A paradigm shift: People-based Marketing

Traditionally, marketers use cookies to target prospects and customers. Cookies and pixels make it possible to retrieve a lot of information about a user’s visit to a site, which is then used to create marketing (and remarketing) campaigns with relevant content concerning the visit. However, cookies and pixels track devices and not users themselves, effectively limiting the effectiveness of campaigns and commercial initiatives, with the risk of being out of context, redundant, and even annoying.

We are also aware of the transformations taking place in the digital world crossed by the cookieless revolution: the need for advertisers to access an ever-increasing volume of data on user behavior collides with the great changes that disrupt online advertising, and the recent illegality of Universal Analytics data processing undermines a fundamental component of the functioning of the advertising content delivery platforms.

In this scenario, we have recognized People-based marketing as a strategy suitable for bridging the limit of cookies and which guarantees advanced cross-channel brand exposure, providing users and customers with a coherent, meaningful, and integrated experience.

To do so, a holistic approach to data is required which, using first-party data from customer relationship management (CRM), allows the creation of user profiles with information about their preferences, behaviors, purchasing habits, and preferred communication channels in a way to structure a personalized and no longer mass marketing strategy.

In Storeis we have therefore defined a data analysis methodology that gives meaning to the historical customer data collected as a basis for the construction of user profiles that guide the on and off-site marketing strategy.

Process and roadmap

Through RFM Analysis, we study the historical data to identify the characteristic features of the customers and therefore bring to light important factors that support the segmentation that is necessary for the subsequent steps, such as the customer lifetime value (determined by frequency and monetary value) and retention (given by recency, which in turn is an indicator for engagement).

Using the insights derived from the RFM Analysis we then develop an identikit of the Buyer Personas (a representation of the ideal customers, based on real data) and proceed to analyze the existing contents of the website, mapping them to understand their relevance and place them in a direct relationship with the previously identified profiles, from which we classify, prioritize and structure two distinct types of Customer Journeys:

• Journey cross-personas: a customer journey where the buyer personas have similar paths in common
• Journey ad-personas: a highly personalized customer journey, which enhances every single step to build an engaging brand experience and improve retention.

Benefit and Key Wins

We have had the chance to see and measure the benefits of this strategy in different sectors and in heterogeneous applications – from the improvement of brand content to the growth of email marketing performance, up to a different and more personalized campaign management bids; here some findings of what we observed:

FASHION-SPORT INDUSTRY

A review of customer journeys based on RFM and Content Relevance analysis was grounded for the Client, which contributed to the overall growth of the Conversion Rate on editorial and automated email by 41%.

It led also to +24.8% of traffic to the site and a 95.5% growth in Revenue due to the increase in the AOV (i.e. the Average Order Value) obtained thanks to the better segmentation of the target and the ad content journeys, over an analysis period of 6 months (Sep-21 – Mar-22 vs PP).

CYCLING INDUSTRY

The Cycling Industry has experienced incredible growth since the start of the pandemic in 2020, which required a digital evolution of companies to remain relevant and capitalize on incremental demand. Storeis boasts a collaboration with several high-profile brands in the sector, which have grasped the importance of People-based Marketing. We have operated on different lengths in the industry, including:

1. The development of ad-hoc surveys to collect insights on the customer databases which then allowed the development of a cross-personas content strategy and automated customer journeys through HubSpot; additionally, we were able to re-engage dormant users, focusing the brand strategy on high spending customer segments

2. The creation of ad-hoc audiences on online advertising platforms and the study of a launch plan for a new product have helped to generate:

• a 50% growth in traffic on the YoY brand site
• in addition, it generated 1.3 million views from highly profiled users on the YouTube launch video
• +40% brand searches in the launch period vs. annual average

3. A shared process of data design and in-depth RFM analysis, based on the customer dataset and crossed with the product catalog of a leading international brand in cycling accessories, instead highlighted that 91% of users were one-time buyers, with retention levels in progressive contraction that was harming the growth of ecommerce. It also highlighted how the marked differences between the different purchasing behaviors of users on a geographical, seasonal, and category basis were not fully considered in the construction of the email marketing strategy. This helped the brand review and redesign its approach to user-based marketing.

LUXURY FURNITURE INDUSTRY

The peculiarity of the project was to deal with two main core targets – B2C and B2B – with differentiated customer journeys and shopping behaviors, but with some features in common, in highly competitive markets such as the United States.

Following an initial analysis, we created a shared process of building buyer personas, which allowed us to release a modular and differentiated Ad Content Strategy for the different brand personas. By combining the strategy with content production and graphic design activity, the project guided the grounding of digital advertising campaigns, targeting the identified audiences in a more efficient way and reducing the dispersion of budgets on out-of-scope profiles and touchpoints that were unsuitable for achieving business goals.