Proven Winners - emarketingplatform.com

Proven Winners is a leading consumer brand in the horticulture industry, with a wide audience base across the U.S. and Canada. Their marketing team manages a contact database of more than 1.2 million people, regularly delivering weekly, segmented email campaigns to as many as 400,000 recipients. In addition to email, the team also runs SMS campaigns to engage consumers through promotions, contests, and product education.

Managing campaigns at this scale requires robust segmentation, data quality controls, and consistent mobile optimization. With a mix of internal staff and external agency contributors, Proven Winners needed a marketing platform that could handle high volume, streamline workflows, and strengthen governance.

The Challenge: Scaling Data, Automation, and Mobile Optimization

As Proven Winners’ marketing needs evolved, the team identified several operational challenges:

Data Inconsistencies: Contacts collected through years of promotions often lacked key information, such as last name or country, limiting segmentation accuracy.
Limited Automation: With only one active workflow, the team saw opportunities to build onboarding, promotional, and re-engagement campaigns that would better nurture consumer relationships.
Mobile Rendering Issues: Inconsistent formatting across email clients raised concerns about the user experience, particularly on mobile devices where most consumers engage.
User Oversight & Security: A review revealed too many admin-level users, creating unnecessary risk. Two-factor authentication (2FA) was not yet enforced.
List Hygiene Gaps: Unfamiliarity with verification tools meant the team was hesitant to clean older contact records, potentially impacting deliverability.
Outdated Subscription Management: Their existing preference center lacked flexibility, limiting consumers’ ability to control the type of communications they received.

Their goals were clear:

Improve segmentation with cleaner, enriched data.
Expand automation workflows to support lifecycle marketing.
Standardize mobile-friendly design across all templates.
Strengthen security by auditing users and enforcing 2FA.
Modernize subscription management with conditional preference centers.
Improve deliverability through proactive list hygiene.

The Solution: Optimizing Data, Workflows, and Mobile Design

emfluence partnered with Proven Winners to refine their platform setup and prepare for long-term scalability:

Data Cleanup & Segmentation: Enriched email contact records, added missing country codes for 140,000 SMS contacts, and prepared cleaner lists for targeted segmentation.
Automation Roadmap Planning: Designed use cases for 10+ new workflows, including onboarding, product education, promotional, and re-engagement campaigns.
Mobile-Friendly Templates: Reviewed existing templates for responsive design, rebuilding older versions and establishing standards for future campaigns.
List Cleanse Education: Introduced verification tools and conducted low-risk test cleanses to boost confidence before scaling.
Enhanced Preference Center: Provided options for conditional preference centers that adapt to contact attributes, allowing consumers more control over communications.
Click Map Reporting: Trained the team on using click maps to better understand engagement and inform design decisions.
User Review & Security Enforcement: Guided the team through a user audit and the adoption of two-factor authentication across all accounts.

The Impact: A Cleaner, Smarter Marketing Operation

Proven Winners has taken a proactive approach to scaling their marketing while maintaining a strong focus on data quality, design consistency, and security:

Their database is more accurate, with enriched fields enabling smarter segmentation.
Automation is no longer a future wish list item but a planned roadmap, with multiple new workflows set to launch.
Mobile optimization has improved with responsive, standardized templates.
Security risks are reduced through stricter access control and 2FA enforcement.
Consumers will soon have a more dynamic subscription experience through a modernized preference center.

“Proven Winners demonstrates how a high-volume consumer brand can evolve its marketing by focusing on data quality, automation, and customer experience. By refining their workflows and templates, they are ensuring their campaigns reach the right people, in the right format, at the right time.” — David Cacioppo, emfluence President/CEO

Looking Ahead: What’s Next for Proven Winners and emfluence

Dynamic Preference Center: Rolling out an updated, audience-specific opt-in/out experience.
Expanded Automation: Launching 10+ new workflows to improve engagement and lifecycle marketing.
List Hygiene: Scaling list verification tests across larger audience segments.
User Security: Continuing audits to minimize admin-level access and enforce best practices.
Mobile Optimization: Rebuilding older templates and maintaining responsive design standards for all campaigns.

The Bottom Line

Proven Winners is setting a strong example of how high-volume consumer brands can modernize their marketing operations. By addressing data hygiene, automation, mobile responsiveness, and user governance, the brand is building a scalable and secure foundation for continued growth. With emfluence, Proven Winners is well-positioned to engage its 1.2 million+ contacts with campaigns that are cleaner, smarter, and more impactful.

Learn More

Discover how emfluence can help your business manage high-volume communications, improve data quality, and scale with automation. Contact us today at marketingautomation@emfluence.com.