Netherland’s Retailer Personalizes 98% of Outbound Email

I recently read a case study on one Holland retail giant with 84 million web visits a year from 1.5 million customers, they did what some might deem impossible. Wehkamp.nl began having one-on-one conversations with all 1.5 million customers. By doing so the mega retailer infused relevancy into its marketing campaigns on a massive scale and were rewarded with a 271 percent boost in sales per email blast.

The case study, by Responsys, discussed how the company with more than 100,000 products and 5 million shipments a year addressed the gap between old and new-school marketing. By partnering with data mining firms that could integrate its CRM data with core customer metrics, Wehkamp.nl could quickly and precisely send compelling content and product placements to customers based on their behavior and take it to a different level by aggregating the behavior of similar customers.

The Nuts and Bolts of Personalizing Emails

The email creative is built on a dynamic template. The VDP template eliminates the need to write and build hundreds of individual email versions. Relevant messaging and products are automatically filled into the header, call-to-action and body copy on a subscriber-by-subscriber basis at the time the email is sent.

The secret of the retailer’s personalization success is its ability to understand each customer’s motivations or needs and then build an automated targeting and personalization program around that insight. The program follows the standard site funnel: category or product list browsing (Browsed Overview Mail, or BOM), product detail browsing (Browsed Article Mail, or BAM) and product abandonment (Abandoned Cart Email or ACE). This approach is eloquently called “ACE, BAM, BOM.”

The data collection allows marketing to understand where a customer drops out of the purchase cycle and what that means. This information is used to reengage them. Layers of business knowledge are built into the system, therefore increasing the chance of conversion.

Wehkamp.nl’s leadership says the 98 percent personalization they’ve achieved with each customer drives immense value back into the business and sets the bar high for distance sellers and online retailers.

Personalization Results for Retailer

Wehkamp.nl’s personalized multi-channel program consistently performs at a 23 percent higher open rate than standard promos, a 68 percent higher click-through rate, a 67 percent lower opt-out rate, and a 271 percent higher sales-per-send ratio.

To overcome the issue of precise targeting vs. volume marketing, Wehkamp.nl taps its weekly intelligence of its email customers by compiling it into a Sunday circular, which features the best content and products of the week. Nearly two times the sale-per-send than standard promotional mailers demonstrate the effectiveness of this effort.

SOURCE:  IBM