Birthday Coming Up?

Last Updated on Sunday, 2 August 2009 10:22 Written by Kevin Friday, 5 June 2009 10:05

Marketing people like to be creative. Some will not openly admit that they loathe data because it’s just not fun to look at spreadsheets, graphs, and charts compared to designing an animation for a website.

However, creatively using data about customers can contribute to the customer’s experience in so many ways.

For example, there’s nothing easier than sending a birthday card to your best customers. That doesn’t mean a birthday card should be sent to every customer because data show that below-average customers know the sentiment is hollow; they know they don’t shop enough to warrant a birthday card. In addition, below-average customers spend too little anyway and the result is a negative ROI.

But when you send a creative, relevant, personalized birthday card with a gift that has no catch to a good customer, it pays dividends in relationship building that goes beyond that day’s transaction.

Data from a major retailer in the US shows that your best customers (i.e. top 30%), when they redeem their birthday gifts, will spend even more. They’ll purchase things they normally wouldn’t as a treat for themselves and they’ll buy more than usual in gratitude. They’ll walk the store, discover new merchandise and ‘connect’ more.

Using loyalty data in this way goes way beyond crunching numbers…

Real-world Case Studies

UK supermarket giant Sainsburys talked to each of its 4.5 million ‘Nector Card’ customers with an image personalized postcard mailer right on their birthday. Printed digitally with a volume of about 400,000 pieces each month.

I. The Task: Customer Care

• Gift vouchers are a good means to attract customers and are frequently redeemed.
• Sainsburys sends a mailer to each known customer, right on his or her birthday – the information about birth dates comes from the customer database.
• The mailer includes a voucher with one of the customer´s favorite products as birthday gift. These customer preferences are taken also from the customer database.

II. The Features: Outstanding Personalization

• Image personalization
  The Sainsbury´s birthday mailers impressed clients at first sight using image personalization on the front cover. Each customer´s name was integrated in a photo design in a highly realistic way. Using the latest variable print technology a highly emotional and personal look could be created, that showed customers at first sight that Sainsburys cares about them.

• Full document customization
  Additionally, each mailer was adapted to each client, not just by the customers name in the image but also by using different fonts for different age groups and by printing in an individual product as a present, including both product image and text. Also an individual e-voucher number allows fast and simple redeeming at the cash desk. The redeeming is tracked and the data are automatically sent back to the loyalty program database.

III. The Results: 40% Conversion Rate!

• The redemption rate of the coupons has risen to a stunning 40%!
• Based on the experience of previous campaigns, the return-on-investment increased by 25.5 % and revenues leapt by 110 % and gift redemption by 39 %.

It’s already started Downunder

Myer, a major retail chain in Australia has reportedly been monitoring the Sainsbury experience. Just recently they announced their decision to slash their traditional mass advertising budget, instead sending targeted direct mailers to their 2.7 million Myer One card holders. (Myer gold customers should expect birthday promotions to start soon).

It’s a smart move which should save them millions in traditional TV and Newsprint ads, whilst paying huge dividends at the cash register. Read more about Myer’s plans here

Rafi Case Studies

For yet another highly response birthday-related case study we liked was out of Israel and outlined by Rafi Albo in his workshops here late last year. Check out our 5 min Rafi WOW Factor Video

Untapped Small Business Opportunities too

All this isn’t just for big budget retailers. Small business owners have immense opportunities by building up a database and better tracking their clients purchase patterns. Restaurants, as well as many health and beauty salon owners have the biggest opportunities.

Don’t forget that the aim here is to build up a history of your customer behavior and preferences. Finding out how they want to be communicated with is important too. If they prefer to be contacted by email or SMS text message, that’s fine. Often using more than one channel provides the best results. Ensure your marketing strategy and infrastructure allows for this.

The purpose of a good loyalty program is not points or rewards or plastic cards or discounts. These are just means to an end.

Loyalty programs are about discovering who the best customers are, and to track their behavior, find out their preferences, cater to those preferences and keep two-way communication going. The result should be an ever-stronger relationship with customers that increases frequency, per-cheque revenue, marketing efficiency and competitive advantage.