eBags’ new online promotion with United.com is a hit
A new e-mail promotion by eBags and United.com was responsible for 10% of eBags’ sales in the first two days of the promotion, Peter Cobb, eBags vice president of marketing, tells Internet Retailer. The special e-mail offer, which launched last week, offers registered United.com users up to 4,000 bonus air miles when they book travel on United’s web site between Aug. 30 and Oct. 2. United.com users who then visit eBags.com receive additional 3,000 bonus miles and a 40% to 50% discount with a qualified luggage purchase on the site.
eBags, which relies on multiple-short-term e-mail promotions to spike sales, recently powered up its database analysis to further refine customer segmentation and e-mail marketing efforts. The company has developed its own software to more finely segment its customer base according to the recency, frequency and monetary size of their purchase behavior. “You give different messages to different customers,” says Cobb. “For someone that just purchased in the last six months, you thank them for their business and we appreciate it. For someone who hasn’t purchased in a year, you ask them to come back and say we’ve got some great new brands and fantastic new deals.”
Using the software, eBags last week launched a separate e-mail campaign that included 12 different messages to 12 unique customer segments in its database. eBags also has begun sending its own e-mails rather than using an outside vendor as it did formerly, says Cobb. “We were paying the service $30,000 to $40,000 a month, but we’re sending 3 million e-mails a month now,” he says. In fact, he adds, eBags is now handling the distribution of e-mail campaigns for other dot-com alliance partners as well. “It’s easy, once you have the servers, and the core competency, to send out an alliance partner’s e-mail campaign in return for some similar promotion,” Cobb says.
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