Effective marketing is about reaching the right people with the right message at the right time. This collection of case studies highlights how Online Optimism helped a range of clients improve their outreach through targeted email marketing.
Each project focused on a different goal—whether it was expanding an audience, strengthening brand presence, increasing engagement, or guiding users toward a specific action. Case Paper kept their community engaged with fun and informative newsletters, Café Beignet experimented with A/B testing to learn what resonated best with their customers, and Tulane Pre-College Programs built email campaigns that supported students and parents throughout the application process.
Tulane Pre-College Programs needed to effectively engage both students and parents throughout the application journey, ensuring that initial interest led to completed applications and eventual enrollment. Their challenge was to provide timely, relevant messaging at various points in the process, addressing concerns, answering questions, and maintaining enthusiasm.
Online Optimism crafted a multi-layered email marketing strategy that included both one-off emails and four different drip campaigns. Each campaign was designed to reach prospective students and their parents at specific stages of the application process, providing tailored content to guide them toward the next step. By delivering relevant messaging at the right time, this approach helped keep interest high and increased overall enrollment in the program.
Sections of the Student “Started Not Submitted” Funnel Emails
First, the audience journey was segmented into specific stages that became the foundation for the four drip funnels. Once a lead filled out a form indicating interest, they entered one of two tailored drip funnels, sharing more information about the program as well as the experiences of past students attending the Tulane Pre-College Program. These two funnels took slightly different forms and were custom designed for either parent or student leads.
Once enrollment began, any student that started an application entered a new drip that indicated exactly what materials they needed to fill out to submit their application. These emails focused on equipping these engaged leads with the information and tools they needed to finish their application into the program.
Once students submitted their application and were accepted into the program, they entered the admitted drip funnel that focused on both educational content and information to increase excitement for the summer. Because admissions happened on a rolling basis, this audience required a drip funnel that matched when a student was admitted to the program.
The primary variable the Online Optimism team wanted to see was completed applications. While engagement with the general parent and student drip emails is important data to take note of, the data that was most important to indicate the drip funnels were working as intended was a declining trend in sent emails for the funnel sending to students who started but did not submit their applications. While this trend was present for the Tulane Pre-College Programs Started-Not-Submitted emails, these trends were confirmed by their application and admissions data received later.
A lower number of emails sent indicates that more students have submitted the applications they started on.
Case Paper wanted to share company news, industry insights, and brand updates beyond their social media channels. They needed a way to improve their newsletters to drive traffic to various pages, engage their audience more consistently, and foster a stronger sense of community around their brand. The challenge was to craft an approach that would keep subscribers interested while maintaining Case Paper’s fun and dynamic brand voice.
To meet this challenge, Online Optimism took over their email marketing strategy centered around bi-monthly newsletters and used our expertise to optimize it for enhanced growth. These newsletters weren’t just updates—they were engaging, entertaining, and educational, filled with humor and industry-relevant content. This approach helped Case Paper maintain consistent engagement, extend their brand reach, and create a deeper connection with their audience.
One of the most important things a brand can focus on when utilizing traditional sending is to focus on creating truly engaging content. Because of this, Online Optimism’s strategy took a much more emotion-oriented approach that was further enhanced by Case Paper’s brand voice. Case Paper has a uniquely fun and positive brand voice that truly gets you excited about all things paper.
Since Case Paper segments their audiences by their major service locations, creating emails that were engaging, informative, and focused on the paper industry allowed Online Optimism to consistently address the specific audiences while implementing changes on the fly with data-driven decisions. Content topics, brand voice, and email length all became factors to play with and adjust to meet the desires of specific locations
In one major service location, Florida, open rates increased every month for six consecutive months, resulting in a 58.7% increase in email opens over this period. This confirms a primary driver of this overall strategy–that people prefer tailored, engaging content that is curated more to them than a generic national send.
Cafe Beignet, a beloved New Orleans institution, was looking to expand its reach and better leverage an existing audience list that had been underutilized. While their social media presence was strong, they wanted a direct way to engage both loyal customers and potential new visitors. Their challenge was to find the right messaging style that would resonate with different segments of their audience.
Online Optimism developed a dynamic email marketing strategy that relied heavily on A/B testing. By experimenting with different tones—ranging from serious and topical to playful and punny—we gathered valuable data on what best resonated with Cafe Beignet’s audience. This allowed them to refine their messaging and maximize engagement, creating a comprehensive email strategy that strengthened the cafe’s connection with the community.
When it comes to a good A/B testing strategy, testing two subject lines at a time allows you to isolate a specific variable and gather data over time. Because of Cafe Beignet’s unique audience, the Online Optimism team had to work from the ground up to analyze which subject line variables performed best with this audience.
Significant subject line variables included:
![Cafe Beignet's February A/B testing resulted in a winning headline of "Will You Beignet Our Valentine? [heart emoji]"](https://onlineoptimism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Cafe-Beignet-February-AB-800x207.jpg)
One primary insight the Online Optimism team discovered is that content directly inviting recipients to interact with Cafe Beignet tended to perform higher than ones that were simply funny or interesting. In a specific A/B test around the holidays, “All We Want for Christmas Is Beignets With You!” led to 9% more email opens than “Making Spirits Bright With Every Bite.” The first subject line in this case directly addresses the recipient, while the second is focused more on the Cafe. In additional tests, we found this pattern continues across other subject lines with similar sentiment, while the discrepancy in opens does not exist when testing two subject lines with an intent toward the recipient.
This is the pattern of testing the Online Optimism team applied toward Cafe Beignet’s subject lines. Including emojis, focusing on the recipient, and including a sense of urgency all performed better than their alternatives. One of the more surprising cases of these factors is during the February send, which coincided with Valentine’s Day and the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Despite all of the buzz around the Super Bowl and overall increase in engagement there, “Will You Beignet Our Valentine? ❤️” still beat out “Four Quarters at Four Locations: Get Your Game On at Cafe Beignet 🏈.” While the margin was not large enough for statistical significance, this test further reinforces the data we’ve been seeing even though content centered around the Super Bowl was performing better in New Orleans at the time.
Partnering with Online Optimism has been a great experience. Their team displayed exceptional expertise and dedication throughout our campaign, which helped boost our 2024 application numbers and subsequent enrollment. From the outset, the team took the time to understand our goals and tailored a comprehensive marketing strategy that aligned perfectly with our needs.
