Being a successful business owner requires flexibility and adaptability, especially in innovation. Failure to innovate can lead to business failure. Hello Blockbuster, Polaroid, Borders… Over the past several months we have experienced the real need for adaptability across the entire business organization, including the marketing department. Brands of all sizes have had to re-examine their marketing strategies, find new ways to reach their audience and establish even stronger connections with their customers in the face of adversity.

Our experience as data-driven marketing consultants uncovered two great stories on adaptability and the need to shift strategies during COVID-19.  Both clients relied on retail for much of their sales, but each also had an integrated marketing database with Anteriad where they collected customer and prospect information. The prospect information was often thin, based on inquiries, free trials or just newsletter based. Their customer data was robust with contact and transaction history and served as a great source for branding and continued product communications.

Our first client is in the gaming industry, they heavily relied on retail stores to move their product. When sheltering at home became widespread, their most significant channel was now unavailable, and their gaming sales plummeted.  The brand did have an active website, but their online presence was primarily built to create loyalty programs, not to sell product. They had to shift their website from the simple existence as an extension of their brand to a transactional centerpiece for direct sales.  They began by reactivating all customers who had engaged previously and sending nightly emails with special offers to encourage this direct engagement. They became innovative with their creative to help better derive more meaningful results.  Daily disposition reporting and transactions helped to develop segmentation based on interest and activity and more advanced segmentation was added to identify their highest value customers as we well as to determine a cadence strategy.

Fast forward to retail business recovery and our client is now reestablishing their sales in the retail channel but have also optimized their direct channel as a supplement, garnered more loyalty and engagement from their customers as well as derived some meaningful data around their online presence.

Our second story comes from another Anteriad marketing database client, a well-known beauty brand, that also relied on retail stores and partners for product sales but maintained direct relationships with customers. They had an enormous customer base and fan community, much of it nurtured via social media and online. The brand was built on their fan base and had shifted their digital presence several years ago to focus on engagement over sales.  The physical locations continued to drive demand and sales.

Because our customer had a well-defined marketing database containing both offline and online data, they were able to gently switch up their marketing to focus back to sales by regular communications to their retail customer base on how to take advantage of their website while retail outlets were shuttered. It allowed them to showcase some of their offerings like new products and segment transaction data to help support product subscriptions. Our client’s new strategy allowed them to keep their customers engaged in the brand story, renew the online experience as well as maintain sales through the direct channel.  Again here, the brand monetized their investment in data to easily pivot and continue to satisfy their client base.

Regardless of your industry, a robust customer database can aid when the unexpected shows up.  Smart marketers can easily adapt to change when they have integrated, actionable data as the foundation in their recovery plan.

Are you ready for change? Contact us to today to create a modern marketing database, built for growth but always ready for change.

Jeff Barela
Senior Vice President, Database Marketing Technology
Anteriad
[email protected]