This case study will look at how Sun & Ski Sports succeeded by using data to better target customers and increase their direct mail revenue by 50%.
Sun & Ski Sports wanted a more comprehensive view of its customers.
The sporting goods retailer wanted to know who its customers were. They also needed to know which marketing channels they were using and which were most effective for them.
Finding the right platform
Their challenge was to get all their data into one platform.
Sun & Ski decided to employ customer relationship management platform from AgilOne Inc. They have a platform that can incorporate and store ecommerce data in one repository.
Jennifer Skeen, senior vice president of omni-channel at Sun & Ski spoke at the National Retail Federation conference this month. She explained that the platform made it easy for them to pull reports and see trends.
Sun & Ski went live with the program in October 2018. Within the year, they identified their top priorities from both a marketing and software point of view.
Sun & Ski also hired a data analyst, a position it never had in the company before. The analyst’s job was to use the new platform and identify trends. This way, they were using the data to increase their revenue.
Testing and tweaking
For example, in spring 2019, Sun & Ski made some tweaks to the consumers who received its direct mail marketing pieces. In previous years, if Sun & Ski sent out a mailer, they measured its success by simply looking to see if its revenue increased over the previous year.
Their goal was using the data to tie the increased revenue directly to the campaign
Sun & Ski now has a better idea of who its customers are, where they are shopping for which products and how often.
They can now send the direct mail piece to a more targeted group of shoppers who would be interested in the product it is promoting. They can also break them down into active shoppers or shoppers who haven’t purchased in the past 6 months or 1 year.
Sun & Ski also will use control groups that don’t receive the mail piece, so it can compare the return on its ad spend and more accurately measure its success, Skeen said.
Direct mail works
With the data from the new campaigns, Sun & Ski has had a 50% increase in revenue attributed to direct mail, she said.
“Direct mail still works,” Skeen said. “I know all that’s talked about is our budget has gone to digital, but direct mail has a part in our world. It’s just how to make sure it’s optimized and the audience we are sending it to makes sense.”
Their goal for the next few months is to apply similar segmentation and controls to its social media and its email marketing. The new data will allow the retailer to better target shoppers.
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