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Case study
Somnox
Over het merk
Somnox
The story of Somnox began in 2016, when one of the founders, Julian, noticed that his mother was struggling with sleep issues. At the time, Julian and the three other founders were studying at the Robotics Institute of TU Delft. They came up with an invention to help solve Julian’s mother’s sleep problem: the sleep robot. The team built a prototype and presented it to the world in 2016. The prototype generated a lot of attention, and soon there was interest in their sleep robot from all corners. They developed the concept into a business idea to help as many people with sleep problems as possible — and thus, Somnox was officially born.
In 2017, Somnox launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise money for production. It was a success, and in 2019, the product launched in the Netherlands, the US, and the UK. Today, their sleep robot has been on the market for two years.
Somnox's mission
Our mission is to help people sleep. The more people we help sleep better, the closer we are to achieving our goal. By 2030, we aim to have helped 100 million people sleep better — that’s our north star. How will we get there? On one hand, by selling products, and on the other, by sharing knowledge. We share our expertise on sleep through our blog, meditations, courses, and breathing workshops. Even if you don’t buy from us, our goal is simply to help as many people as possible with their sleep. If we’ve helped you, we’ll count you among the 100 million we're working toward.
Our team consists of 18 people, so we’re still a small company. We’re a four-person commercial team, so it still feels like a startup in that sense. But we do everything we can to punch above our weight and earn our place as a scale-up. We recently won the title of the most innovative SME in the Netherlands — which is, of course, super exciting!
We’ve decided to focus on the Netherlands first. At first, we wanted to launch globally and do everything everywhere at once, but we quickly learned that launching a product worldwide is quite a task. For example, if you show up in Japan with Dutch imagery, there’s no real connection, and you completely miss the mark. That’s why we’ve decided to first focus on markets we know well — and that means serving the Dutch market properly. Especially now, over the past year, people have been more anxious and stressed than ever, sleeping worse than ever, and our product has never been more relevant.
De Uitdaging
As Digital Marketing Lead at Somnox, I (Baginda) am involved in several different areas. This includes our paid advertising — especially Facebook ads — but also our content strategy. Content on our blog, and also the content in our emails. Content is incredibly important to us because, as I mentioned earlier, we strongly believe we can help people through educational content. Email is our largest channel in terms of the number of “followers.”
So for us, email is a crucial channel. Over the past two to three years, we managed all email marketing in-house, without ever seeking professional help. Of course, I’ve always read and learned a lot about it, but I hadn’t previously worked with a professional agency in that area.
Leading into Q4 of 2020, we decided that email had to be a key driver of our sales — more than ever before. To make that happen, deliverability (how often your email actually reaches the inbox) had to improve. I also knew our flows needed to be optimized, and our campaigns had to be opened, clicked, and acted on, etc. All of that combined brought me to the next step in our email marketing journey: Klaviyo. Klaviyo is the go-to software in the e-commerce and direct-to-consumer world. It’s the platform you should be using for email marketing.
Expertise and peace of mind
That was the point where expert help became very welcome. We wanted to set up our email marketing in Klaviyo as a project, but I quickly realized it was outside our comfort zone. For example, switching your entire email service provider from one platform to another. We realized that a bit of expert support would be very helpful — both to elevate our email game and to find out whether it would even make a difference. It might not have had any impact at all. But after many conversations with Ewoud, I was convinced that Polaris would be the right partner to support us and help us find that out.
To sum it up: our challenge was to take our email performance in e-commerce to the next level using Klaviyo. And after the due diligence I conducted, it became clear that Polaris was the best possible partner for that.
We started working with Polaris at the end of 2020. First, they helped us with the technical migration to Klaviyo. That was the first step that needed to be handled properly so that we could collect all the necessary data. Thanks to that data, we’re now able to approach email marketing in a smarter, more data-driven way. Polaris supported us with that migration during the first month. Honestly, I was surprised by how quickly Polaris could move. I really appreciated the pace and the collaboration. Because of that, we were able to get Klaviyo live fairly quickly — just in time for our major sales period. I was really happy that everything moved fast and that Polaris showed a strong willingness and initiative to get things done. So it was definitely a successful first month!
