Email subscriber list increased

Multi-sport retailer, Nytro has announced its latest sweepstakes giveaway allowing customers to register to win two-time Ironman World Champion Chrissie Wellington’s bike. Powered by one-to-one marketing provider ExactTarget, Nytro’s Cannondale bike give-away is the second in 12 months for the California-based retailer, which has already seen its email subscriber list increase by nearly 50 percent from its first campaign. (Greg Moser, Nytro’s web director.)

Macy’s customer sales data

dunnhumbyUSA, builder of sales and brand value for consumer goods and retail companies, has an expanded contractual partnership with Macy’s. Macy’s and dunnhumby initially entered into a contractual agreement in August 2008. Under the agreement, dunnhumby will continue to analyze Macy’s customer sales data, develop customer segmentation models, and work with the Macy's organization to apply the learnings, in alignment with the company’s existing customer-centric business initiatives, to accelerate future sales growth.

Common set of business processes

CAS has been selected by The Coca-Cola Company to provide sales force automation solutions to its bottler network, as part of the Program Scale Mobile Customer Management (MCM) initiative. According to Tom Miller, General Manager of Program Scale and Vice President, Bottling Investments for The Coca-Cola Company, Program Scale is designed to provide company-owned and franchise bottlers with a common set of business processes under the Coke One operating model, using the SAP platform. MCM is designed to take the power of Scale to the next level - extend Coke One to include advanced customer facing capabilities, particularly in the area of mobile customer management.

New York combats counterfeiting

NYC & Company, the exclusive worldwide licensing agent for the City of New York, and OpSec Security have announced a three-year contract to combat counterfeiting of the City’s world famous brands, including NYPD and FDNY. The on-product authentication program is a continuing keystone of NYC & Company’s enforcement efforts to protect the City’s valuable intellectual property.

According to Lloyd Haymes, Vice President, Licensing & Consumer Products, NYC & Company, “This coordinated enforcement strategy, which features an on-product authentication program with uniquely sequenced hangtags and holographic decals, has been a vital component of our comprehensive brand protection program.

A significant portion of the proceeds from the sale of these officially licensed products benefits the City of New York. The iconic brands currently licensed through NYC & Company include the NYPD, FDNY, New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, New York City Department of Sanitation, City of New York Parks & Recreation and New York City Department of Transportation, as well as its own stylized “NYC” trademark.

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Find Starbucks

Skyhook Wireless has formed a partnership with Android LBS app Find Starbucks, a simple location search app that finds Starbucks coffee shops nearest to the user. The app was released in early June and already has over 3,000 users. Find Starbucks is an example of a simple location-based app, popular because it serves a large demand of smartphone users: fulfilling their daily coffee fix. Find Starbucks can be downloaded for free today in the Android Marketplace.

Statistics on the mobile market have been added today at US Market Statistics.

Wicked Fashions

Leading apparel company, Wicked Fashions, Inc. and Brickfish, The Social Media Solution, have announced its “Hang with Ryan” campaign. The campaign, located at http://www.brickfish.com/RSbySheckler_Overview, was developed to drive awareness around Wicked Fashions, Inc.’s first celebrity clothing line, RS By Sheckler. The line was created in partnership with professional skateboarder, philanthropist and MTV reality star, Ryan Sheckler and is available at JCPenney and other leading retailers. (David Strumeier, senior vice president of sales for RS By Sheckler.)

Increased conversions and average order size

Fabric.com, the online fabric store, has increased conversions and average order size by implementing a lifecycle email marketing program through Silverpop, the provider of both email marketing and marketing automation solutions specifically tailored to the unique needs of B2C and B2B marketers. The retailer utilized the Silverpop Engage platform to initiate an email lifecycle campaign and a shopping cart abandonment program. Both strategies were designed to create a more relevant dialogue with customers. The lifecycle campaign more than doubled open and click-through rates, and conversions increased by 43 percent. Additionally, the cart abandonment emails resulted in a 20 percent increase in average order size. (Melanie Coombs, e-mail marketing manager, Fabric.com.)

U-Store-It contact center platform

inContact has signed an agreement with U-Store-It Trust, a national self-storage company. inContact will provide its contact center platform and network connectivity products in U-Store-It’s national sales center. U-Store-It selected inContact for its on-demand contact center platform and ability to integrate with U-Store-It’s existing customer relationship management (CRM) technology from Salesforce.com. The inContact platform includes a Automated Call Distributor (ACD) with skills-based routing, Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) with speech recognition. "Our sales center is vital to provide first-class service to our customers," said U-Store-It Chief Executive Officer Dean Jernigan.

