Key CCG Services
Pet supplies retailer PETCO had offered its P.A.L.S. rewards program for more than two decades. But it felt the program could do a better job of differentiating the store from its competitors. PETCO also realized that the large amount of member data it had collected over the years was seriously under-utilized.
Calling in the Top Dogs
PETCO brought in CCG as its customer marketing agency of record. Our directive was to review and revamp P.A.L.S., while finding ways to more effectively leverage the program’s member database.
CCG’s strategic consulting team developed a new best customer tier dubbed TOP DOG, and PETCO agreed to test the program in nine markets.
TOP DOG was designed to:
- Be difficult for competitors to duplicate.
- Create strong customer relationships to capture market share and drive profitable growth.
- Build incremental sales through attributes other than price.
- Drive PETCO to customers’ “top-of-mind” and increase frequency of purchase.
- Grow share of customer purchase through relevant cross-sell and upsell messages.
While CCG strategists developed the details of TOP DOG, our data team was mining existing P.A.L.S. data to identify best and next-best customers for inclusion in the program.
Next, CCG’s creative team was pulled in to bring the program objectives to life. They focused on four key creative and communication pillars:
The newsletter and additional communications leveraged member data into cost-effective formats that allowed for versioned messaging by pet category and lasered offers based on customer transactional history.
From Top Dogs to Guinea Pigs
The test-and-learn strategy proposed by CCG centered around an offer test lab that essentially made Guinea pigs out of all aspects of the customer communications we developed. Each piece was run through the test lab and, over time, the specific strategies that evolved as champions were leveraged to a wider audience.
The communication strategies themselves were part of a CCG-developed, multi-faceted customer contact program that would help PETCO stay in touch with customers, strengthen relationships and build sales.
Elements of the plan included:
- Puppy/kitten trigger program
- Next-best-sell product offer strategy
- Personalized POS coupon strategy
- Competitive store openings program
- Premium food defector intervention strategy
- Best customer offers program
CCG also continued to leverage data wherever possible. For instance, CCG’s data team:
- Mined PETCO’s data to develop personalized next-best-sell product offers
- Segmented customers by pet ownership to develop customer profiles
- Analyzed customer transactional history to drive offer selection and other promotions (such as spend more/save more) by individual member
Bringing Home the Big Wins
Combining test learnings and data utilization, CCG was able to ensure that the customer communications placed the right offer in the right channel at the right time. Campaign results bore this out, with stellar results from some individual mailings, and all segments achieving the desired response.
Furthermore, PETCO was able to realize concrete monetary benefits from the TOP DOG loyalty program test group, which consistently outperformed controls:
These results helped the PETCO team gain buy-in from top executives to roll out the TOP DOG program on a national, chain-wide basis. Proving that the TOP DOG tier, plus testing and strategic data use, was a true Best in Show.
Key CCG Services
Strategic Customer Initiatives
Loyalty program development, refinement & management
Strategic CRM consulting
Statistical Loyalty Program OptimizationTM
FasTrackSM program implementation
Data, Analytics & Research
Database analysis & mining
Segmentation & modeling
Testing design & analysis
Integrated Creative, Digital & Implementation Services
Content development
Contact strategies
Design
Direct mail & other print assets
Print production & fulfillment
Loyalty program communications planning, design & execution
Marketing campaign conception
Measurement
Are you next?
Are you ready to create, test or refresh your customer rewards or loyalty program? Looking for new ways to make the most of your customer data? CCG’s retail marketing experts can help with everything from strategy to data analytics, creative development, testing and more. Complete the form below or call us at 303.986.3000 to schedule a free consultation and see how we can help you.
