Health and beauty products marketer L'Occitane has freshened up its direct marketing. It recently promoted Charles De Gruchy to director of direct marketing and sales, a newly created position, and was scheduled to have finished its first direct mail campaign aimed at corporate gift buyers.
Plans called for a 134,000-postcard mailing to start L'Occitane's effort. Roughly 14,000 names were taken from lists of gift buyers the company culled from its retail operations over the past three years. A 25,000-piece initial mailing was set for Aug. 25, with the balance due to have been released Sept. 6.
The postcards offer only a toll-free number (800-357-8028) as a response mechanism. A Web site that caters to B-to-B orders wasn't ready when the postcards were printed, but was scheduled to go live Aug. 30.
L'Occitane operates a 12-seat call center, and has devoted two chairs to outbound B-to-B telemarketing to existing customers, with the rest of the staff dedicated to fielding inbound inquiries.
The prospect names were rented from Direct Media Inc., and were pulled from more than 20 sources, such as paper product, specialty item and food marketers, as well as department store files, using an employee-size select.
To further the likelihood of reaching the right individual, the postcard offers a premium — a free goodies basket — to both the person responsible for corporate gifts as well as the postcard recipient, should they be different people.
Targets phoning the call center receive a full-color, 16-page corporate gift catalog that was specially designed for the campaign. While the catalog depicts only a small portion of L'Occitane's wares, items selected include those that appeal to both men and women. Additionally, products that wouldn't make an appropriate gift in a professional setting were down-played, if not eliminated.
One area De Gruchy shied away from was compiled lists. “Historically I have not found compiled files to be very successful,” said De Gruchy, who investigated them while working at Grey Direct.
While he would not speculate on the campaign's anticipated response rate, L'Occitane preprinted enough catalogs to fulfill a 2% response rate — just under 3,000 books. But the turnaround time to print more is only four days, and De Gruchy is sure he can satisfy a much higher number of requests.
L'Occitane timed the August-September campaign to allow companies enough leeway to receive and redistribute the gift packages before the December holiday season. This effort likely will be followed by a spring mailing. De Gruchy chose to schedule the next campaign at that time based on analysis of when customers ordered gift packages through retail outlets in years past.
The program marks the first time the New York beauty and personal care products firm has reached out to corporate gift buyers in a direct mail campaign. Until now, it has relied primarily on outbound telemarketing and in-store promotions.
De Gruchy previously had served as senior marketing manager at L'Occitane. De Gruchy brought direct experience both from Grey Direct and his own agency when he joined L'Occitane more than a year ago.
L'Occitane Goes Corporate
Campaign: Corporate Gift Buyer Mailer
Time frame: Late August through September
Annual DM budget: Low double-digit millions
Media: Advance postcard, catalog, inbound telemarketing
List provider: Direct Media Inc.