CRN for grocery store chain

TOP Food & Drug, a grocery store chain in Washington State that is operated by Haggen, Inc., has extended its customer relationship program, TOP Connection, to all 18 locations. TOP Connection, launched in September 2008 at four stores, is a customer relationship program that improves customer retention and store profitability by enhancing the shopping experience and providing unique value-added services. The TOP Connection program pairs Accelitec| interact, an on-demand customer acquisition and retention platform deployed as software as a service (SaaS) solution that is provided by Accelitec, Inc., with RFID readers mounted on top of payment terminals and RFID-enabled key tags containing unique customer identifiers.

Accelitec|interact is compatible with the legacy software used by many grocery retailers. “We’ve had an incredible response from our guests because they see the value and benefits we offer are not available anywhere else in the grocery industry,” said Becky Skaggs, Vice President of Strategy & Consumer Insights of Haggen, Inc. “This program has made it easier for guests to shop in our stores and for us to build relationships not based on discounts. It has made a difference to our business.”

Auto partnership &search research

Specific Media, the independent media platform, has reached an online advertising partnership with automotive group, MileOne Automotive. One of the nation’s largest privately held dealer groups, MileOne Automotive represents 28 major automotive brands including Honda, Nissan, and Mercedes in 63 retail locations. In addition, MileOne Automotive manages collision-repair centers, and provides vehicle leasing and car rentals through its Allstate division. Utilizing Specific Media’s proprietary targeted display and data technologies, MileOne will target automotive in-market shoppers across the Specific Media premium publisher network. (David Metter, CMO, MileOne Automotive.) www.specificmedia.com www.mileone.com

CarMax, the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, reports that searches on carmax.com for hybrid vehicles has risen four percent in June over May while diesel vehicle searches rose seven percent over the same time period. Visits to the Fuel Economy section of carmax.com have risen 17 percent over May as consumers look for ways to improve their gas mileage. Searches on carmax.com for hybrid vehicles have continued to rise for the past several months and are up four percent in June and nine percent since March. Popular hybrid vehicles on carmax.com include the Toyota Prius, Lexus RX400h and the Honda Civic hybrid. June searches for diesel-powered vehicles rose seven percent and are up 12 percent over March figures. Popular diesel vehicles include the Ford F350, Dodge Ram 3500 and the Volkswagen Jetta TDI. During the twelve months ended February 28, 2009, the company retailed 345,465 used vehicles and sold 194,081 wholesale vehicles at its in-store auctions. http://www.carmax.com

Shopping cart abandonment program

S&S Worldwide, a national distributor of arts and crafts and sporting goods products, recently implemented a shopping cart abandonment program through Silverpop Engage that helps the company generate an impressive 25 percent conversion rate—more than seven to eight times the average conversion rate of 3 to 3.5 percent that Forrester Research reports retailers typically achieve. Busy people often put items in online shopping carts and then fail to complete the transaction. Within an hour of cart abandonment, S&S Worldwide automatically sends shoppers an email reminder to complete their purchases. The program operates using Web analytics from Coremetrics integrated with Silverpop Engage Transact, a dedicated sending architecture specifically designed for triggered transactional emails and messaging. If the customer still takes no action, the company follows up periodically with additional emails that offer various incentives for completing the purchase. Nye said the ability to send triggered, one-off messages with content relevant to the items in the abandoned cart plays a significant role in enticing customers to complete their purchases.

Silverpop, a leading provider of email and B2C customer engagement marketing solutions and multichannel B2B marketing automation, assists retailers with email marketing programs that build closer consumer relationships and drive revenue. S&S Worldwide is a national distributor of arts and crafts and sporting goods products for recreation, health care and education professionals. S&S has been in business for 103 years. Currently the company employs approximately 300 employees. (Carolyn Nye, marketing manager for S&S Worldwide.)

Family organization solution

Cozi, a free web service that helps families organize and simplify their daily lives, has formed a partnership with Nestlé to offer a co-branded edition of its popular family organization solution. Nestlé will launch the Cozi co-branded service in conjunction with its back-to-school “Happy New School Year” campaign beginning July 15. Cozi has more than 1.4 million family members, and is available for free at www.cozi.com. Nestlé USA had 2008 sales of $8.8 billion. (Becky Chao, mom insights director, Nestlé.)

Bakery’s catering program

La Boulange, a San Francisco-based rustic French-inspired bakery, has selected MonkeyCatering to help develop the bakery’s first catering program with online ordering and end-to-end production management. La Boulange will launch its new website, www.laboulangebakery.com, next month and plans to complete the implementation of MonkeyCatering in the late summer to early fall timeframe. MonkeyMedia Software specializes in web-based operations solutions for the foodservice industry.

Promoting to mobile phone’s idle screens

Ace Hardware is promoting popular home maintenance products to mobile consumers through mobile phone’s idle screens. A national campaign launched around Ace’s Memorial Day Sale invited consumers to visit their local Ace Hardware to take advantage of deals. The campaign was executed by Horizon Media and generated an average CTR of 18%. In addition, consumers that viewed the campaign were nearly 30% more likely to visit an Ace Hardware retail store. Mobile Posse’s innovative mobile idle screen advertising platform powered the campaign.

