In our last post, we discussed a few essential integrations with OroCRM to help merchants start making the best use of their data. As we mentioned last time, it’s not a lack of data that hinders targeted marketing initiatives, but rather a lack of actionable insights. So this time around, we’re going to discuss a couple of native features to OroCRM and walk through some simple use cases on what they can do for you as a marketer.
OroCRM is highly flexible and our merchants have built very specific solutions to meet their business challenges, yet we’ll try to keep this as general as possible.
Marketing Lists/Custom Reports
Both the marketing lists and custom reports tools allow merchants to ‘slice and dice’ their data so they can either market to a specific customer group more effectively or allocate marketing dollars more efficiently. If you have email integrations, marketing lists will allow you to create either dynamic or static customer groups based on specific criteria. If you do not have an email integration, you can still create a custom report with the same criteria, export that list, and act on it.
Often times, the most simple segmentation strategy is product related. Obviously, there are more advanced product recommendation and segmentation tools available on the market that will use machine learning algorithms to identify patterns you might not see (perhaps it’s true that people who buy Tylenol also prefer Pepsi to Coke). These tools are incredibly useful and can augment OroCRM data to find these nuggets of insights in your data. However, most small to midsize merchants lack the volume of data to get meaningful insights, not to mention the resources to act on them.
We suggest merchants leverage their intimate knowledge of their own product/business as proof of concept. You will know best where the opportunities are within your product portfolio based on your seasonality and below are a few ideas to get you thinking:
- You sell health products and you know that at specific times of the year, allergy sufferers will need medication. You can pull a list of customers who have bought (or browsed) from that category in prior years.
- You sell furniture B2B or B2C and you know that a customer who buys a sofa from you is also likely to buy a coffee table. You can target a list of customers who have bought a sofa, but not a coffee table, and incentivize them to make another purchase.
- You sell electronics and you know people with Apple products also have a strong affinity for Beats by Dre headphones. You can target a list of all iPod buyers in the last month who did not also buy Beats headphones.
Of course the examples above are simplistic, but they demonstrate the ability to use your data to help you speak to customers on a more intimate basis. Borrowing from the allergy example above, we can see how a simple report will enable you to target a very specific customer base with extremely relevant content.
RFM
Another great function native to OroCRM is RFM customer segmentation. RFM is a great starting point for segmenting customers, allowing marketers to score their customers on the recency, frequency, and monetary value of their purchases. Additional documentation on RFM metrics can be found here.
While enabling RFM is simple, defining buckets that are meaningful to you as a marketer is a more complex challenge. You want to ensure that your buckets capture a diverse range of customers, but not so refined that you are not able to act on them. A great place to start is to plot the distribution of your transactions and look at the deciles of the corresponding data to determine where to set thresholds for your RFM buckets.
Armed with RFM segments, merchants can start to broadly target customers who meet specific criteria. As an example, we can imagine a use case where customers who have spent a lot of money, but have bought infrequently and have not purchased recently, might present as strong candidates for a win-back campaign. These customers have already demonstrated a high propensity to purchase, but for one reason or another have not purchased recently. You can simply create a list with a low monetary score (lower is higher) but high recency and frequency scores. You can then send these customers a specific offer to get them to purchase again.
Once again, the key to such simple, effective campaigns is the ability to work with your data. A proper CRM implementation and strategy is a critical first step towards more effective marketing.
We’re always happy to discuss your unique challenges, so feel free to drop us a line.
About the Author
Demac Media is the leading provider of eCommerce technology and services across retail, manufacturing and wholesale distributors in Canada. With a growing roster of over 65 eCommerce platforms, nearly 6 million unique monthly shoppers and $400M in transactions, Demac provides its partners with unrivalled market insight, development capability, and strategic reach.
