MARKETING AUTOMATION CREATES CONVERSION URGENCY SECRETSALES offers flash sales of products from hundreds of leading brands.
COMPANY SECRETSALES WEBSITE www.secretsales.com INDUSTRY Retail The Customer SECRETSALES is a members only site offering deep discounts on brand name merchandise across menswear, accessories, health, beauty and cosmetics, and housewares. They work with over 1500 brands and designers who recognize it is an efficient platform to sell excess stock and achieve a quick revenue stream while not interfering with their seasonal integrity. As a result, SECRETSALES is able to pass on the benefit to their members and offer discounts up to 70% on name brand products. The company is growing at astronomical rates, increasing members and adding brands and products. Hundreds of daily sales are launched every month, but each sale is only live for a few days. So at any one moment there is a constant stream of campaigns announcing new sales, reminding members about expiring sales, and confirming orders and shipments. Email is the primary vehicle for driving sales but their program was very basic. They sent a daily email to their entire membership base announcing the new sale and a reminder at night to make sure last orders were submitted before the sale of the day closed. While they were increasing revenue, each send was critical to the bottom line and they knew they could do more. GEOGRAPHY UK PROGRAMS Marketing Automation Dynamic Templates Scoring Algorithm Customer Loyalty Journey Deliverability Optimization WE SEE THE SELLIGENT TEAM AS AN EXTREMELY VALUABLE EXTENSION OF OUR MARKETING TEAM. 2014 WAS A SUCCESSFUL YEAR FOR SECRETSALES. COM; IT S IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE HAVING ACHIEVED THIS SUCCESS WITHOUT SELLIGENT S ONGOING SUPPORT AND DEDICATION TO OUR BUSINESS. Katie Palmer, Head of Customer Marketing
Every customer should start their day with a sale sent especially to them. The Selligent platform allowed Secret Sales to optimize their entire program. They were able to send highly personalized content features by using data to drive product placement. All emails were created from templates that production supported automation to make the entire process more efficient. And with Selligent s state of the art GRID and deliverability expertise they were able to meet their speed expectations and re-build their reputation with Gmail. The Challenge The company wanted to promote more products in general and show customers products they would be most interested in. They also wanted to develop a contact strategy to increase touch points for each sale. But there were concerns. Managing multiple creative versions was prohibitive. Developing many different emails to target different customers was labor intensive. And while there was a lot of data available on customer s purchase histories and browsing trends, there was no effective method to ensure that the right products were featured in the version they received. Repeat purchases needed to be higher. They wanted to incentivize customers to make the first purchase and then continue to purchase more and more often, but they had no structured system to drive loyalty. Mailing more raised speed and deliverability concerns. All sales were time sensitive so every minute in the inbox was crucial. Mailings had to get delivered fast, and they had to reach the inbox. Their ESP was having difficulty with sending speeds and they were already seeing issues particularly with Gmail.
The path to success 1. Selligent developed dynamic templates that would enable each customer to receive an email uniquely crafted for them based on their preferences and purchase history. These templates could be copied and modified to easy production. They also were populated with content driven by data gathered in each customer profile. Selligent created a sales scoring algorithm to order the placement of daily features in the template. The purchase propensity model was based on: What she browsed What she bought Her self selected preferences in her profile Likes from Facebook Gender attitude (derived from activity not biology) Selligent also designed a frequency model to segment and manage the cadence for audiences based on customer type, number of transactions, recency and return rates. The database schema to support the program had over 20 tables updated and synchronized with SECRETSALES internal datamart via a real-time exchange of data including product, inventory, transactional detail, response information, loyalty and referral records. 3. Selligent partnered with SECRETSALES to optimize the size of their creative, reducing the likelihood that their email would get flagged as spam. Implementing cadence controls informed by the frequency model reduced complaints without increasing unsubscriptions. Further, Selligent guided SECRETSALES through a reputation building strategy to mail through our quality grid scaling volume overtime to rebuild gmail reputation. Selligent s systems complete deployments in under 1 hour regardless of send time. In the first year of partnership SECRETSALES was able to use the Selligent platform to move from a limited generic program to a highly dynamic automated marketing strategy. Each customer receives 40 personalized messages per month. In addition, there are over 25 types of API driven highly personalized triggered messages supporting the order process to ensure she is informed about the status of each order. We cannot image our success this year without Selligent. The team has been incredible, and the tools are easy to use, says Palmer, This was a first step towards testing dynamic relevant content. We have taken the programs they launched and have been able to continue to advance them through the UI on our own. Content algorithms are absolutely where we are going and we are now looking to expand that to drive personalization on our website. 2. SECRETSALES did not have a rewards strategy or points system to inspire the first sale, and then drive repeat purchase. Working closely with our client, we launched a multi-touch new member journey with offers that got increasingly rich if no first purchase. Selligent maintains the current point status for all members with a corresponding loyalty journey to prompt usage of loyalty points and coupons before expiration, or reminders about point status and redemption incentives. All coupons are remotely managed and dynamically driven by Selligent s voucher activation service so that SECRETSALES can activate and configure offers for specific audiences and durations all managed via API. Selligent s flexible reporting combined with automated daily digest reports allow us to see an overview of our entire program and provide transparency across the company.
About Selligent Selligent is a fast-growing international marketing automation provider that powers the customer engagement programs of more than 450 European brands in retail, financial services, publishing and travel. Our solution orchestrates customer communications across multiple channels, including email, site optimization, social, mobile and customer care. The platform delivers omnichannel audience engagement, reaching beyond customers to drive personalization for anonymous site visitors and to layer behavioral data on top of traditional CRM databases. www.selligent.com About SECRETSALES SECRETSALES has one very simple goal to save you money every time you shop. Unlike traditional retailers SECRETSALES launches new sales every single day of the week from hundreds of well-known brands, all at 30-70% off. This means that not only is there something new to shop every time you visit, but you ll never pay full price for anything. Launched by two brothers Nish and Sach Kukadia six years ago, SECRETSALES is now a thriving team of about 100 people based in Notting Hill, London. We re as passionate about making our company a great place to work as we are about getting you the best possible products at the best possible price. SELLIGENT INC. 745 Atlantic Avenue Boston, MA 02111 SELLIGENT SA Avenue de Finlande 2 1420 Braine-l Alleud Belgium www.selligent.com