Brand: Asda.com
Client: Asda
Brief: To re-engage with lapsed online shoppers
Target audience: Customers who had not shopped online for 12 weeks
Budget: Undisclosed
Agency: Ashley Bolser Agency
Challenge
Supermarket chain Asda set up its home shopping arm in 1998, and the site has since seen rapid growth. Asda now sells everything from flowers and furniture to mobile phones and electrical goods through its website Asda.com.
The supermarket's online arm is experiencing 50 per cent year-on-year growth in a competitive market. Most major grocery retailers, including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose, have online shopping divisions. Asda was the second most popular grocery website in the UK for the week ending 3 February, according to independent internet monitor Hitwise.
This year, UK shoppers are predicted to spend more than £5.3bn online on groceries alone, according to Forrester Research. As well as this, supermarkets are branching out into homeware and electricals to take a greater share of the market.
However, persuading customers to make online shopping a regular part of their life is no easy task. "It's about getting people into the habit of shopping online, as the early stages can be quite a learning curve," says Richard Ramsden, head of home shopping at Asda. "Once a customer has set up their favourite products and got to grips with the site, it's quick and easy to shop."
Asda had a large number of shoppers who had shopped through its website and then lapsed - often because they had switched to another brand, reverted to shopping in-store or because they were struggling to get to grips with the technology.
An email marketing programme offered increasingly high-value discount vouchers to tempt these customers to return, but a significant number of people were still not responding.
Strategy
Working with Leeds-based Ashley Bolser Agency, Asda decided to try reaching this unresponsive group through offline channels; in this case, direct mail. This would allow them to retain the voucher device, but change the medium of delivery.
Execution
A mailpack was developed using blue and green Asda branding and outlining the benefits of online grocery shopping.
The pack featured the same offer as the final email the group had received: £10 off when spending £50 at Asda.com. The e-voucher was highlighted in large print on the front of the envelope and was prominent on the letter inside.
"Holding a voucher in your hand feels more significant than receiving an email, and it included a tempting offer" says Ramsden.
Three mailings were sent in total, in February, March and May 2006. More than 85,000 packs were sent out and each landed in the middle of the month to ensure constant demand. "With grocery home shopping you have a fixed number of slots and it's all about timing. You need to encourage people to place orders at quiet times, such as the end of the month," says Ramsden.
Results
At its peak, the campaign drew a 16.3 per cent response and 10,000 of the 85,000 customers mailed redeemed their voucher.
Agency managing director Ashley Bolser was pleased with the results achieved by the switch in channels. "It's great to prove the power of an offline medium in cutting through and getting a response. A lot of people don't realise that in this digital world direct mail can still be effective if it is used in the right way."
For Ramsden, the most important element of the results is not redemption, but incremental sales - and this campaign increased customer spend. "If we sent a voucher to existing shoppers, we could get a 99 per cent response but not drive additional sales, as these customers would shop with us anyway," he says.
But for Ramsden it was the combination of email and direct mail that was key in achieving such impressive figures. "Nine times out of 10, email is the most cost-effective way of communicating with customers," he says. "Mail gets you the numbers, but email gets you the ROI. It's about understanding and balancing that to get the right payback at each point in time."
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