sales team, which has relationships with wholesale clients. Visibility into whether they’ve opened or clicked on an email can assist with their outreach process.
Ramping up sales and new subscribers with back-in-stock alerts
One Seguno automation that pays substantial dividends is the back-in-stock notification. Shoppers can subscribe to alerts for product restocks. Jones calls it a game changer that prevents some from searching and spending elsewhere.
“It's generated a whole boatload of sales,” she says. “Almost 9% of the emails sent have converted to purchases.”
Further:
- Back-in-stock alerts account for 27% of all automation-generated revenue. The impressive part? They make slightly more money than the welcome series, which triggers 17 times more frequently.
- The automation attracts new customers. Data shows that 14% of Defender’s back-in-stock sales come from first-time customers.
"Back in stock is a huge game-changer for us."
Before the solution became available as part of her Seguno plan, Jones paid for the Back in Stock app that didn’t talk with her master mailing list. Seguno’s automation hooks into her email list within Shopify, giving back-in-stock subscribers the option to subscribe to Defender’s marketing emails.
“Those we don't catch through the back-in-stock alert we pick up as subscribers after their first purchase. Because they have the experience with our company,” Jones says, pointing to customer appreciation for the company’s order updates and speedy shipment.
The long-term plan is to leverage customer tags created at signup and send segmented, product-specific emails.
Leaning on Seguno to boost ecommerce sales
Defender Ammunition chooses a business function each year and aims to grow it by 20%. The current focus: retail and wholesale ecommerce.
It entails a few objectives:
- Growing the email subscriber list
- Implementing a rewards program
- Increasing the volume of emails, including extra automations to address more touchpoints
Seguno is central to the strategy. Jones recently activated an email capture popup with Seguno for the first time; she’ll use popups to promote the future loyalty program. She’s also expanding automations for wholesale customers and considering Seguno’s product review app.
Jones notes that Seguno is “very conscious of what businesses need to grow the right way” and appreciates how the company has developed a suite of marketing apps that work together.
“Having all that under one house means I don't have to call 40 people when I have a question about something,” she says. “Dealing with just one set of people — and people that genuinely care about the business — makes a difference in business growth.”
