Merrell NZ: How to build a highly engaged customer base

This is a guest blog post written by Cin7 partner, Marsello. Learn more about our partner program.

Email marketing is a key sales tactic for retailers and product sellers, so it’s important to have an active, responsive database. That means consistent or growing engagement (open and click rates), a high repeat purchase rate, and growing average customer lifetime value.

In this article, we’ll look at how Cin7 and Marsello customer Merrell NZ builds their customer database, which boasts a 15% repeat purchase rate and an average purchase frequency of 3.5x.

How to build a highly engaged customer base

1. Collect high quality contacts

Merrell NZ use a clever tactic to ensure the best quality contacts are added to their database: They ask for more than just an email address.

This might seem contradictory — surely the more information you ask for, the fewer leads you get? But Merrell NZ know that their most valuable customers are those who are willing to give just a bit more information.

This pop-up has a 25% sign-up rate. That’s incredible.

Here’s why the pop-up works:

• It gets to the point in the first two sentences.
• It’s aligned with Merrell’s beautiful, down-to-earth brand.
• It offers VIP rewards in return for contact information (and everyone knows giving your date of birth means birthday goodies!)

For a business that understands how valuable its database is, this tactic is perfect.

2. Leverage email automation

Merrell NZ is building even stronger relationships with their customers with automations. Triggered when customers take a specific action or meet certain criteria, automated emails help Merrell NZ deliver a highly personalized customer experience.

Marsello “gives us the opportunity to link customers from our retail and web stores, work around customer retention and automate email marketing flows in a really clever way,” says José Matiz, Retail Manager for Merrell NZ.

“For us, Marsello was a game-changer, we have been using it for over a year. We started with email marketing and now moved on to loyalty programs and several automations, it’s amazing,” says José.

Above: Merrell NZ’s abandoned cart automation, set up in Marsello.

Automated emails, triggered by a customer action, get 8 times more opens than manual, bulk emails. Here are two very effective automations you can set up in just a few clicks:

• Welcome emails: More than 80% of consumers will open a welcome email, and these automated welcome emails see up to 10 times more clicks than other manual emails. You can deliver immediate value with a thank you discount or voucher to make a great first impression, introduce them to your brand, and encourage them to buy again.
• Abandoned cart emails: Send a friendly reminder to customers if they abandon their cart. This reminds your customers to come back to your store and complete their purchase. On average, each abandoned cart email generates $5.64. In comparison, the average promotional email generates $0.02.

3. Use segmentation

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing customers into groups, allowing retailers to do more targeted and effective marketing.

Segmentation is a powerful antidote to poor database engagement and low email open rates. According to research by Hubspot, 78% of marketers reported that segmenting their database is their most effective email marketing strategy. In an analysis of more than 100,000 emails, Hubspot found that segmented email lists had 12% higher click-through rates than emails sent to an entire database.

You can segment your database in any number of ways, allowing you to discover and create different cross-sections and niche subgroups within your database:

• Demographics: Segment by common customer characteristics such as age, gender, or life stage.
• Geography: Segment customers based on country, state, or city.
• Behavior: Segment customers based on their activity at your stores such as last purchase data, repeat purchase rate, or the number of loyalty points earned.
• RFM: Segment by Marsello’s RFM groups based on purchase recency, frequency, and spend. (most valuable customers, at-risk customers, window shoppers, and more).
• Or any combination of the above.

Merrell NZ: Creating segments of your best customers

Merrell NZ’s average repeat purchase rate across the database is 15%, but some groups of their customers purchase more frequently than others. Merrell NZ uses loyalty program tiers to create segments of their most engaged customers for VIP marketing.

Above: Segment your marketing lists with Cin7 + Marsello.

Sending targeted marketing to your best customers, like this, is smart. Roughly 80% of a business’s profits will come from 20% of its customers—that is, your regulars. These customers are brand-aware, highly likely to engage with your emails, and are very unlikely to unsubscribe.

Retailers can also send more frequent messages to those who are loyal brand followers (although you’ll see your best engagement if you don’t send more than five emails per week).

Some customer database tips

1. Email marketing is all about quality, not quantity. Sending targeted, considered emails to smaller groups will often outperform bulk emails to your entire database.
2. Database hygiene will help engagement and reduce costs. From time to time, remove contacts from your lists if they haven’t responded to win-back campaigns, or haven’t opened emails in a long time.
3. Get more granular, detailed customer data for better segmentation. Connect your online and in-store sales channels to your marketing platform for the best results.

Cin7 + Marsello

Powered by Cin7 and your e-commerce data, Marsello works seamlessly in-store and online to provide a true omnichannel customer experience.

• Capture in-store and online customer details
• Deliver personalized and timely automated marketing
• Incentivize repeat purchases with email, SMS, a loyalty program, and more
• Grow your average basket size with advanced product recommendations
• Accurately track and attribute sales to your marketing activity

Book a demo with Marsello