CWD Achieves Easier E-mail Segmentation

Problem: Children’s Wear Digest (CWD) couldn’t easily segment its e-mail lists, so tracking campaign results was difficult.
Solution: Employ EMart, a Web-based e-mail campaign management system that’s easier to set up and use, and can more easily track results.
Results: CWD’s e-mail open rates have doubled since implementing EMart, and clickthroughs increased from 12 percent to 34 percent.

Children’s Wear Digest (CWD), a family-owned direct marketer and retailer of brand-name kids’ apparel, wanted to boost its e-mail marketing results. In particular, officials of the Richmond, VA-based company wanted to make segment-specific offers, thereby possibly improving their open rates and clickthroughs.

But their previous e-mail campaign-management solution couldn’t offer easy segmentation, and the report-generation procedures were cumbersome, says Tracy Schneider, CWD’s marketing manager.

“We wanted segmentation abilities that were similar to those we have with our direct mail campaigns,” she explains. “For example, [we wanted to] segment our older customers from our newer ones to make specific offers.

But with our old system, we just couldn’t do that.”

So last November, CWD ditched its old e-mail marketing solution and started using EMart from Mokrynski & Associates. EMart is a Web-based e-mail campaign management solution that integrates all the functionality needed to manage, execute and track sales from targeted e-mails, says Kristy Parsils, a client service representative with Mokrynski & Associates. (The EMart system is available to any company, not just clients of Mokrynski’s list management/brokerage services.)

One year after implementing the EMart solution, CWD is registering impressive results. Open rates (e-mails that were delivered and opened by recipients) are 28 percent, about double what they were previously, says Schneider. And clickthroughs to the CWD Web site now average 34 percent, up dramatically from the 12 percent the company saw using its previous campaign-management system.

“EMart is an easy solution to use, too,” says Schneider. “I just go online to set up our campaigns on our end. I couldn’t do that before. The old provider had to set it up for us. So now we have more control over the process.”

Part of what makes Mokrynski’s solution easier to use, says Schneider, is that it automatically creates unique URLs for each e-mail CWD sends out — a task the old solution couldn’t do.

“Additionally,” Schneider says, “the price of the EMart service is less than what we were paying our previous provider.”

Parsils says the EMart solution uses a flexible pricing and service model. “Customers can choose from a full-service package that can handle any portion [of a cataloger’s] e-mail marketing needs: from database development, creative, testing and sales tracking, to a self-service model,” says Parsils. “Therefore, pricing is on an individual basis.”

One final reason Schneider is happy to tout EMart? “Mokrynski offers great customer service,” says the cataloger. “They have three people I can call on whenever I need help, feedback, someone to bounce ideas off of or suggestions.”