Sears Canada Automates Campaign Execution, Increasing Revenue while Lowering Costs

Sears Canada doubles frequency of coordinated telemarketing and direct

mail campaigns for retail stores; annual revenues from this campaign rise 50

percent, helping the multi-channel retailer to generate ROI in just one month.

Customer name: Sears Canada

Industry: Retail

Business Need: Increase marketing effi ciency and ROI by replacing a legacy system with a cross-channel campaign management platform that’s easy to implement, easy to use, and delivers high-volume automation.

“Neolane was more nimble, fl exible, and hungry than the other providers we considered. Even more important… was that the product was both easy to implement and easy to use.”

Jill Speirs, Senior Vice President,

Customer Strategy, Sears Canada

OBJECTIVES• Reduce ongoing maintenance costs

by replacing a legacy campaign management system

• Integrate with MDM solution to leverage latest customer data during campaign targeting

• Increase marketing effi ciency by automating list generation across multiple divisions

• Centrally manage communications across channels, including call center, email, and direct mail

RESULTS• Met aggressive 3-month deployment

goal thanks to strong project management

• Achieved signifi cant cost savings by phasing out legacy system

• Reduced campaign execution time and doubled output with no additional staff

• Generated a 50% increase in retail campaign revenue—and ROI in 1 month

Sears Canada is a multi-channel retailer with a network of 196 corporate stores, 260 hometown dealer stores, 33 home improvement showrooms, over 1,800 catalogue merchandise pick-up locations, 108 Sears Travel offi ces and a nationwide home maintenance, repair, and installation network. The Company also publishes Canada’s most extensive general merchandise catalogue and offers shopping online at www.sears.ca.

When Sears Canada set out to implement a campaign management solution for its retail, catalog, and card services marketing programs, it had an aggressive timeline. Just how aggressive surprised even Jill Speirs, Senior Vice President, Customer Strategy at Sears Canada. “Our CFO wanted a solution implemented in just three months—a goal I didn’t initially think was possible,” refl ects Speirs. “Six months seemed more feasible, but he was adamant that we do it in three. Fortunately, Neolane was able to rise to the challenge and together, we met the objective.”

Stepping back, the campaign management project was part of a broader Sears Canada initiative to become more customer centric. With the recession raging, the retailer wanted to address a fundamental shift in the marketplace: increasing consumer control over how, when, and where they interact with brands. For marketers, this meant moving toward an interactive dialogue with consumers, regardless of the channel.

At the time, Sears Canada was using multiple, disparate systems across its retail, catalog, and card services groups,

which meant that campaigns were executed in silos. Moreover, the marketing teams were bogged down by ineffi cient, manual, and undocumented processes, such that generating campaign lists alone took a tremendous effort. This ineffi ciency, in turn, signifi cantly limited Sears Canada’s ability to run additional campaigns to support its revenue goals.

By implementing a campaign management solution, Sears Canada hoped to kill two birds with one stone. The company could deliver a more consistent, relevant customer experience by centrally managing communications across multiple channels, including direct mail, email, and the call center. At the same time, it could generate signifi cant effi ciencies and Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) through greater automation.

According to Speirs, Neolane was the right company and product for the job: “Neolane was more nimble, fl exible, and hungry than the other providers we considered. Even more important, given our urgent business needs, was that the product was both easy to implement and easy to use. We were confi dent that they could meet our aggressive three-month implementation timeline.”

Another point of differentiation for Neolane was its fl exible fi nancing and delivery options. Sears Canada chose the rather unique combination of a perpetual software license with hosted delivery by Neolane. Because the company lacked the available IT resources needed to complete a full-blown, on-premise installation, the hosted model was crucial to meeting the

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“Neolane has done a phenomenal job for Sears Canada. They’ve by far exceeded our immediate goals, and we’re confi dent the platform will continue to grow and support us over time as our needs evolve.”

short, three-month timeframe. It would also streamline ongoing operational maintenance, minimizing the need for additional IT infrastructure or headcount.

Because it had implemented a Master Data Management (MDM) solution only a few months prior, Sears Canada had already done the bulk of the work needed to create a 360-degree view of its customers. Using Neolane’s advanced data management capabilities, it was relatively easy to create an automatic sync between the MDM solution and the Neolane database—ensuring the latest customer data would always be driving its direct marketing efforts.

In addition to these enabling technical factors, expert project management by Neolane was critical to meeting Sears Canada’s target go-live date. “Neolane was a great partner in listening and adapting to our needs throughout the implementation process,” refl ects Speirs. “More specifi cally, they recognized that we were trying to tackle too much at once, so they helped us develop a phased approach that made the project more manageable and ultimately more successful.”

The fi rst phase involved launching Sears Canada’s retail campaigns on the Neolane platform. These campaigns involve a coordinated direct mail and telemarketing effort to drive store traffi c. Because they generate millions of dollars in revenues, they were given highest priority.

With Neolane’s workfl ow capabilities, Sears Canada has transformed complex, manual processes into an intuitive visual framework that automates campaign execution. Each month, a workfl ow generates a master list of qualifi ed customers that serves as the basis for that month’s campaigns. This list is then further segmented for each individual campaign,

based on profi le data, transaction and response history, etc. To prevent contact fatigue, customers who have received a campaign within the last three months are automatically excluded. Thanks to this enhanced automation, Sears Canada signifi cantly reduced campaign execution time. Previously, the company could only run campaigns every two weeks. As a result of the effi ciency gains generated by Neolane, they’re now running campaigns weekly, doubling the number of campaigns with no additional staff. In addition, Sears Canada is able to conduct more targeted, ad hoc campaigns—something that simply wasn’t possible before. Overall, the increased targeting capabilities provided by Neolane are translating directly into increased results.

With the retail campaigns running smoothly, Sears Canada next turned to its card services campaigns, automating yet another list creation process. The third phase will be the catalog campaign, which will entail sophisticated household-level targeting to drive more effective catalog mailings. Ultimately, all three campaigns will be planned and executed from a single platform and user interface: Neolane. Sears Canada anticipates that having a centralized campaign management solution will not only increase marketing effectiveness and effi ciency, but dramatically improve ROMI.

Impressed with the results to date, Sears Canada has begun exploring additional uses for the Neolane platform, including email marketing. “Neolane has done a phenomenal job for Sears Canada,” asserts Speirs. “They’ve by far exceeded our immediate goals, and we’re confi dent the platform will continue to grow and support us over time as our needs evolve.”