Jenny Craig’s Life Event Marketing
Birthdays can be bittersweet for individuals looking to lose weight. Not only are there extra candles on the cake, the guilt can be overwhelming as the butter cream frosting melts in the mouth.
That is, of course, if you’re not a Jenny Craig customer. The weight-loss company sends its customers offers for a free piece of Jenny Craig dessert when they’re faced with “that time of year.”
And the customer-friendly approach extends past that one-day event. Jenny Craig also hosts an eight-week program that provides tips and sets realistic to help customers face the psychological and physical challenges of losing weight.
And if you think you can sign up and sneak away quietly with no one noticing your departure, you’re wrong. The firm contacts its recently inactive customers who have been in contact for two weeks. They want you back.
With a database of roughly 3 million active and inactive names there are various points of data that the company use to achieve its CRM goals.
“We constantly look at variety of data points, how far clients are from the centers, what they buy, and where they go,” says Joe Beruta, director of CRM for Jenny Craig, Inc. “Then we try to use that information as triggers for us on how to talk to them with relevant messages and the right offer at the right time using the right marketing channel.“
What would be the right time? Oh, when a mom wants to lose a few pounds for her daughter’s wedding, or when someone is about to go to a high school reunion. These “captive audiences” are in a particular life stage or event, says Beruta. And when prospecting, the firm reaches individuals through partnerships with life-event marketing companies.
“We’re always looking for lead generation abilities and to capture new clients,” says Beruta. “At the same time we’re aiming to retain our customers.”
Prospecting
On the lead acquisition side, Beruta markets primarily to the female audience interested in weight loss at key stages in their lives. Pregnancy, weddings and reunions top the list.
“We need to be in those areas because they’re important for driving leads and new clients into the Jenny Craig business,” Beruta says.
For example, brides and grooms interested in losing weight for the big day and their lifetime photos would be reached through a partnership between Jenny Craig and theknot.com, a wedding planning Web site.
“Brides and grooms want to lose weight,” says Beruta. “They want to look their best and for us they’re a captive audience in terms of weight loss. So six to nine months out from the wedding date we purchase a list of brides and grooms from The Knot for e-mail or direct marketing purposes.”
And for those who have a few more pounds to lose and want to start earlier, they’re marketed as soon as they log on to the site by click through banner ads that Jenny Craig purchases on theknot.com.
Another captive audience for Jenny Craig’s targeted marketing is new mothers. When attending their first doctor visit six weeks after giving birth they have their first weigh-in.
“We found a group that does new parenting kits, First Moments, a division of Time Inc. and they are teamed up with 9,000 OB GYN offices across the U.S.,” Beruta says. “They give kits out to new mothers and in that kit we offer them a coupon for $15 off their first week of food in the program. It allows us to acquire new clients.”
Jenny Craig’s promotional insert is placed in the new parenting kit with eight to ten other vendors targeting new mothers—i.e. diaper and baby food companies. The Jenny Craig offer is designed to solicit a direct mail response from the prospective client, a phone call, or a visit to one of the company’s centers.
Another life event category revolves around reunions. Knowing that people want to look good at their reunions, Beruta forged a partnership with Classmates.com. On the Classmate site, banner ads drive traffic to the Jenny Craig site.
For both the wedding and reunion prospective clients, the firm sends a series of accelerated e-mail communications with offers to convert them to clients. The communications may begin with an introduction to the program and health benefits of losing weight and accelerate to an offer of a free day of food or cookbook to join the plan.
The Results
According to Beruta, the online registration has proven to be beneficial to the company with a response rate between 10-15% and online cost per registration conversion rate averaging 10-11 dollars.
On the whole, Beruta cites .06 – 1/2 percent conversion rate for the life marketing programs which began in 2003. The direct mail new mother program has an average response rate of .07%-1.75% with an ROI falling between 60-70%. The e-mail wedding program logs open rates of 10-20% and an average response rate of .05% -1.23%. That ROI is between 30% and 40%, he says.
The reunion program with classmates.com is utilized to drive traffic to the Jenny Craig site via banner ads. In any given quarter, Beruta cites between 1,500 and 2,000 registrants at a cost of $17 per registration.
Conversion rates for the programs vary based on the season and month. As for costs Beruta says that speaking to an audience at key times when they’re looking to lose weight pulls the cost per sale down to approximately $100 per acquisition. “In our business that’s very good and allows us a return on our investment,” he adds. “Return can be anywhere from 45 % up to 70 % and we average on the high end of that.”
