Agency: MRM Meteorite
DMA Awards, Silver, 2013

  • Challenge: increase sales in the unpredictable DIY market
  • Solution: respond quickly and intelligently to shopping behaviour using mail and email to encourage further spend
  • Result: an increase in ROI from 120% to 346%

Challenge

The DIY retail market is unpredictable, as home improvement projects are often unplanned. For over a decade, Homebase's marketing strategy had been to promote everything, and offer discounts every other weekend. The issue was, this approach focussed on improving the 120% ROI, not on connecting with the 91% of non-responders.

Solution

Analysis of shopping behaviour showed that communicating with the best customers at the right time, with the right message, would give them almost unlimited headroom for spend.

So Homebase created ‘The Trigger Programme’ and set it to work looking for patterns in data that could identify customer needs close to spending opportunities. For example, a customer buying a kitchen would need wall tiles, flooring, lighting and paint. Homebase could then act quickly using mail and email to prompt repeat sales, growing what became known as 'Share of Project'.

After 18 months the programme had identified 10 triggers that tracked specific behaviours and designed inspirational and relevant communications with which to respond.

Each mail and email communication was personalised around a product the customer had purchased. Dynamic templates made that product the hero image, highlighted local store details and included competitive offers in the area.

Previously, it had taken eight weeks to go from collecting the data to sending out communications. Yet without additional budget or resources, data management and print processes saw direct mail activity delivered within six days and email delivered in two. 

When new systems and channels were introduced this became even faster, allowing trials of different triggers – like a discount on paintbrushes following the purchase of tester paint. It also drove large numbers of customer data interactions across websites, through online and offline transactions, plus social communities and partners such as Nectar. 

Result

The Trigger Programme has moved average response rates from 9% to 46% and now delivers 2% of total sales (£30.4m per year). It has shifted ROI from 120% to 346% – 2.8 times that of the previous marketing strategy.

The programme achieved an overall return increase to £30.4m at a time when spend fell by 20%. A massive win in a challenging economic climate.

Today over 50% of Homebase’s direct mail investment is focused on the programme.