Meanwhile, Omar from Polaris was working on the second part of our collaboration: setting up different flows that would help improve our email e-commerce performance. We created several flows together, including the cart abandonment sequence, browse abandonment sequence, and the new subscriber flow. Anyone who signs up for our sleep test is placed in that last flow.
Those flows were the main deliverable. I didn’t know exactly what to expect at first, but Polaris’ transparent approach quickly made everything clear. I experienced how Polaris breaks the process into four phases: strategy, production, iteration, and analysis/reflection. I really liked that approach because it allowed me to see exactly what they were working on and why. We also used different tools — like Concept Board — where I could easily leave comments, and they would take that input into account. That worked well and is a great example of how smooth the production phase of those flows was.
As a starting point, I shared our existing flows and best-performing campaigns with Polaris. They used that input to come up with a new strategic proposal and matching copy. We could then provide feedback via Google Docs. That way of working was quick and efficient, which allowed me to focus on other important tasks on my plate at the time.
Strategy
Polaris helped us with the strategy for the cart abandonment and browse abandonment flows. We moved through those quite quickly because of time pressure from our big Q4 sales period. For the new subscriber flow — what we call our “sleep test flow” — we were able to take more time. I worked closely with Omar during onboarding and later with Bogdan. Especially while setting up the sleep test flow, it became clear why Polaris Growth was the right strategic partner for us when it comes to flows. At least for this initial three-month collaboration, though we’re now exploring whether we’ll continue working together beyond that.
It’s simple: Polaris has the right expertise across strategy, production, iteration, and analysis. For example, I sat down with Bogdan to work on conversion rate optimization. The way he explained things made it very clear why we wanted to change a particular subject line, email copy, or design. I learned a lot from that as a marketer — and that was one of the main reasons we decided to go ahead with Polaris. On the one hand, to improve performance, and on the other, so we as a team at Somnox could learn from Polaris. In my opinion, that goal was fully achieved. I’ve learned several things about email marketing that I didn’t know before.
And that also means that, even if this collaboration were to end here, it would still leave a lasting impression on me. I’m grateful to Polaris for that.
Resultaten volgens onze klant
What I’m most satisfied with is the A-to-Z approach Polaris took for our new subscriber flow. That’s our most important flow, as it’s tied to our main lead magnet. Everyone who knows us or is interested in our product goes through that flow. I originally set it up myself, and we went through several iterations, but with Polaris, we were able to take it to the next level.
In the old flow, we accepted everyone, whereas in the new one, we created a slightly more qualified test. As a result, fewer people enter the flow now, but the ones who do are more qualified. Additionally, in the first month, we implemented a double opt-in, which wasn’t present in my original flow. So those are two small nuances to keep in mind.
Our previous lead-to-conversion rate — the percentage of leads that converted into customers — hovered around 1%. With Polaris’ new flow, early indicators suggest that rate has increased to about 4%. That’s a +300% increase. That said, it’s not a perfect comparison since the absolute numbers are roughly the same. We’ve now removed the double opt-in from the new flow and done another iteration, which means more people are entering the flow again. Of course, they still need to provide consent via Typeform to stay GDPR-compliant.
I don’t expect the flow to continue performing at a 4% conversion rate without the double opt-in, but I do hope it maintains around 2%, which would still be a +100% increase. If we can sustain that doubling, then that’s already a fantastic first result from our collaboration.
I’m a little less satisfied with the cart abandonment and browse abandonment flows — but only in terms of performance, not the work Polaris delivered. I had expected more from those flows, but it might be that these particular flows simply perform less effectively in the Dutch market.
Overall, I’ve been very happy with the collaboration with Polaris.
CONTACT
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