How e-mail is helping DSW Shoes step up its fashion image
DSW Shoes, a chain of more than 200 stores, is using e-mail newsletters to increase its image a fashion retailer and build relationships with customers as it expands its number of stores, Dave Sims, director of customer marketing for parent DSW Inc., tells InternetRetailer.com.
Using hosted e-mail software from Exact Target, DSW started sending out monthly newsletters in February, and it has already become a crucial part of its efforts to communicate with customers, along with newspaper circulars and TV ads, Sims says. “Our e-mail newsletter is an important part of the mix,” he says, adding that it goes beyond other forms of advertising in building relationships with customers. “The newsletter is all about reinforcing in the minds of customers that DSW is a place to get the hottest fashions, and a lot cheaper than at the mall.”
E-mail has also become a key method of communicating with customers who are members of DSW Reward Your Style loyalty program, which produces over 50% of DSW’s sales, Sims says. The loyalty program awards a $25 gift certificate for every $250 spent in DSW stores, and DSW will e-mail members to alert them when they’re close to reaching the $250 threshold, plus send them extra points for their birthday or other special offers.
The monthly newsletters, while informing customers about the latest fashions available in DSW stores, are also being used to elicit customer feedback. DSW merchandise pick what they think are some of the hottest new styles, then ask newsletter recipients to rate them as hot or not, Sims says. DSW, which sells only through its stores, then compares the ratings with store sales of the same styles, giving its managers information they can use to improve merchandising and marketing campaigns, he adds.
Although it’s too soon to show the impact of the newsletters on sales, Sims says he expects them to maintain or improve year-over-year growth rates that hit 19% in the most recent fiscal year and 22% in the fiscal fourth quarter ended January 28.
The newsletters are also enabling DSW to target far smaller groups of consumers as it reaches out to local groups of customers near its newest stores. The company is on a current pace of launching two or three stores per month.
Using newly segmented customer data in its data warehouse, DSW’s e-mailed newsletters can go to targeted lists based on one or more factors, such as their proximity to a new store or the past interest they’ve shown in a style currently promoted.
“Our marketing use to be one offer to 1.5 million people in our customer base,” Sims says. “Now we can do one to 10,000, and that feels pretty good.”
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