It's Personal with Shoppers Drug Mart

I don't have time to read flyers - print or online. But I do love specials! So I frequently sign up for companies' email newsletters to keep an eye out for good promotions or new products. Most corporate emails, however, are often dull and irrelevant. So I rarely make the time to read them.

Ever since I moved to my prior residence, I relied on Shoppers Drug Mart as the only store available to buy our groceries, health and general supplies (you'd think we lived in the boonies - it was actually mid-town Toronto). I greatly benefited from their Optimum loyalty program (it's kept us happily stocked with electronic goodies: Wii and DS consoles and games, SLR digital camera, HD television, back massager, etc.) So I appreciated their email newsletters to help me save money and maximize my loyalty points.

But since we moved to a new place better serviced by stores, I haven't been closely monitoring my Shoppers' emails. Until recently.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my Shoppers email newsletter was personalized to me.  It wasn't just my name included in the email (which does not make me feel the email is targetted to me). The email was based on my purchasing history and included promotions for items that I'm actually interested in. Granted, book sellers have for a long time been sending me product recommendations based on my purchase history and others who bought similar items.

Shoppers emails were different as: 1) it included items I had purchased in the past and 2) items were on sale!

I was so impressed by this effort, that I contacted Shoppers and asked if they could tell me more about their email marketing, as well as plans for using mobile media.

Tammy Smitham, Vice President, Communications & Corporate Affairs, answered my questions, as follows:

Glen: Recent email newsletters I received from Shoppers are personalized. Is this a new initiative?

Tammy: In late 2012, we began a pilot of personalizing emails with targetted offers to 150,000 customers in Ontario. These offers were based on their shopping behaviours and preferences. For example, if they were a frequent cosmetic buyer they would get an offer with respect to items within cosmetics as well as an offer on the total category and finally we highlight for them relevant offers from that week's flyer based on products they had purchased in the past.

It is a sophisticated process to pull the data and create the relevant offers. It is proprietary technology. We worked with a company called Sagarmatha who specialize in this. They matched the offers with the customer's purchase behaviour. We are starting the roll out in English Canada over 6 - 8 weeks beginning April 2013.

Glen: What has been the response to these emails?

Tammy: The response was excellent. In fact, we saw open rates increase by 1,000 basis points and 50% of those who opened the email bought something featured in the email offer. We also saw an increase in both basket size and trip frequency from those who received the personalized email.

Glen: What are your future plans for personalizing and other innovative uses of email communications?

Tammy: The customer feedback has been very positive and as a result we embarked on a national roll out of these personalized emails beginning in April 2013. Once we reach critical mass (about 1.2 million active email addresses) we will proactively promote this element of our loyalty program. We have over 10 million Shoppers Optimum members but only have about 2 million email addresses so there is tremendous opportunity to grow the program's reach.

Glen: Any plans to enable coupons received via email to be redeemed by mobile device?

Tammy: We are working on a pilot for mobile for our Optimum loyalty program, which should begin later this summer. This will allow members to have a mobile Optimum card. Alongside with that pilot, we are working on making specific offers targetted to them via their mobile device. We hope to roll that out nationally in 2014.

Glen: On the topic of mobiles, can you share any future aspirations for reaching customers via their mobile. (For example, are you considering using geo-fencing?)

Tammy: Our major focus at this time is on making the Optimum card and relevant offers available via the mobile device. We know it is something our customers are demanding.

Glen: I also receive postcards in the mail from Shoppers. Can you discuss your use of old and new media in your media mix?

Tammy: We recognize our customers want to interact with us in different ways - whether it be through our weekly flyer, through personalized emails, via Facebook or through direct mail or our website (we have between 250,000 and 500,000 views of our flyer online per month). Our direct mail programs are also very successful. Given the ability for us to target our customers based on the information we have in the Shoppers Optimum database. We also know that Shoppers Drug Mart customers have greater smartphone penetration at 66% vs the Canadian population at 54% so we recognize that is an important medium for us to be engaged with.

At the end of the day we are focusing on the omni-channel to ensure that our presence is consistent across all mediums to keep our customer engaged with our brand and our offering.

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As a PhD student and father with a young family, both my time and finances are constrained. So I greatly appreciate efforts by companies to save me both time and money. Too many corporate, digital marketing efforts don't really get my constraints (which I'm sure many people share). As far as I'm aware, Shoppers recent personalization efforts are among the first in Canada, but I hope they prove a model for other Canadian businesses.

Learn How to Use Digital Media Strategically

A few years ago, I was managing a website for a financial services company and wanted to take courses to improve my ability to use online communications effectively and strategically. I also wanted courses geared towards those managing online media, but the programs I found in the Toronto area covered mostly the technical (i.e. programming or development) or design elements.

I ended up taking the e-Business program at University of Toronto's School for Continuing Studies. At the time, it was the only such program in the Greater Toronto Area.

Although it was a good program, e-Business tends to deal mostly with the infrastructure and business processes required to have a business online.

Educational programs on digital media management are expanding, but I still find that there is not much with a marketing, communications, strategy, and operations focus.

So I was really excited to hear from a colleague, Eden Spodek, that she in conjunction with other experienced professionals will be launching a certificate program in Digital Strategy and Communications Management with the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Education in 2013.

The Digital Strategy and Communications Management certificate program aims to help professionals "make sense of the digital and social media landscape" and to learn to use new and emerging digital media for organizational goals.

Classes start January 2013 consists of three required courses taken consecutively:

1. Foundations in Digital Communications Strategy and Social Media
2. Social on the Inside: Internal Communications On and Offline
3. Advanced Practices in Digital Reputation Management

Some of the learning outcomes (from their website) include:

• Integrate digital, social and mobile platforms into a strategic approach to communications management
• Develop and implement goal-oriented and outcome-based measurement and evaluation techniques to communications strategy and tactics
• Use social and digital channels to strategically engage management, employees, partners and suppliers to develop and maintain relationships built on trust
• Develop creative, measurable and relevant digital and social media plans and strategies that blend earned, owned and paid components and leverage analytics to demonstrate ROI

I asked Eden to whom the program is geared towards and she replied that it "is targeted towards anyone who recognizes the importance of creating and disseminating online content as part of their job and wants to do so strategically. Previous experience is not necessary as there will be a lot of hands-on instruction. Class participation will be encouraged and with a strong emphasis on learning by doing."

Eden adds, "We anticipate there will be a lot of two-way mentoring between students because they will have different levels of experience. For example, most digital natives will be familiar with the tools but won’t necessarily know how to develop a strategy. More seasoned practitioners may not be as comfortable with the tools yet may have a lot of experience developing communications and marketing strategies. These two groups will have a lot to learn from and share with each other."

All the courses are offerred at University of Toronto's St. George campus. But it is possible that online courses may be offerred in the future. As Eden states, “U of T's School of Continuing Studies considered an online version from the beginning and development is likely to begin following the pilot of the first course.”