Case study: Growing indirect customer relationships

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By: Wise Marketer Staff |

Posted on October 15, 2008

Case study: Growing indirect customer relationships

Packard Bell has implemented a loyalty programme to consolidate and strengthen its long-term customer relationships, establishing direct relationships with customers who bought computers from bricks-and-mortar and online retailers.

The programme aims to engage customers with the Packard Bell brand from the outset. This is especially important for purchases made indirectly at retailers, where Packard Bell has little direct insight about consumers' preferences or buying patterns.

For example, shortly after a customer's initial purchase they register with Packard Bell and receive a "thank you" message along with an invitation to join the loyalty programme. Going forward, they regularly receive information, advice and special offers to help them maximise the use of their PC and other digital entertainment products; encouraging them to turn to Packard Bell for future purchases.

This is certainly a complex undertaking: each month, Packard Bell plans and executes more than 1,700 marketing campaigns in eight languages, across seven countries, using a database of 1.5m end users. Some communications are sent automatically: a thank-you email message the day after the purchase; a sales proposal three months after the activation of a security software trial; or a memory upgrade offer 23 months after a PC purchase. Other communications are scheduled independently, such as new product launches, seasonal offers or sales.

In order to achieve this, Packard Bell turned to Neolane to power intelligent direct marketing campaigns and execute Packard Bell's strategy to build more meaningful, long-term relationships with its indirect customer base. Neolane's solution enables Packard Bell's marketing team to perform segmentations and extractions according to numerous criteria including purchase date, purchase type, warranty expiration date and reactions to previous messages.

Text and images are integrated into the process. Neolane then automatically manages the page layout and personalisation. With the click of a button, the draft e-mail marketing message is submitted to different Packard Bell managers for validation. As approvals are received, Neolane executes personalised delivery to customers around the world.

Each individual message is tracked and Neolane provides real-time reporting on delivery, open, click and conversion rates. Neolane continues to feed the marketing datamart with information on reactions throughout the campaign. For example, customers interested in a particular offer, and who have indicated they prefer to be contacted by a sales representative, are channelled to the outbound phone CRM system. Recipients who do not respond to e-mail can be approached through another channel, such as direct mail.

Automated, targeted campaigns driven out of Neolane have achieved email open rates of 35% to 50% for over 98% of messages sent. On a recent phone campaign, Packard Bell achieved a 15% purchase conversion rate.

Neolane is integrated within Packard Bell's existing IT architecture. Interfacing with a centrally located CRM system, it is used by Packard Bell communications managers across multiple countries for B2C as well as B2B marketing via channels. The reporting function enables both an executive view of campaign performance and the ability to drill down to the country or campaign level. Local marketers can see their results and compare them to their colleagues', providing a rich source of exchange and insight in order to shape future campaigns.

Currently, the marketing teams at Packard Bell leverage the system to implement a complete cross-channel marketing strategy including: outbound phone calls for clicked but unconverted e-mails, detecting 'hot' prospects for different offers, and direct-mail follow-up for unopened e-mail messages. Longer term plans include the ability to trace final purchase acts incentivised by these personalised campaigns at the retail level. Messages will have barcodes in them that customers can print out and take to stores to take advantage of special offers, and redemption will be tracked by Neolane, enabling Packard Bell to monitor indirect sales precisely.

Through the loyalty programme, Packard Bell has been able to identify 33% of its customers - up from virtually zero pre-Neolane. Automated campaigns across eight languages garner email open rates of 35 to 50%. And in addition, average customer value is up 50% as repeat business driven by personalised campaigns grows.

More Info: 

http://www.neolane.com