Mobile case study: Royal Canin runs “Offers Factory” for pets in Russia

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Pet owners often think of their animals as unique, so Royal Canin put this to good use in Russia with clever personalised e-mail coupons and local offers tailored to each website subscriber. This case study shows how 74% of people whio opened the email went on to the online ordering platform.


Case study summary

• Royal Canin tapped into pet owners' love for their ‘unique’ animals

• Long-term loyalty programme used algorithmic analysis for personalised offers and local event alerts

• 46% of all online orders had coupon implementation

The challenge

Though Royal Canin knew a lot about Russian pet food owners, it found itself at the start of 2015 with a two-tiered problem: its customer database was sorely outdated and most everyone was still buying its products in stores versus the more efficient online channel. Further, most loyalty programs in the pet category were perceived as initiatives of individual retailers, with the brand itself typically kept at arm’s length.

Agency Ruskan LLC was challenged to create a long-term loyalty program that would foster an image of Royal Canin as an expert producer of high-quality pet food that met the needs of cats and dogs of different breeds. In doing so, the brand wanted to establish a new relationship with consumers to buy food directly from Royal Canin rather than at stores, either online or offline.
The target: pet owners of cats and dogs in the top six Russian cities, with no restrictions on age or breed.

After analyzing sales trends, Royal Canin set a goal to create a long-term loyalty program for owners of cats and dogs and transfer their purchases from offline to online.

Consistent metrics of the project were developed along with personalized offers for consumers. The program called for sending e-mail coupons offering either 30 percent “Welcome” discounts for new members; “Birthday” offers with 30 percent discounts, or a 15 percent “Quarterly” discount for all participants at the beginning of a new quarter. The program was integrated within the brand's CRM platform with a top-up over a long period of activation via the different channels.

The solution

For most pet food owners the buying experience is the same -- lugging heavy bags from a retail store with a no-name experience. The idea of personalization would require extensive back-end work.

After a multi-stage algorithmic analysis of the CRM platform, individual offers were created along the following parameters: type and size of pet, any upcoming “events” in the life of the animal - such as a birthday or a new stage of growth - along with medical records, and other data on the pet owner.

This allowed the agency to make personalized appeals to the owner and send e-mail coupons with specific deadlines for redemption. After clicking a unique link in an electronic coupon, the user was automatically sent to a page with a list of products chosen specifically for their pet and could immediately place an order without leaving the Royal Canin platform. The online orders would connect pet owners to special events and programs in various cities, facilitating further brand communication. Finally, customers could choose home delivery or pickup of their merchandise at a convenient store location.

All the data on mailed coupons were loaded in the CRM-database, including information on whether the participant used the specified coupon for purchase, or any other offer. It enabled the team to regularly update the database and assess not only a participant’s involvement with the program, but also to adjust item availability in retail platforms (online and offline), depending on the level of demand. It was also possible to understand the volumes of inventory needed of different products based on their popularity.

The results

The campaign achieved its overall goals of reducing logistics costs, minimizing waiting times for orders, and improving the customer experience; Royal Canin customers also saw that their order was implemented by the brand, rather than the retail store.

According to campaign statistics, about 80 percent of recipients opened the initial offer letter on their mobile devices, which led the brand to create an adaptive platform for mobile orders. Push SMS messages sent on a geolocation basis also helped monitor special offers at retail and refine messages to subscribers in the area of those stores with unique promotional codes for redemption.

Below are some other metrics:

• 65 percent of respondents opened campaign messages.
• 74 percent of these consumers went to the online ordering platform.
• 46 percent of orders had coupon implementation.
• 75 percent of program participants said they fed their pets by Royal Canin products.

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