Frederick’s of Hollywood has improved its email and catalog targeting by segmenting it’s file with purchase-behavior based personas.
In the past, Frederick’s data was siloed—online, store and merchandising data was kept separately, meaning there was no 360 view of the customer. Now, with a fully-integrated database, the company now takes what Tracy Rhyan McCourt, vice president of multichannel marketing, describes as a “persona-lized approach to marketing.” While many marketers have traditionally relied on RFM analysis to gauge success, by definition that finds your best customers based on past purchases. The problem here, she says, is that RFM doesn’t take the current merchandise mix into account.
Instead, Fredericks takes the persona based approach, but defines it’s customers more by purchase behavior, rather than demographics. This means that the company looks at factors like whether a customer tends to purchase trendy items, or leans more towards everyday staples like panties and bras.
The personas targeted by Fredericks include the “Bra Enthusiast,” who is a mass market shopper and more likely to go to Target than Victoria’s Secret; the “Vixen,” who prefers high-ticket item and favor cutting edge fashion over value; and the “Fashionista,” a career woman who is also goes out to nightclubs and likes to show off her figure. The most loyal customer is the “360 Sexy Spender,” who buys across multiple categories.
At one point, Frederick’s was mailing over 20 million catalogs annually. That has been cutback to around 13 million. The company no longer mails full-size catalogs, except for Valentine’s Day and the holiday season. Instead, smaller catalogs targeting the tastes of different personas are sent—if someone typically buys clothing, 70% to 80% of the book would be dedicated to clothing, with the remainder offering compatible items like cleavage enhancing bras. This tactic is helpful in moving shoppers into the 360 level.
Realizing that multichannel customers are three times more valuable than single channel customers, email is being heavily used to encourage store traffic. Up to six differently targeted emails go out to various segments of the customer base each week, targeted to specific personas.
For example, an email targeting the Fashionista might feature date night dresses, with a 20% discount offer, while the Ultra Sexy persona would get outfits tailored to “hopeless romantics, vixens or trendsetters,” with enticements like free shipping.
To reach more customers via email, more accurate data capture was essential. McCourt, who spoke at the recent NEMOA fall conference, notes that an extremely easy place to do this is on the store locator page. Frederick’s offers customers who share their information a coupon for a free gift, redeemable in-store.
The vast majority of the company’s data capture is done at point of sale, however. This process was improved greatly by bringing store managers into the loop and explaining how it would ultimately help them and now siphon off their business to the web. Today, stores have a goal of capturing data from over 60% of their shoppers.
The company, which was founded in 1946, currently has 122 retail stores and gets two million ecommerce visitors per month. The Frederick’s Facebook page now has about 250,000 likes from a fanbase grown through efforts like encouraging sign-ups via Twitter with special offers as an incentive to join.
In the future, Frederick’s hope to delve deeper into the personas, looking at subsets of the segments. For example, the “Ultra Sexy” persona could be broken out to more specific subsets like women who are interested in basic black lingerie, while others might have more adventurous tastes.
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