E-Zine Helps Readers Weather the Storm

Planalytics Inc. is keeping its eye on the weather. But it is not concerned with people who need an umbrella when there’s a chance of rain.

Planalytics helps retailers and manufacturers interpret how weather will impact their business. The firm uses a combination of historical and predictive analytics to predict—and help clients act on—weather-driven changes in supply, demand, and pricing.

For example, if next August it is expected to be five degrees warmer or cooler than last year, Planalytics will suggest that a retailer shift its fleece and/or linen to a geographically suited area. And it uses e-mail newsletters to educate clients on weather and business.

Planalytics launched its first e-mail newsletter, Flashweather, in 2002. The goal? To educate companies on how the weather affected their business, and to create awareness for its own products and services.

That it does.

“Flashweather drives a lot of the activity for our lead generation team,” says Amy Brackin, marketing director. “It is also a great outlet for us to the media. It’s a quotable source for them and it allows us to introduce the descriptive weather terms we’ve introduced to the market.”

This, in turn, familiarizes clients with the Planalytics products and services, she adds.

The company’s target market includes top retailers with seasonal product lines and seasonal products–anyone from Walmart to Home Depot.

“We also know that there is a high weather-influenced component in the consumer goods, energy and pharmaceutical markets,” says Brackin.

Initially, the newsletter was sent to an inhouse list of Planalytic’s top 200 retail prospects in markets it wanted to reach. The list has since expanded and other newsletters have been added. The target subscriber is in a company’s planning, marketing, finance and/or merchandising department.

An internal lead-generation team works to grow the Flashweather subscriber database. Referrals and trade show solicitations have also helped the list blossom. Distribution has more than doubled in the last two years from a starting point of about 5,000 subscribers to approximately 12,500, and has added another 3,000-to-4,000 retail subscribers.

“Our biggest mistake going in was that we tried to create a single version that we thought would meet the needs of all of our targets,” said Brackin. “We did that for about a year and then we realized that the value of the information really needed to be tailored to the business.”

Acting on that information, the firm has started six newsletters, each branded for different industries. The overall design and content are similar, but specific to the targeted industry. All newsletters are sent once a week on Monday.

Versioning

Flashweather for Retail provides a weekly Retail Weather Index that looks at the impact that weather has on the consumer, and how it affects the retail buying/selling environments. That e-zine is sent to both clients and prospects in the U.S. and abroad in four unique versions.

FlashweatherMD offers an Allergy Weather Index or a Cough/Cold Weather Index, depending upon the time of year. This newsletter focuses on “weather and health.” It serves the pharmaceutical industry, consumer packaged goods companies that provide sun care products and over-the-counter allergy and cold remedies. It also goes to grocers and drug stores that sell these products.

Flashweather for Utility Analysts provides a Power Weather Index that is a measurement of the relationship between energy prices and consumer demand. This newsletter is focused on the buy-side and sell-side analysts that concentrate on the Utility markets.

Planalytics uses Eloqua as its e-mail service provider. It relies on Eloqua’s tools to create, publish, distribute and track all email campaigns as well as the newsletters.

How does it know if it is successful? It tracks opens, visitors back to the Web site, form submittal and consistent usage. “For example, Flashweather for Retail open rates average slightly over 35% (consistently over the last 12 month period) and clickthroughs are 3.27%,” Brackin says. “And the e-newsletters are also well branded within the retail community and regularly quoted in the news media by national sources such as Bloomberg, CNN Money, and CBSMarketwatch.”

Being quoted in the media by reputable news outlets is proof to Brackin that she’s surmounted her biggest challenge. “We were unsure how the market viewed the weather and the challenges that the weather brought,” she says. “No one had done this before,” she says.

As for the newsletter, Brackin feels Planalytics has met its goals. “We’ve certainly created an awareness in the market and in the media,’ she says. “Additionally, we have educated the client base and prospect base to the point where Flashweather in the retail industry has become a house hold term.”