Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce
Business Challenge:
With intense competition from Amazon, as well as other online retailers, it was quickly becoming a race to the bottom on deep discounting and low margin sales. The Company needed to create a new way to transform its eCommerce businesses from being entirely dependent on promotions to drive sales, and find an innovative way to create an addicted, amplified and loyal, full-price customer base.
The Solution:
The Company designed and developed a fully integrated in-store and online loyalty program, to reward consumers by giving them an amazing customer experience through significant personalization. Research showed that consumers are willing to pay more and tend to be less price sensitive when they feel a brand truly understands, rewards and represents them. By using significant personalization and digital marketing tools, the new program rewarded consumers with special incentives, cash-back and personalized offers they could not find anywhere else, while making the Company’s eCommerce websites and brick and mortar stores their primary shopping destination. The program initially launched encompassing five eCommerce brands: Perry Ellis, Original Penguin, Peony&Me, Laundry by Shelli Segal and Cubavera.
Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce
Business Challenge:
The Company had been running so many sales that customers became trained and delayed purchasing full-price new arrivals, and waited until items went on sale or were eligible for promotional discounts. This drastically eroded margins as well as the premium status of the brand.
The Solution:
The Company began to evolve its marketing from constant sales to a more value-oriented message in an effort to retrain customers that sales were only scheduled events at holidays or end of the season. To transition the marketing messages, the Company introduced a new category of offerings under the umbrella Special Purchase. This merchandised offering was promoted as new section of the website and marketed through digital media including: ads, social, HTML mailers, influencer and affiliate marketing channels. Customers reacted positively, which helped the Company improve its AOV by 25% and ended up stabilizing its weekly revenues and margins.
Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce
Business Challenge:
Inventory was mounting on several high-margin product categories, which were not getting traction from consumers. The overall AOV for the brand was also declining as customers would typically buy one or two items per transaction, making shipping and fulfillment less efficient and far more costly.
The Solution:
An integrated marketing campaign was rolled out titled, "Back to Basics" to help showcase key product categories, which tended to be overlooked by consumers and also tied into the back-to-school selling season. The digital campaign focused on key add-on products, when coupled with best sellers, were likely to increase AOV and drive deeper wallet share with targeted consumers. A series of ads, mailers, social media, influencer and affiliate marketing mediums were used to drive greater awareness of the breadth of products available and to generate larger transactions. As a result of the campaign, sales for these targeted product lines improved by more than 35% and AOV increased by more than 20% during the time the campaign was active.
Direct-To-Consumer and B2B Ridesharing Services
Business Challenge:
The Company needed to create an iOS and Android app that was simple yet intuitive for consumers to easily navigate as well as purchase services.
The Solution:
Extensive competitive app research along with mobile user experience design and testing was conducted. This enabled the Company to effectively test potential flows with real users to see what worked as well as catch and fix problems early on, before they finalized design and coding. By using quantitative and qualitative data they were able to optimize the design and create the ultimate user experience to boost engagement and eCommerce sales.
Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce
Business Challenge:
To reach its aggressive growth plans, the Company needed to expand its core product offerings into new high-growth categories. This was necessary to increase its current customers brand affinity and wallet share, while also introducing the brand to broader consumer segments.
The Solution:
The Company launched Original Penguin bedding, through a strategic brand licensing deal, to expand its product categories. To protect the brand, design integrity, quality control, pricing and marketing, product guidelines were developed and implemented. Distribution included its own DTC website, its 14 company owned retail stores, its global franchised stores, as well as wholesale partners: Amazon, Bed Bath Beyond, Belk, Macys, Nordstrom, etc. To launch the category extension, a coordinated global marketing campaign was developed and deployed by providing assets to all partners, which included print and digital ads, PPC, social media, direct response, store signage, packaging, product images, product descriptions and PR. A sneak preview was launched on OrginalPenguin.com, a week prior to general availability in retail stores, which resulted in selling out initial inventory within the first few hours.
Direct-to-Consumer and B2B Telehealth Subscription Services
Business Challenge:
The Company had more than 10 million prospects who were eligible to use the service through their benefit plans, however, very few had activated their accounts. Consumers were confused about when to use the service versus going to their primary care physician, urgent care or the ER. It was critical to get them to register/subscribe and opt-in, so the Company could engage them regularly in order to stay top of mind to ensure they saw value and retain the service.
The Solution:
In less than two months, the Company implemented a new engagement marketing strategy and plan. This included new welcome kits, search-engine optimized, permission-based marketing website, social media and a series of comprehensive multifaceted, multi-touch data-driven demand generation and weekly engagement campaigns. New materials to support the campaigns included collateral, direct response mailers, PR, blogs, videos, flyers, posters, website banners, postcards, promo items, FAQs, SEO, SEM, tradeshow booths and social media. In addition, the Company built a self-service marketing hub where employer, health plan and health system clients could download and customize pre-built marketing campaigns to be used in their organizations to help spread the word about when and how to use the service. As a result of these efforts, the Company increased market awareness, quickly achieved SEO traction, and significantly increased eligible member eCommerce registration by more than 55%, engagement by more than 67%, utilization by more than 44% and retention by 97%.
Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce
Business Challenge:
Customer support was inundated with calls, emails and chat requests from consumers inquiring about the status of their recent purchases. This information was not automated, nor provided to customers after their online purchase was completed. This was creating a very poor overall customer experience, as agents were not able to respond in a timely fashion to incoming requests, as they were constantly researching each inquiry, thus preventing them from engaging with new consumers to resolve real issues, as well as upsell and cross-sell more products.
The Solution:
The Company implemented an entirely new after-sales and service program across all of its eCommerce brands: Callaway Golf Apparel, Perry Ellis, Original Penguin, Peony & Me, Laundry by Shelli Segal and Cubavera. This new technology service emailed and texted automated notifications on package fulfillment and tracking information to customers after the transaction, thus enabling them to see first-hand the status of their deliveries, so they could plan accordingly. This drastically reduced calls to customer support by more than 40% and improved customer satisfaction and engagement by more than 550%, according to quarterly customer surveys.
Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce
Business Challenge:
Consumers were frequently receiving packages which were damaged in shipping due to poor product packaging materials, resulting in the Company having to reship orders and process damaged returns from unhappy customers, at a significant cost.
The Solution:
The Company investigated and developed prototypes to overhaul its product packaging to better reinforce its premium brand image, improve customer experience and engagement. As part of the overhaul, the Company began to insert newly designed collateral/postcards in each package intended to upsell and cross-sell new categories of products and create excitement for upcoming launches.