14 CATEGORY 7: Best use of data


WINNER:Build Center AGENCY:SNOWBALL CAMPAIGN:‘SPEND & SAVE’


uild Center, part of the Wolseley Group, is a leading national builder’s merchant with over 150 branches supplying building materials to the trade. The recession had caused the home- building market to slow significantly and stiff competition from local independent traders created challenging trading conditions. Build Center wanted a campaign to encourage existing customers to spend more with them without impacting on margins – offering discounts on existing business to encourage cross- selling was not an option.


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The objective of the ‘Spend and save’ campaign was to give Build Center a greater share of wallet. Customers were coming in and buying just a single item – a builder would come in and just buy bricks, but not cement. Build Center wanted to encourage them to buy their other supplies at its branches too. The campaign also needed to encourage dialogue between sales staff and customers so that new trade terms could be negotiated, leading to more long-term business relationship. The offer needed to be personalised to every customer as each customer buys different volumes of materials and receives different terms and prices.


Savvy segmentation


The campaign targeted builders, landscape gardeners and joiners. The main issues in communicating with them were threefold: 1. Working out which segment of their sector they work in. For example, does a builder build houses or do they specialise in small interior jobs? Do they do everyday or high-end work?


2. Customers in this sector tend to buy on price alone, and in the recession, the price factor is even more important.


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3. Each customer has different terms negotiated with their supply merchants so each will pay an individually negotiated price for their product. Through careful analysis of Build Center’s transactional database, Snowball looked at each customer – the categories they bought in, the frequency of their transactions and how the value of their transactions compared to averages in each category. Using data from the most recent three-month period, the agency then created precisely targeted offers on products that customers were not buying but needed to complete their jobs and also up-sold offers in the categories they were already buying. Offers could not be price- specific, but had to be percentage or offer-based because the building and home improvements trade are based on volume and locality: each trader will receive a different price based on volumes bought and the prices in their local area.


Cheque please


The campaign was given the name ‘Spend and save’ – communicating clearly to both customers and staff the benefits and key mechanics of the programme. As the target audience operates in a largely offline world, Snowball devised a mailable cheque book-style booklet containing offer vouchers with a personalised front cover depending on whether the recipient was a joiner, builder or landscaper. Inside the cover was a message from the local manager with a map and address of the recipient’s nearest branch. The offers were bespoke to the recipient, based on buying patterns and likely predicted requirements. The aim was that Build


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center would never waste a voucher trying to sell a joiner a brick, but would up-sell him to a new premium product. Once a voucher had been torn out, the stub contained the telephone number of the local branch, and on the inside back cover, data capture forms ensured recipients could keep their details up-to-date. Halfway through the campaign, Snowball sent a personalised email, letter and SMS to remind people to use their offer booklet. In-store, an online dashboard developed by Snowball enabled staff to know which customers had what vouchers, filter by voucher type and strike up a conversation with them to encourage redemption and renegotiation of trade terms.


Data drives ROI


The ‘Spend and save’ campaign runs quarterly. Sales data is received monthly before the start of each campaign and analysed within five days. This data is then used to create the booklets. The booklets are mailed out and each campaign lasts three months. At the end of each campaign, learnings are fed back in, new sales data is received and the process begins again. Head of marketing at Wolseley, Andrew Cushing, said, “‘Spend and save’ has delivered a fantastic ROI and contributed significantly to the turnaround of the business. Our branch managers have confirmed that this is far superior to marketing campaigns they have seen before, and even seasoned trading directors in our business believe this is the best marketing activity they have seen in the merchant industry. The customer insights have been a revelation.”


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