Online marketing has evolved with time and experience-–and so has Eddie Bauer’s e-mail marketing strategy. While the multi-channel retailer’s e-mail promotion efforts have until now focused on driving sales in the online channel, going forward, Eddie Bauer will also be putting its active, opt-in e-mail list of more than 2 million to work in cross-channel marketing, e-commerce marketing director Parker Block tells InternetRetailer.com.
The goal is to use e-mail to reach customers in a new, more personalized way, Block says. For example, the most direct contact Eddie Bauer has with customers is through sales associates and managers in its more than 400 stores. Block says e-mail could be used to allow store managers to thank a customer for a store purchase and determine how they liked the product, in addition to letting customers know about any upcoming store events.
“We know from our direct marketing experience that the customers who are most likely to buy from you are those who have purchased from you recently,” says Block. “Ensuring that those customers are satisfied with their most recent experience is the best way of getting them to come back into the store. Overall, that will be the goal of e-mail promotion going forward.” Block says new cross-channel e-mail initiatives will likely be tested out in selected store locations over the next few quarters and rolled out on a larger scale in 2004.
With the online channel for some time Eddie Bauer’s fastest-growing channel, the company will continue to grow that business, Block adds. However, the use of e-mail promotion in cross-channel marketing is part of a larger recognition that the mono-channel shopper is increasingly a thing of the past. “We see more of our customers shopping in different ways-–getting e-mail and then going into the stores, getting our catalogs and then going online,” says Block. “One medium is driving business into another. Customers still have their preferences in where they buy, but now they have the opportunity to interact with the brand in many more ways. Understanding that has brought us to the realization that we need to market to the customer in ways that support this.”
Back...
