Global retailer maximizes growth opportunities through "micro-segmentation"

63%
of the total sales demand driven by High Value
5%
of the total sales demand driven by Low Value
7x
more sales
20%
increase in revenue per email (RPE)

From Cataloguer to a Multi-channel Web Retailer

This client is a global apparel brand founded 25 years ago. When the company launched, it focused on menswear products but, as it grew, it added women and children’s clothing lines and expanded its presence throughout Europe and the US.

The client’s revenue comes primarily from their website and mail order sales via their widely circulated catalogue. The brand’s catalogue is their predominant strategy for brand awareness but their sales are driven primarily by the web.

While the brand has been successful overseas and the company has reported continued sales growth, it needed to improve its response rates and achieve better margins. With these objectives in mind, they sought the help of Data Axle for strategic direction to improve its addressable marketing performance and marketing ROI.

“Data Axle had a one-of-a-kind approach; they dove in head-first into the mounds of data we collected, thought through every metric, evaluated every data point and came up with a uniquely relevant marketing opportunity framework that immediately identified our core audience segments. From there, they proposed numerous strategies to reach, engage and convert our customers, which would have tremendous impact on our bottom line.”

Head of Analytics and Strategic Planning

Key Outcome

Data Axle’s micro-segmentation strategy, designed to uncover the client’s most likely to respond customers

Solutions

Data analysis

Customer insights

Cross-channel marketing strategy

Vertical

Retail

Applications

Step 1: Analyzing the Data

At the start of the relationship, Data Axle’s Analytics and Insights team went through a rigorous discovery process with the client by initiating a comprehensive data analysis designed to identify, size and prioritize customer and market growth opportunities.

The result from this analysis was a three-dimensional custom framework that included three layers of customer data:

  • Total Annual Spend (how much money customers had spent with the brand)
  • Lifecycle stage (were they new, dormant, reactivated, or core customers)
  • Product category (did they purchase adult apparel, children’s apparel, or both )

This custom framework helped Data Axle’s team identify high-priority customer segments to dramatically impact the client’s marketing strategy, media spend and campaign performance.

Step 2: Identifying Areas of Opportunity

The three-dimensional framework based on customer total annual spend, lifecycle stage and product category preference, yielded 125 audience micro-segments and provided a massive opportunity to identify growth areas and maximize customer engagement and revenue. Data Axle’s Analytics & Insights team analyzed each of the 125 micro-segments to determine which ones were the most and least valuable and then developed communication strategies designed to maximize the return on investment of each segment.  Findings included:

  • 11% of the 125 micro-segments made up 23% of the total catalogue circulation and produced 63% of the revenue
  • 31% of the catalogue recipients only produced 5% of revenue
  • ‘High Value’ customers made up 20% of the client’s database but drove 62% of revenue
  • ‘Low Value’ customers made up 50% of the client’s database but contributed just 12% of revenue

Step 3: Developing Insights and Strategic Implications

With these significant findings in hand, the Data Axle team developed comprehensive strategy recommendations to capitalize on the client’s best customers and maximize brand revenue.

The team calculated that the client would have generated 7X more sales if they had removed the lower performing segments from their catalogue circulation (they comprised 31% of the total circulation) and invested that budget into targeting prospect lookalikes of their most valuable customers through addressable marketing channels.

“The work Data Axle did for us was invaluable in helping us better understand our audience, refine our marketing initiatives and capitalize on the many opportunities to optimize customer engagement and grow revenue. Thanks to the telling findings from the data analysis performed by Data Axle’s Insights and Analytics team, we are reworking our marketing programs and putting our customers at the core while focusing on relationship building.”

Head of Analytics and Strategic Planning
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