PERSONAL bests 1005

Postcards Get Foot in Door

Variable data marketing holds great potential, especially for retail business applications that can connect personalized communication with buying patterns. Shoe Carnival (www.shoecarnival.com) tapped the technology for a successful traffic generation campaign based on an existing loyalty program. Shoe Carnival is a multi-state discount shoe retail chain with more than 250 stores in the South and Midwest.

[ The Proposed Solution ]

A direct mail campaign was developed targeting members of the chain's Savings Club, and personalized messages were to be communicated via colorful postcards. The objective was to reconnect with those loyalty club customers who had not visited a Shoe Carnival store in 60 days or more. The mailer reminded members about the benefits of the Savings Club, provided an update on their account status and offered these inactive customers an incentive to make a return visit within a fixed period of time.

The project combined the talents of three specialized organizations. From the retailer side, Shoe Carnival's marketing, creative, information technology and finance departments were all involved. Group 3 Marketing (www.group3marketing.com), a relationship marketing company, helps clients like Shoe Carnival create customized customer acquisition and retention programs. Group 3 Marketing maintains the database of high-spending customers who have opted into a promotional program called the Savings Club for Shoe Carnival.

Members of the club earn points on their purchases and receive extra bonus points for participating in incentive programs such as shopping on Tuesdays. Group 3 would be responsible for collecting and managing mailer response data for tracking and analysis. MaximumGraphics, a Consolidated Graphics company (www.cgx.com) and a high-quality printer with mailing and fulfillment operations, provided document production and related services for the mailer campaign.

[ Variable Data Elements ]

The postcards included a variety of information about each recipient based on data stored in the existing Savings Club database. Variable data elements included the member's name, Savings Club ID number, mailing information, point balance, date of last visit and the number of points needed to earn the next reward. Also offered was a savings discount that had to be redeemed by a certain date.

The informative reminder gave club members an incentive to continue accruing points towards rewards by making a purchase at Shoe Carnival. The card also contained a bar code to help the marketing team track responses from the mailing.

[ How It Was Produced ]

More than 10,000 postcards were printed and distributed. The mailing design was a 4x6˝ high gloss, full-color postcard with a note to each recipient, the summary of their recent shopping activity and related points, as well as the savings discount. Postcard mailers like these can typically cost about 33 cents to 36 cents each, including Standard Class A postage, depending upon the number mailed. The high-impact pieces were produced on a Kodak NexPress 2100 digital color printer, using FoxPro and Datalogics DR Formatter software. A Heidelberg Polar cutter was used for finishing.

[ The Results ]

This mailing was the first time Shoe Carnival had reached out to inactive customers in a formal way, and it proved well worth the effort. The retailer reported significant results from the personalized campaign. Ten days after the November mail date, 1,120 recipients had shopped in the stores, and 80 had shopped in more than one store in the chain. The shoppers spent an average of $55.88.

By early January, the number of returning shoppers had increased to 2,679, bringing the response rate to more than 26 percent. By the end of the promotional period, after subtracting the money allocated to discounts, the chain's sales attributable to the campaign were more than $200,000. The total cost of the project was $3,400, so Shoe Carnival realized a significant return on investment.

Nick Blessinger, the chain's marketing manager, said the promotional campaign's success was enough to encourage the company to try other such promotions in the future. Group 3 continues to work closely with Shoe Carnival and evaluate potential new opportunities to connect with customers.

"We are constantly analyzing results and working with their marketing team to better communicate with the Savings Club members," notes Bart Foreman, president of Group 3 Marketing. "What we have learned is that no two programs are the same, and each model needs to be carefully designed to meet the needs of the client, which are driven by many interrelated factors."

With a constantly changing array of promotional offers, seasonal changes and ever-evolving fashion trends, Shoe Carnival will never be at a loss for good news to share with its Savings Club customers.

This case study comes from PODi's annual Best Practices in Digital Print research, the largest collection ever assembled of successful digital printing projects. PODi is an industry initiative with hundreds of member companies including executive board members EFI, HP, IBM, Kodak, Pitney Bowes, Quark and Xerox. Membership in PODi is open to most organizations involved in digital printing. For more information on joining PODi or submitting your own case study, visit www.mypodi.org/pi1.