With its sophisticated trigger mail concept, the international online shop operator babymarkt focuses on important events in the lives of its customers and provides them with exactly the information they need at that particular moment – personalized and automated. Well-placed vouchers support purchasing activity.
![[Translate to English:] Zwei Tablets, die E-Mail-Newsletter von babymarkt anzeigen. Auf dem linken Tablet ist ein Schwangerschafts-Newsletter zu sehen, während das rechte Tablet eine Werbung für einen bis zu 55 Euro Gutschein mit einem Gorilla-Maskottchen zeigt.](/fileadmin/_processed_/4/c/csm_inxmail-referenzbild-case-study-babymarkt-zwei-tablets-1140x490_7dd3d005cc.png)
Event-driven communication with vouchers – worldwide for all online shops
babymarkt is one of the leading online retailers for baby and children's products. With the loyalty program babypoints, customers collect points when they make a purchase that they can redeem on further orders. Exclusive prize draws and other promotions in combination with vouchers complement the program. Based on the positive experiences, babymarkt would like to intensify the event-related communication with vouchers along the customer lifecycle – both for registered customers and for “guests”, who should be accompanied in the best possible way in the phases after the purchase. Automated mailings should efficiently support sales after the purchase activity and maintain the customer relationship.
Due to the internationality and independent working methods of the individual countries, it is particularly important that each country can create its own mailings, which must be checked and approved centrally before sending. In addition, it is important to always keep track of sent, redeemed and expired voucher codes – across all countries. The Inxmail email marketing platform is used to meet these and other requirements..
The focus of email marketing is the customer journey
In order for customers to be able to use the vouchers when making a purchase, they do not necessarily have to be registered with the babypoints loyalty program. babymarkt uses the vouchers as needed, both via the regular newsletter and in the post-purchase phase with active customers, as well as for personal occasions (e.g. birthdays or the birth of a child). The associated personal data is provided voluntarily and can be edited at any time. Accordingly, customers receive various trigger e-mails, such as the weekly pregnancy newsletter, the toddler newsletter after the birth or the birthday mailing.
The vouchers can only be redeemed in the online shop. Points can be collected both online and in the store. Collected babypoints can be redeemed with every purchase.
Depending on whether the customer participates in the loyalty program or not, the mailings and newsletter contain target group-specific content. This individualized content (e.g. points balance or exclusive promotions) ensures that the customer receives content that is relevant to them and is picked up on in the best possible way in their customer journey.
Shop system and Inxmail Professional go hand in hand
babymarkt records and collects all customer data in a shop system developed in-house. From there, the data relevant for email marketing is automatically transferred to the corresponding recipient list in Inxmail Professional. Based on selected criteria (such as birthday, delivery date, purchase date), customers receive automated individual mailings. A total of nine trigger emails are currently set up in all countries, some of which are very extensive and multi-level, such as the toddler or pregnancy newsletter.
The use of the voucher plug-in facilitates the use of individual voucher codes that can be used across countries and are valid for two weeks after receipt. babymarkt creates the codes in the shop system and the plug-in automatically transfers them to Inxmail. The Inxmail platform informs the employees in the marketing department in good time by e-mail when there are no longer enough voucher codes available or when they expire and new codes have to be generated in the shop system. The shop system, in turn, recognizes when expired vouchers are used in the order.
The threads come together at the headquarters in Germany. Although each country works independently with its mailing list, approval from Germany is required before sending. Similarly, the voucher codes are managed centrally in the German marketing department. The approval process and the voucher plug-in in Inxmail perfectly support this way of working and provide the necessary overview of all activities.
With relevance, personalization and automation to success
Vouchers are undoubtedly an important sales tool, but they alone do not make customers happy or loyal to the brand. The more relevant the content, the better the performance of the mailings – for this reason, babymarkt invests a lot of time in evaluating trigger mails and newsletters. Which content is clicked on at which point in time? This leads to constant optimizations, especially for the pregnancy newsletter. The click behavior shows very clearly when which information is important and interesting for the readers. But the newsletter is also subject to a constant improvement process. These constant efforts are rewarded with an average opening rate of 85 percent for the pregnancy newsletter.
The consistently positive key figures (such as opening and click rates) show that the trigger concepts work. The same applies to the newsletter that babymarkt usually sends four times a week: the events communicated there convey relevance and result in a higher opening and click rate than regular mailing content. The post-purchase mail, in turn, ensures the best conversions among the trigger mails.
Admittedly, the initial effort required to set up the trigger concepts was immense. But it was worth the effort: the personalized mailings run smoothly and automatically in all countries. This allows babymarkt to invest more resources in evaluating and optimizing existing mailings and developing new communication concepts along the customer journey.
From a small baby products store to an international online shop for baby and children's products: it's hard to imagine that babymarkt.de was once just a small eBay store. Today, the company, headquartered in Bochum, is one of the leading online specialty stores in the industry and is growing strongly both nationally and internationally. More than 500 employees work hard every day to ensure that everything runs smoothly. In its online shops, babymarkt focuses on strong brands and quality in combination with affordable prices and short delivery times.