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WEBINAR OVERVIEW Björn Borg unleashes the power of data to engage customers

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In a recent InternetRetailing webinar, Björn Borg unleashes the power of data to engage customers, Noelia Guinón, of Björn Borg, Kestrel Lemen, of Bronto, and Håkan Jonsson from Vaimo joined us for an in-depth conversation on how retailers can best use data to target customers and keep them coming back. Here’s a bulletpoint overview of the main points that they covered.

Kestrel Lemen, marketing strategist at Bronto opened the webinar

Kestrel opened the webinar by considering the current email marketing trends of personalisation, mobile and storytelling.

Personalisation: It’s a matter of thinking what content would make me want to click. “If you can give me a more personalised message, with or without an incentive, I’m going to want to know more about that, I’m going to have eyes on it.” That could include retargeting or segmented baskets – very straightforward segmentation such as sending different messages to men and women can have strong results, increasing sales by as much as five times.

Mobile: A third of UK sales come through mobile devices, while 90% of emails are viewed on one at some point, according to IMRG data. Images should therefore be reworked to look good on large and small screens – and designers should be trained or hired to code for responsive design.

Storytelling: “I’m seeing more content-driven messages that don’t have promotional content are performing just as well as promotional messages. Why? You stand out from your competitors.”

Poll: Do you send responsively designed emails? 76% yes, 24% no.

Noelia Guinón, ecommerce manager at Björn Borg

Noelia opened her presentation by introducing the brand, named after tennis player Björn Borg, which was launched in Sweden in the 1990s, and today sells in about 30 markets including the UK. It sells online through Björnborg.com – its largest online market is Holland, followed by Sweden and the UK.

How do we create a premium brand when discounts are becoming the norm?

We consider every project by asking questions: where, when, why, how?

Where? To become the number one sports fashion digital experience. “We believe the way to achieve our goal is to engage our customers, adding a value beyond the store.” By engaging with customers through personalised emails they feel they are part of the Björn Borg tribe. It chose Vaimo to help it do that.

Håkan Jonsson, ecommerce strategy manager at Vaimo

Håkan opened by considering how the modern consumer’s mindset is changing. “Engaging with the modern consumer is becoming increasingly harder and has become one of the biggest challenges that we as marketeers are facing.”

  • The stressed consumer relies on their gut feeling to make decisions, giving attention only for a moment before moving on, and being more likely to engage with personalised communications from brands they recognise.

  • “The modern consumer is also self-absorbed. It’s all about me, me and myself.” “When it comes to shopping we expect a unique and tailored shopping experience, based on personal preferences and behaviour.”

  • Sceptical consumers look to trust and to be part of something.

  • Mobile consumers are always connected, thinking not in terms of channels but touchpoints. “Brands must carefully choose what channels to be present in and ensure that consumers get a consistent brand experience regardless of the touchpoint the consumer has chosen.”



Håkan’s tips for staying competitive with the modern ‘demanding and hard-to-please’ consumer:

  • Use customer data effectively. Most brands have vast amounts of customer data, from name and address to gender, as well as customer generated data such as order history. “As brands you know your customers quite well – what you need to do is leverage customer data to engage in the right way, in the right moment with a message they feel is relevant to them.”

  • Turn one-time shoppers into repeat consumers. This is the dream of most brands, but most focus more on customer acquisition than retention. “These customers will trust you if you treat them right, acting as brand ambassadors to attract more consumers.”

  • Provide a personal shopping experience. “We enjoy the feeling of being recognised and treated as individuals. That also increases customer engagement and conversion.”

  • Email as part of the marketing mix. Björn Borg’s marketing emails have shown steady growth and been successful over the years.



How Björn Borg chose its new platform

It recently moved commerce platform as the brand expanded internationally. Its three requirements for the new platform: 1. Brand alignment. 2. Relevancy through personalisation. “By becoming more relevant in your email and not wasting your customer’s time, they feel brand loyalty.” 3. Integration with ecommerce platform – to ensure good use of customer data.

It opted for Magento, integrating Bronto’s email platform extension: now it can import and use use customer data (name, email address), order history, and product data to generate personalised emails.

Noelia then gave more details of Björn Borg’s email campaigns.

  • c 200,000 subscribers to marketing emails, which go to 12 local markets and to a global audience.

  • 12m marketing emails a year.

  • Aim was to choose a platform that had rock-solid deliverability – this was an issue with previous provider.

  • Six months into partnership with Bronto, deliverability +75%, opening rate +83%, transactions +12%, revenue +66%.

  • Noelia showed examples of Björn Borg’s marketing, order confirmation and welcome emails. Welcome emails have seen open rate grow by +137%, click rate +132% and conversion +21%. Revenue per email: +217%.

  • Looking to the future, Björn Borg will now be focusing on cart abandonment emails, post-purchase emails and product recommendations.



The presentation finished with a Q&A session. To see the webinar for yourself, including the slides and Q&A session visit the Björn Borg IRTV page.

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