Personalised trigger mail concept is leading to customer retention and boosting sales

Case study

With its sophisticated trigger mail concept, international online shop operator babymarkt is focused on important occasions in the lives of its customers and provides them with the exact information that they need in that moment – personalised and automated. Appropriately placed coupons support buying activities.

Practical example

Requirements

Event-related communication with coupons – worldwide for all online shops

babymarkt is one of the leading online retailers for baby and children’s products. Customers collect purchase points with the babypoints loyalty programme, which can be used for future orders. The programme is supplemented by exclusive prize draws and other campaigns in combination with coupons. Thanks to the positive experiences, babymarkt is looking to increase event-related communication with coupons throukeghout the customer lifecycle – for both registered customers and guest customers who should be supported in the best possible way in the phases following their purchase. Automated mailings should be used to efficiently support sales after purchases have been made and help maintain the customer relationship.

The international nature and the different ways that specific countries operate makes it particularly important that each country can create its own mailings, which are to be checked and approved centrally before being sent. It is also important to keep track of coupon codes that have been sent, redeemed or have expired – and to do so in all countries. This and other requirements are where the Inxmail Professional email marketing solution comes in handy.

Implementation

The customer journey is the main focus of the email marketing

Customers are not required to register with the babypoints loyalty programme in order to use coupons when purchasing products. babymarkt provides coupons for specific occasions, via its regular newsletters as well as in the post-purchase phase for both active customers and for personal occasions (such as birthdays or the birth of a child). The corresponding personal data is provided voluntarily and can be edited at any time. As a result, the customer receives various trigger mails, such as the weekly pregnancy newsletter, the toddler newsletter following childbirth or the birthday mailing.

The coupons can only be redeemed in the online shop. Points can be collected both online and in store. babypoints that have been collected can be redeemed against any purchases.

Depending on whether or not the customer is participating in the loyalty programme, the mailings and the newsletter contain target group-specific content. The personalised content (for example, number of points or exclusive offers) ensures that the customer receives content that is relevant to them and they are fully engaged on their customer journey.

Solution

Shop system and Inxmail Professional go hand-in-hand

babymarkt records and collects all customer data in an in-house-developed shop system. From there, the data that is relevant for the email marketing is automatically transferred to the corresponding recipient list in Inxmail Professional. Customers automatically receive specific mailings based on selected criteria (such as birthday, date of delivery, purchase date). There are currently a total of nine trigger mails in all countries, which, in some ways, are very extensive and multi-stage, such as the toddler or pregnancy newsletter.

The coupon plug-in simplifies the use of individual coupon codes, which are used in multiple countries and are valid for two weeks after the customer receives them. babymarkt places the codes in the shop system and they are transferred automatically to Inxmail Professional via the plug-in. Inxmail Professional informs employees in the marketing department in good time via email when not enough coupon codes are available or are expiring and new codes need to be generated in the shop system. In turn, the shop system detects when expired coupons are used when placing orders.

All this comes together at the headquarters in Germany. While every country uses their own mailing list, approval is required from Germany prior to dispatch. The coupon codes are also managed centrally by the German marketing department. The approval process and the coupon plug-in in Inxmail Professional provide the perfect support for this way of working and provide the necessary overview of all activities.

Results

Relevance, personalisation and automation ensure success

There’s no question that coupons are an important tool in sales but they alone, are not the key to making customers happy or loyal to the brand. The more relevant the content, the better the mailings perform – which is why babymarkt is investing a lot of time in the evaluation of the trigger mails and newsletter. What content is clicked on and when? This leads to constant optimisation, especially with the pregnancy newsletter. The click behaviour does a great job of showing what information is important and interesting to the reader. The newsletter is also constantly undergoing improvements. The continuous effort was well worth it with an overage open rate of 85 per cent for the pregnancy newsletter.

The very positive key figures (such as open rate and click rate) demonstrate that the trigger concept works. The same goes for the newsletter, which babymarkt normally sends out four times a week. The events communicated in the newsletter impart relevance and lead to a higher open and click rate than the regular mailing content. On the other hand, the post-purchase mail guarantees the best conversion rate among the trigger mails.

Naturally, an extremely large amount of effort was required to set up the trigger concept. But it was well worth it: The personalised mailings are working seamlessly and automatically in all countries. This allows babymarkt to invest more resources in the analysis and optimisation of the existing mailings and develop new communication concepts throughout the customer journey.

 

Benefits at a glance

  • Efficient and effective processes: We are there with the customer every step of the way to provide a personalised customer journey, which means they automatically receive the right email at the right time.
  • Implementing international email marketing campaigns without any problems: Approval processes and the centrally managed coupon plug-in ensure that the right information is sent to customers.
  • Automated processes free up resources for new communication concepts and for the optimisation of campaigns that are already running.
  • Relevant, personalised and individual mailing content lead to higher open and click rates.

About babymarkt

From a small baby products store to an international online store for baby and child products: It’s hard to believe that babymarkt.de was once a small shop on eBay. Today, the Bochum-based company is one of the leading online specialist retailers in this sector and is growing rapidly in Germany as well as internationally. Over 450 employees are hard at work everyday to ensure that everything is running smoothly. In our online shops, we focus on strong brands and quality in combination with affordable prices and quick delivery times.

www.babymarkt.de
 

 

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