Leveraging data from customers’ in-store and online activities to create more personalized email communications, Finish Line has expanded its customer base while simultaneously boosting open rates by more than 15%.
“We’re using as much data as we can to send emails that are as personalized and to the point as we can,” said Scott Posilkin, CRM and Retention Digital Email Strategist for the sports and activewear apparel and footwear retailer. The result is that Finish Line is reaching more customers in segments the company is targeting, without suffering reductions in either click-through rates or open rates.
“Customers are engaging with the messages we’re sending them,” said Posilkin in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “At the end of the day I want to drive revenue, but if I engage the customer, revenue is kind of a natural result.
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Combining Online And Offline Data Streams
Finish Line leverages the StoreFront Edition of SmarterHQ to bring together both in-store and digital customer data. StoreFront captures and analyzes consumer data from retailers’ in-store order management systems as well as their web sites to provide a view of what each customer is buying, browsing for or returning, as well as whether customers are shopping online, offline or in both channels.
The solution “has allowed us to truly understand our customers like never before,” said Posilkin. “We can access real-time online and offline transactional and behavioral data to make our communications more relevant or even see who is browsing online and then converting in-store.”
For example, if a customer buys a Nike running shoe in a Finish Line store, she will receive a Nike-themed post-purchase email: “We might recommend products that we think might be a good next purchase, or that would complement the existing purchase,” said Posilkin. Members of the retailer’s Winner’s Circle loyalty program also receive personalized communications, informing them how many points their recent purchase earned them and how close they are to their next reward.
While Finish Line makes use of its loyalty program to gather some customer data, “the main way we’re gathering in-store data is through SmarterHQ,” said Posilkin. The retailer has been using the solution for several years, but it has only recently ramped up its levels of targeting and personalization. “We have thousands of customers that we didn’t have before, and we’ve seen a greater than 15% open rate increase,” he noted.
The ability to personalize communications based not just on who a customer is but also on what he or she does is becoming a table stakes capability. “Customers are expecting the personalization, they are expecting to get emails that are relevant to them,” said Posilkin. “It’s happening even without consumers consciously realizing it. They will only open things where they have seen there’s a value for them — or when they can be convinced that there is a value.”
