Christmas comes early for email in retail

Mark Hales, Experian

Thu, 25-08-2011 05:30

October, November, December – the so called ‘golden quarter’ for retailers… but in these uncertain economic times, will we see more losers than winners? In the past couple of years Online has been the big success story, but even here this year promises to be challenging.

One key to success will be the retailer’s customer base. Going into this crucial period it is imperative that the customer base is where it’s supposed to be, and ideally exceeding target. Even more important is the profile of those customers. Has the retailer recruited the ‘target’ customer and will their behaviour be as expected this quarter? And then the million dollar question: will they stay loyal?

My early Christmas present – ok, piece of advice – is use email, and use it now. Why, you ask?

Well first let’s consider all those customers you have on your base. You need these customers trading and so you need your promotions put in front of them. Email is a fantastic channel for putting the right promotion in front of the right customer at the right time. Yes folks, personalisation!

Before you can do this though you need a valid email address, so tip number one is use an e-append service to fill in any missing email addresses or update those that are no longer valid. Coincidently you can also reverse append. Add a postal address to an email address.  You need as many of your existing customers as possible seeing your promotions, so correct contact details are essential.

My second tip is particularly relevant if the number of trading customers is not where you as the retailer expected it to be going into this crucial period: use email as an acquisition channel.

The great thing about email acquisition is the immediacy of it. Campaigns can be set up and run in days and you only target prospects, and your existing customers can be de-duped. This is not as easy in other online channels.

More importantly the retailer can obtain ‘target’ customers through email acquisition. Simply profile the best performing customers in your database, and make sure that profile is used when putting together a target list with your email list vendor.

Put these two tips in place now and although a successful Christmas is not guaranteed, it’s certainly more likely. Merry Christmas!

Mark Hales works within Experian as a Digital Consultant and has held several senior online roles within the home shopping and recruitment sectors. Specialising in digital acquisition with a keen interest in new technology, Mark is an evangelist on how data should be at the heart of digital strategies.