Oh!mino Uses Postcards to Get 60% of Customers Coming Back

When Michael Maynard launched his supplements brand in 2019, his goal was to create such a great product that a third of his customers came back every month. 

‍Within a couple of years, the founder and CEO of Oh!mino had doubled his goal. 

‍“Postcards have had a huge impact,” Maynard says. 

‍Oh!mino’s optimized amino acid supplements build muscle and strength in everyone from young lifters to senior yoga devotees. The company has been growing ever since it left the starting blocks. But Maynard needs more than an effective product, cool branding and even pro athlete testimonials to succeed. 

‍We’re going to show you how Oh!mino uses direct mail to make customers feel valued and close “opportunity gaps”—overlooked ways to bring customers back. 

‍“We kind of feel like we’re at that next level,” Maynard says. “Because we’ve got certain techniques automated and nailed down—including PostPilot.”  

The Problem: Intense Competition for Customers

It’s not easy to be a DTC brand in a hyper-competitive category. Maynard knows that better than most—he spent two decades in the industry before creating Oh!mino. 

‍“There are a lot of performance supplements out there,” he says. 

‍Maynard uses paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to acquire customers. Then, he works hard to keep his shoppers from defecting to the competition. 

‍With the high costs of bringing them in, profitability comes from multiple purchases—and even better, subscriptions. 

‍“When you get people into subscribe and save, you make less margin,” Maynard says. “But there's something nice when you see those little buttons saying that each year you have triple-digit income from them.” 

The Promise: Effective Winbacks on Autopilot

Before running Oh!mino, Maynard had zero experience with direct mail. But he’s always believed in personalization and the power of a human touch. 

“If we're spending a lot of money to acquire a customer, how do we create the ultimate experience? How do we make them feel special?” he says. 

‍Postcards felt like a strong fit. So Oh!mino dipped its toe into the direct-mail waters with a 90-day winback campaign, to help meet its repeat-customer goals. 

‍“Even though I was getting a decent amount of people back, there were still people who dropped off,” Maynard says.

‍If an existing customer didn’t make a purchase in 90 days, PostPilot would leverage its seamless integration with Shopify to automatically send out a postcard asking them to come back. Here’s an example:

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The front of the card features bold, on-brand colors. It addresses the customer by name, and offers a sweet 20% discount as incentive to return. 

Maynard hoped to break even with the mailing. 

“Getting a one-on-one investment to bring that customer back, I thought that would be brilliant,” he says. “The sheep was lost and I brought it back to pasture. Little did I know.” 

The Payoff: A Powerful New Marketing Channel

Maynard was blown away by the results of his test campaign. Within days of the mailing, defecting customers were buying again. The campaign had a 3x return on ad spend, which quickly grew to 4x. 

“Then we automated it and added a 120-day winback,” he says. “These are by far my best returns outside of email, because email’s cheap.”

Postcard marketing has proved to be so easy and effective, it has Maynard looking at his business differently. He analyzes how many people are coming back and layers on new campaigns to draw them back. 

“We keep adding postcards,” he says. After the success of the 90-day and 120-day “There’s always opportunity gaps. 

Postpilot set up a campaign that automatically sent a card 25 days after a customer made a purchase. That was an even bigger win than the original campaigns—an 11.5 ROAS. 

‍In June 2020, he says, 26% of Oh!mino’s business on Shopify was from repeat customers. Today, that number is 63%.  

“Take the best parts of email and then direct mail, put them together,” Maynard says. “That’s what PostPilot is.” 

The Postscript: Using Postcards to Score Subscribers

Oh!mino designed its first campaign, but has since turned to PostPilot’s Campaign Concierge Service. Our ecommerce and design experts have managed thousands of DTC campaigns and know what works. They’ll build your entire campaign and provide full account management at no cost. 

“I am sometimes tech challenged,” Maynard says. “If I need help with a postcard, we set up a time to chat and it’s taken care of.” 

These days, his focus is on converting repeat customers into subscribers—the Holy Grail of DTC. 

Maynard identifies people who have purchased multiple times, but aren’t on auto-refill. Those customers automatically receive personalized cards incentivizing them to get on a subscription plan, ensuring they don’t forget to rebuy and boosting frequency and LTV.

The front of the card is personalized and includes the subscribe-and-save offer. The back features QR codes that bring customers directly to the site and add an extra layer of attribution. 

He says working with PostPilot is the easiest marketing decision he could make. He knew within a few weeks what the return would be like. There was no long-term commitment. 

Most importantly, it works. 

 “Every time I spend a dollar, I get 10 back,” Maynard says. “That’s just the latest campaign. And I don’t even have to think about it.”