West Village Market + Deli: From Monthly Email to a Real Community in Their Inbox
A beloved neighborhood market. A marketing refresh built around what they actually stand for.
Project Start: 2021 (Social Media), January 2025 (Website Refresh), November 2025 (Email Strategy Launch)
Location: Asheville, NC
When I first started working with West Village Market & Deli, it was to run their social media. That was back in 2021. From the first time I stepped foot in their store, it’s been clear that they aren’t a typical corner store situation.
West Village Market is the kind of place that has had a TerraCycle drop-off program way before people knew what “hard to recycle” means. The kind of place where the staff knows your name, where the values around sustainability, local sourcing, and community aren't just marketing language… they're baked into every decision they make.
They had the heart. They had the values. They had a loyal customer base who genuinely loved them.
What they had less of: a digital marketing strategy that actually reflected all of that.
So over the course of four-plus years, we built it. Piece by piece, channel by channel.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT | WEBSITE REFRESH | EMAIL MARKETING STRATEGY
Three Years of Social Media: Learning What Actually Works
I ran West Village Market's Instagram and Facebook for three years. And in that time, I learned something that would later shape the entire marketing strategy we built together:
Social media is great for engagement and cute storytelling. But it is not the most reliable way to actually reach your people.
Algorithms are unpredictable. Product posts have limited reach. And for a values-driven neighborhood market, the most important thing — communicating why they do what they do — was constantly getting swallowed by the feed.
Social media was doing its job. It just wasn't the right tool for every job.
And that became the foundation for everything that came next.
January 2025: The Website Refresh
Four years into running their social, it was time to make sure their website was keeping up.
West Village Market's site needed to do what every small business website should do: tell the right story to the right person, clearly and immediately. Whether someone was a longtime local or a first-time visitor who'd just heard about them, the site needed to communicate what makes this place different — and make it easy to find what they came for.
We refreshed westvillagemarket.com to better reflect who they actually are: a community-rooted, sustainability-minded, people-first neighborhood market and deli that is genuinely, meaningfully different from the big grocery store down the road.
Additionally, we improved SEO, installed a better way for interested customers to join their mailing list and find information about their programs. We integrated their Google Business Profile reviews so people could see their trustworthiness and their role in the community.
November 2025: The Part Where Things Got Really Interesting
In November 2025, we reengaged to tackle something I'd been thinking about for a while: their email marketing.
Here's what the situation looked like going in:
West Village Market had a list of around 4,000 subscribers and was sending one email a month. That email was essentially a sales flyer — this month’s deals, formatted like a brochure.
And the numbers showed it.
2024 average open rate: 31% (benchmark across all industries is 35.63%)
2024 average click rate: 0.53% (benchmark across all industries is 2.62%)
Those aren't bad numbers, exactly. 30% is below average, but about what I would expect for that type of product-driven sales email. But they weren't telling the whole story of what West Village Market could be in someone's inbox, and more importantly - how much their customers love them, which was clear from their significantly lower than I like to see click rate.
Because West Village Market isn't just a place to shop. It's a place that will teach you how to compost. That highlights local nonprofits. That shares recipes and green home living tips and genuinely gives a darn about the planet and the people in its community.
That wasn’t coming through clearly in their emails, and people weren’t getting anything they wanted to engage with. And that meant their most loyal customers — the ones already on the list — were only ever hearing about sales. Not about values. Not about community. Not about the ten reasons they chose this market in the first place.
So we changed the whole approach.
How we transformed their marketing approach with values-forward emails
Switched email platforms to Kit.com for better deliverability (landing in the primary inbox, not promotions), interactive features like polls, and stronger segmentation tools for the future.
Increased send frequency to 2–4 emails per month — but made each one shorter, more focused, and worth opening. Instead of one packed flyer, customers now get regular, digestible touchpoints that feel like a message from someone they know.
Email subscriber re-engagement & spring cleaning. They’ve been in their current brick and mortar location since 2009. A solid portion of their email list had gone cold over the years, and their deliverability was suffering for it. So we made a strategy to re-energize people who still wanted to be there, and clean out folks who had likely long since stopped checking their email accounts, or possibly moved out of the area.
Shifted the content strategy entirely. Sales are still in there, of course! But now the emails also include recipes, sustainability tips for home, local nonprofit highlights, store stories, and community updates. The emails feel less like advertising and more like being part of something.
Created a dedicated TerraCycle email segment so their sustainability-focused customers get consistent, on-brand communication about the program they're already passionate about.
Built a welcome email funnel so new Frequent Shopper Program sign-ups are actually welcomed — introduced to the store's values, what makes WVM different, and what to look forward to — instead of just being added to a list and left on read.
The Before & After
✅ Open rate jumped from 31% → 56.4% (nearly double)
✅ Click rate jumped from 0.53% → 2.29% (more than quadruple!)
✅ Emails now reflect the full values and personality of the store
✅ Customers have a real relationship with the brand, not just a coupon list
✅ New subscribers are welcomed with intention and warmth
✅ TerraCycle community has consistent, branded communication
❌ One email a month, formatted like a sale flyer
❌ 31% open rate, 0.53% clicks
❌ Emails didn't reflect WVM's values around sustainability, community, or local connection
❌ New subscribers got no welcome — just silence until the next sale
❌ Social media carrying the weight of a job it wasn't built for
The Moment It Really Became Real
You can look at open rates and click rates… and honestly, those numbers are genuinely exciting! Nearly doubling your open rate and quadrupling your click rate in a matter of months is real, measurable proof that something shifted.
But the moment I knew we'd gotten it right wasn't a dashboard number.
It was a note.
After reading the Brand Essence Guide that would be used to create all email content:
"Lark thank you so much for doing this. It's awesome… and makes me proud to own the place!!"
And then, after sending one of the first newsletters under the new strategy, this came through:
"Lark, you nailed it on this most recent newsletter! You've got a great way of putting things!"
That's the thing about email marketing when it's done right. It doesn't just improve your metrics. It makes you proud of your business and the work that you do. It gives your customers a reason to look forward to hearing from you. It turns your list from a contact database into an actual community.
West Village Market always had something worth saying. Now their inbox reflects it.
What Made It All Work
West Village Market didn't see these results because we sent more emails. They saw them because we stopped treating email like a flyer and started treating it like a relationship.
The strategy shift was simple at its core: use each marketing channel for what it's actually good at. Social media for real-time moments and in-person energy. The website for the full brand story. Email for consistent, direct, values-forward communication with the people who already love you.
When your email list feels like a community instead of a broadcast list, people open it. They click. They come back in.
31% to 56.4%. 0.53% to 2.29%. Four years of partnership. One neighborhood market that was always worth knowing, and now has the digital presence to prove it. 🛒
Spoiler alert: this could be you & me.
Whether you're launching from scratch, stepping into a new chapter, or finally ready to stop spiraling and start showing up… I'd love to hear about it.
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