The Mobile Posse solution also allows advertisers to conduct short form surveys through the mobile idle screen. In follow-up to the Ace campaign, users were asked whether they had visited an Ace Hardware store within the past seven-to-ten days. Users that viewed the campaign were 29% more likely to have visited an Ace Hardware retail store than users that did not view the campaign. These results demonstrate that mobile idle screen ads and sponsorships can help to drive traffic to retail locations. Consumers opt-in to Mobile Posse’s free application to receive informative and fun content, along with valued offers from local and national retailers. Full-screen offers are targeted and interactive, and can feature rich graphics and customer surveys. Ace Hardware has 4,600 hardware, home center and building materials stores that generate annual retail sales of more than $12 billion. www.acehardware.com. (Andrew Vitellaro, Sr. Creative Specialist at Ace Hardware.) www.mobileposse.com

Alternative to plastic cards

CashStar, the interactive gift card and incentives company, has been selected by Dippin’ Dots, well known for its beaded ice cream. With CashStar’s technology, Dippin’ Dots will provide consumers with an alternative to plastic cards. Beginning this summer, ice cream lovers everywhere can order Dippin’ Dots gift cards online to be sent to recipients via e-mail. Virtual gift cards will be available on the company’s website (www.dippindots.com) and can be purchased the same way plastic gift cards are ordered; only the virtual gift card can be personalized with different images and text and is delivered via an e-mail with a link to activate the gift. Dippin’ Dots are tiny, cryogenically frozen beads of ice cream, yogurt, sherbet and flavored ice. Invented in 1988 by microbiologist Curt Jones., Dippin’ Dots are sold in nearly 250 franchised retail locations. (Anthony George, local area marketing manager at Dippin’ Dots.) www.cashstar.com

Mutual of Omaha and customer data

Mutual of Omaha has deployed Navagate’s Agility to track and manage its customer data, provide its agents with quick access to information, and improve marketing and service. A full-service, multi-line provider of insurance and financial services products, Mutual of Omaha offers products and services for families, individuals, businesses and groups with a product line including Annuities, Retirement Plans, Banking, Critical Illness, Dental Insurance, Disability Insurance, Employee Benefit Plans, Investments, Life Insurance, Long-Term Care Insurance, Medicare Supplement Insurance, and Voluntary/Worksite Products. (Scott Campbell, Director of Distribution Marketing, Mutual of Omaha.) www.mutualofomaha.com.

27 million emails a year

Powell’s Books is boosting online sales with a new email campaign that delivers book recommendations based on customer’s favorite topics. Launched in February, Powell’s Subject Newsletter has already returned open rates of more than 70 percent by delivering subscribers monthly book recommendations in up to ten subject areas based on their identified subject interests. The company, which began its email marketing efforts in 1999, offers book aficionados a suite of seven email newsletters ranging from a book review a day to a listing of its recently arrived used books. Collectively, Powell’s sends more than 27 million emails every year to its growing subscriber list that now tops more than 500,000 book readers. (Sam Whitmore, Powell’s Books’ online marketing developer.)

Predictive analytics and email services

Perricone MD, a leader in prestige skincare, is realizing improvements to both revenue and profitability by using iPost’s predictive analytics solution and email services to re-engage dormant customers. By segmenting customers based on level of engagement, Perricone MD is re-invigorating relationships – and sales – with both latent and active customers. (Neil Kjeldsen, vice president of eCommerce at Perricone MD.)

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Locally placed search advertising growth

Locally placed search advertising in the U.S. is projected to grow 30 percent over the next five years, from $4.1 billion in 2008 to $5.3 billion in 2013. According to research by Borrell Associates, this growth will be led primarily by advertising service providers that adopt scalable technology infrastructure and recalibrate their economics to allocate more customer investment to search media spend. According to the report, many online advertising resellers and affiliates, who service local businesses, churn half their customers within a year’s time, and some lose as many as 90 percent. This often is due to missed expectations and a lack of return on investment for local-business customers. Critical points for local advertising success include correctly pricing advertising products for local businesses, and devoting a greater percent of that investment to media spend. Most important, advertising products and value must be easily understood by local businesses. That requires a shift from selling Web site clicks to selling measurable leads, delivered via email and phone calls. This report is available for free at Clickable.com.

Predictive analytics software at Procter & Gamble

The Procter & Gamble Company has turned to Predictive Analytics to gain a complete view of customer attitudes and preferences about its products. By using SPSS Inc. Predictive Analytics Software (PASW), Procter & Gamble is able to gather and analyze direct feedback – harnessing the vital Voice of the Customer to improve marketing research and brand evaluation. Procter & Gamble (P&G) manufactures well-known brands including Tide, Pampers, Pantene and Crest products. (Patrick Hogan, consumer research solutions manager for global business services at P&G.)