Shopper Marketing - May 2017 - 22

PROGRAMS

with our suppliers because we have a mutual
objective. When we add that personalized value
component, it's all about driving increased basket size, increased trips and brand dollars."
There are multiple fronts for personalizing
the quarterly communications, said co-presenter Lisa Zhao, who manages supplier direct marketing for Walgreens and works with
CPG manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble
and Johnson & Johnson to help them reach
their best consumers at the chain. The retailer's
strategies include:
n Relevant offers: 99% of recipients get a different communication.
n Tailored messaging and content: telling
members about the specific promotional
events that they have not yet opted in to, for
example.
n Preferred channel: Walgreens continues
to take advantage of the traditional print
route but also employs email, Catalina prints
at checkout and the digital programmatic
channel.
With the goals of incremental sales and
higher engagement, Walgreens makes little
tweaks to its strategy every quarter. The retailer has experimented with the offer mix, for
example, to balance reward and acquisition
whenever they reach out to a member.
"We want to reward customers for continuing to buy the same thing by giving them an
incentive, while our CPG partners want to acquire new customers," Zhao said.
The tweaks are executed through a strict
due diligence process to see which changes
will eventually help drive more sales and a
higher response rate, which ideas are repeatable in the future, and which are scalable. On22

y SHOPPER MARKETING MAY 2017

going measurement of the incremental sales
response is crucial.
In the short term, it's about the incremental trip. For long-term measurement, the retailer maintains a control group that does not
receive the Quarterly Thank You communications. "The goal of personalized marketing
isn't to drive lift and stop there, it's to optimize
over time," Heintskill said, emphasizing that
the control group is necessary to show that the
program is working and that it's getting better
over time. "So the more we learn, the more we
can optimize, the more data we collect - the
better and better we should be getting."
Walgreens also applies learnings from the
Quarterly Thank You program to smaller projects. One such effort added a personalized
element to complement the retailer's ongoing support for Vitamin Angels. Leading up to
Thanksgiving, Walgreens ran a national "Happy Thanks for Giving" campaign with a personalized element that re-engaged the customers
who had supported the charity.
"We went after vitamins customers with a
direct mail piece, email piece, digital programming to really emphasize that 'Thanks for Giving' and hone the message a little bit more
around vitamins," Heintskill said. The personalized outreach included relevant vitamin offers
targeted for each customer.
"We don't have to convince these suppliers
to participate," Zhao said. "For CPG companies,
it's always about acquiring new customers so
from the Quarterly Thank You personalization
they actually see the value of doing that, they're
not afraid of extending these really high-value
offers for those who are already purchasing
SM
their brands."

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shopper Marketing - May 2017