Email marketing connects online and offline shopping and guarantees customer retention across all channels

Case study

Europe’s largest shoe retailer is winning over customers and fulfilling their requirements at different customer touchpoints – like bricks-and-mortar stores and its online shop – through its customer loyalty programme, Deichmann PLUS, in Austria. This programme is based on cross-channel, precisely coordinated communication with customers and prospective customers. Email marketing takes on a crucial role as the interface between online and offline shopping. Email campaigns are oriented towards customers’ purchasing behaviour. This ensures that the content is always highly relevant to them and guarantees long-term customer retention.

Practical example

Requirements

Mailings along the customer journey

As an omnichannel provider, Deichmann wants to offer its customers a seamless brand experience across all channels. Maintaining a consistent image across all brands and countries is particularly important. As Europe’s largest shoe retailer, Deichmann is represented in 27 countries and operates 40 online shops. Several systems that provide the email marketing solution with different data are used for active email marketing in a number of countries.

All product information should be delivered to the target group as standardised and up-to-date – not to mention automatically included in the newsletter where possible. Depending on their requirements and purchasing behaviour, the customer can receive customised vouchers and coupons that are easily integrated in the mailings. A global blacklist must comprehensively document and synchronise all unsubscriptions, and thus ensure a high degree of legal certainty.

In order to fulfil all these requirements, the email marketing solution Inxmail Professional has to fit in flexibly with the existing system landscape.

Implementation

Customer retention across all channels

At Deichmann, email marketing constitutes the interface between online and offline channels. Mailings sent as part of the customer loyalty programme address the customer in line with their requirements and purchasing behaviour – for example, with exclusive offers in the newsletter, personalised follow-up campaigns and previews of new collections. Recipients can either redeem customised vouchers and coupons in bricks-and-mortar stores or in the online shop while also using their loyalty card.

The mailing template design is oriented towards individual countries and brands, ensuring a consistent brand image and high brand recognition among recipients. The product information sent to customers is always up-to-date and consistent across all channels. A content app developed specially for Deichmann manages it in the background.

If a recipient unsubscribes, they will no longer receive mailings and newsletters in future. This applies internationally and across all brands.

Solution

Array of systems in use

Deichmann collects all customer and user data from different systems in its inhouse-developed CRM and campaign tool. The Inxmail Professional email marketing solution shares all relevant recipient and campaign data with the CRM system, campaign management tool, online shop, web analysis tool and product database. Inxmail Professional was connected to all participating systems to create the ideal basis for Deichmann’s extensive omnichannel approach.

Recipient data for mailings is selected in the CRM and transferred to Inxmail Professional. Dispatch is carried out from here. Important recipient data (for example, unsubscription, bounce and click behaviour) is then sent back to the CRM system.

The content app, whichis fed prices, texts, images and other product information from the product database, forms the heart of the system. It prepares data for the mailing template. The editor only has to type the product number into the template, and depending on the display in the newsletter or the country, the necessary information is drawn automatically from the app. This allows the editor to create the newsletter using content from the product database within no time at all and with just a few clicks. The voucher plugin in conjunction with Inxmail Professional automatically creates personalised coupons and integrates them in the mailings.

Using an international and cross-brand mailing template gives rise to a consistent brand image with high brand recognition across all channels.

Results

Suitable offers in mailings ensure customer retention

Orienting email marketing to the customer journey and the omnichannel concept has had many benefits at Deichmann. The Group noted significant growth rates on its online shops in 2018.

Automated processes between the different participating systems has reduced the workload for Deichmann employees, while ensuring that the right content reaches the customer at the right time. Mailings throughout the customer journey ensure that content remains highly relevant as well as guaranteeing long-term customer retention.

The editor is now able to create the newsletter using content from the product database within no time at all, while enjoying the certainty that product information is always up-to-date and displayed consistently to the recipient.

 

Benefits at a glance

  • Flexible integration of the Inxmail Professional email marketing solution into the existing system landscape
  • Automated processes between the different participating systems reduces the workload involved in creating personalised mailings and newsletters
  • Email marketing connects online and offline channels and wins over customers at all customer touchpoints based on their needs
  • Increase in customer loyalty and shop sales
  • Uniform image across all countries and regions and within individual markets to strengthen the recognition effect and brand value
  • Global blacklist ensures utmost legal certainty

About Deichmann

DEICHMANN SE, based in Essen, Germany, was founded in 1913. It is a one-hundred percent family-operated company and is currently managed by the third generation of its founding family.

DEICHMANN is Europe’s leading shoe retailer. From sporty, to casual, right through to sophisticated – customers will always find the right style for the whole family at a reasonable price at DEICHMANN.

The DEICHMANN Group is currently represented in 27 countries and sells over 178 million pairs of shoes per year in over 4,000 bricks-and-mortar stores and on 40 online shops. The Group employs over 40,000 employees across the globe – 16,000 of whom are based in Germany.

www.deichmann.com

You can find more information on the solutions used by Deichmann here.

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