Ideal Image Doubles Their Marketing Impact With SMS and Email

Imagine walking down the street, feeling like the most attractive version of yourself. That feeling can be real, thanks to Ideal Image.

For people who want to enhance their appearance and well-being, Ideal Image has more than 140 locations across 30 states and Canada. Customers all over North America can refresh and refine with a comprehensive array of FDA-approved, non-invasive cosmetic and wellness treatments, including laser hair removal, fillers, and Botox. 

Email marketing is crucial for Ideal Image to drive bookings for their services, boost client engagement, and nurture leads. Along with this email strategy, Ideal Image aims to amplify their marketing to get more conversions and increase their ROI.

We spoke to Brandon Johnson, Ideal Image’s Manager of Retention and CRM, to see how they were able to use SMS to give their email marketing a lift.

The challenge: Driving bookings, standing out in inboxes, delivering engaging, actionable messaging

The first hurdle in Ideal Image’s marketing strategy was to find a platform to unify their marketing operations. “As an enterprise user, our legacy tool was powerful but complex. Marketers needed a developer just to build and segment an email or a text, and the text replies were not easily accessible for non-developers,” says Brandon.

He also says that Ideal Image needed to drive more bookings, and wanted a solution that could cut through the noise, deliver impactful and timely messaging, and provide a direct path to action, all while integrating with their established email campaigns. “Email remains a steady revenue engine for us, but time-sensitive messages like last-minute appointment bookings or maybe a 24-hour flash sale, those were getting buried in overcrowded email inboxes,” he says.

The tools: SMS, segmentation, automation flows, and analytics

With Intuit Mailchimp’s API and user-friendly interface, they eliminated the need for a developer, letting other marketers on their team build and deploy emails and SMS campaigns quickly. Brandon says the ease of use to complete these tasks was a deciding factor in choosing Mailchimp as their provider. 

With Mailchimp, Ideal Image develops complex campaigns using SMS and email together. For example, they send out promotional offers, appointment reminders, and calls to action like reminding customers that it’s time for a Botox replenishment via SMS, while providing more in-depth information and nurturing sequences through email. “By adding SMS, we didn't replace email. We supercharged it.”

Mailchimp's audience segmentation and automation tools enable them to personalize and target their marketing with precision. They set up automated SMS messages to be triggered by specific actions or at critical points in the customer journey, such as after an email open or at a specific time of day, ensuring messages are delivered at the best time for the customer. They also send personalized messages based on location, or on their customer’s last treatment or purchase.

Another way they encourage engagement through SMS is by asking their audience to reply with questions, or even a keyword, and they answer from the Mailchimp inbox. This not only improves targeting and recommendations for services, but this can also trigger an automated flow based on the customer’s initial response. 

Brandon says that using the analytics dashboard helps by placing SMS and email data right next to each other, so they can see how the channels perform together immediately. “It's key to see that level of granularity and clarity in reporting,” he says. “It allowed us to shift our budgets and strategy weekly, instead of having to wait for the quarter-end report.” The detailed data gives the team the confidence to optimize performance in real time.

The results: High ROI, doubled engagement, and more bookings

Using SMS and email together led to a substantial increase in bookings for Ideal Image, which is their main revenue driver. Beyond that, customer engagement also saw a significant boost, helping them achieve a high ROI on their marketing efforts.

The multichannel approach ensured that Ideal Image's messages were more likely to be seen and acted upon. With an open rate of +90%, SMS open rates are significantly higher than email, providing a powerful channel to engage with their audience and keep Ideal Image top-of-mind for aesthetic needs.

The immediate nature of SMS coupled with email’s ability to nurture and educate provided a huge impact on engagement—meaning they received more active customer responses, like text replies or lead form submissions. “When we added SMS on top of email, our total direct marketing engagement jumped about 50%. The lift really comes from the reach and immediacy,” says Brandon. In fact, he says that a Tuesday MMS campaign, when aligned with email, lifts Friday bookings by 30%. 

Ideal Image’s focus is on deepening customer relationships and connecting with their audience to drive sustained growth. As for other business owners who want to get started with SMS or want to enhance their use, he says to remember that you’re asking your customer to pay attention to you. Some companies will send generic discount information, but you can make yourself stand out with a strong brand voice. “Make your text worth the interruption to someone’s life. Be creative with it.”