Beyond the inbox.

How Bones Coffee generated 6.43x ROAS through direct mail.

A fully branded direct mail catalog re-engaged lapsed Bones Coffee customers who could no longer be reached by email or SMS, driving a 6.43x blended ROAS across 50,000 households and proving the compounding power of a true omnichannel retention strategy.

ClientBones Coffee Company ChannelDirect Mail PlatformPostPilot FocusRetention

View the catalog

Blended ROAS

6.43x

From one fully branded catalog, mailed to customers who had gone dark everywhere else.

Households reached

50K

Lapsed buyers, many among the brand's most loyal.

Incremental revenue

100%

Every name was unreachable by email or SMS, so the revenue was new.

The challenge01

Every brand has customers it can no longer reach.

Subscribers who have lapsed, unsubscribed, or gone cold across email and SMS.

Bones Coffee had a substantial base of previous customers who had gone dark across digital channels. These were not strangers to the brand. They had purchased before, they knew the product, and in many cases they had been among Bones Coffee's most loyal buyers. The challenge was finding a way to get back in front of them with something worth paying attention to.

At the same time, Bones Coffee was navigating a seasonal transition, moving summer flavors out and fall flavors in. The opportunity was clear: use a single, high-impact piece to re-engage lapsed customers, drive seasonal relevance, and remind them why they loved the brand in the first place.

Why a catalog02

The mailbox is one of the least crowded channels in retention.

In a world where most brands default to digital, the physical mailbox is one of the least crowded and most underutilized channels in retention marketing. A well-designed catalog does not just deliver a message, it creates a moment. It sits on a counter, gets picked up more than once, and carries a perceived value that no email or text can replicate.

We designed the catalog to do two things equally well: convert and keep. The creative centered around Bones Coffee's beloved skeleton mascot, woven throughout the pages as a narrative thread moving through the seasons. Customers who had not heard from Bones Coffee in months received something they actually wanted to hold onto.

The strategy03

Three objectives, one 50,000-piece mailing.

01Re-engage unreachable lapsed customers.
02Capitalize on the seasonal transition from summer to fall flavors.
03Introduce the Bones Coffee Subscription to a high-intent audience.

Audience architecture

Every group was selected because it could no longer be reached through digital channels.

SEGMENT 01
Winbacks
Previous customers no longer reachable via email or SMS, some of them Bones Coffee's most valuable. Segmented by recency to learn how recency affects direct mail response, and to inform future campaigns.
SEGMENT 02
Fall flavor purchasers
Customers who had bought fall flavors before but could not be reached via email or SMS.
SEGMENT 03
Summer flavor leads
Customers who had shown interest in or purchased summer flavors, had not ordered, and could not be reached via email or SMS.

Creative strategy

A dual mandate: drive immediate conversion and create a piece customers would want to keep. The skeleton mascot comes to life across the seasonal transition, fully on-brand, visually rich, and built to feel like a collectible rather than a coupon mailer. The Bones Coffee Subscription is featured prominently as the natural next step for customers ready to commit to the brand they already loved.

Incremental revenue focus

By restricting the mailing to customers who were unreachable via email and SMS, virtually every dollar of revenue the catalog generated was incremental. These were not customers who would have converted through a digital touchpoint. The catalog was the only reason they came back.

Direct Mail
PostPilot
Retention

All channels together04

No customer is truly unreachable.

The catalog did not succeed in isolation. It succeeded because it filled a gap no other channel could fill. Most retention strategies stop at email and SMS. When a customer opts out or goes dark, that customer is effectively lost. Our approach is built on a different belief: every customer deserves to be reached through the channel that works for them, and the most valuable customers are worth pursuing even when the easy channels are no longer available.

Email + SMSHigh-frequency, low-cost touchpointsCustomers in active flows and lists

Direct MailCreative impact and physical presenceCustomers who have slipped through

The result is a complete retention system, and a program where the brand's best past buyers have a genuine path back, whether or not they are in an active email flow or SMS list.

A lapsed customer is not a lost customer.

"The brands winning at retention are the ones who understand that different customers need to be reached differently, and who have the strategy and channel mix to actually do it. A lapsed customer is not a lost customer. Our approach was intentional: target only the customers who had gone dark and were no longer reachable through our email and SMS efforts. This means every dollar that comes back through the mailbox now represents true incremental revenue lift across channels. The Bones Coffee catalog proved that when you combine brand-worthy creative with a precision targeting strategy, direct mail becomes one of the most powerful reactivation tools in your entire retention program."

Miranda MattsonDirector of Lifecycle & Retention Marketing, ATTN Agency

The catalog

Flip through it.

The Bones skeleton mascot runs through every page as the seasons turn from summer to fall, with the Bones Coffee Subscription as the natural next step.