Personal Creations Brings E-mail Marketing Home

Problem: Executives at Personal Creations catalog were unhappy with the performance of their outsourced e-mail marketing program.
Solution: They implemented iBuilder to manage e-mail marketing internally.
Results: Annual e-mail sales increased 70 percent, sales per e-mail went up 10 to 15 percent and e-mail marketing costs were reduced by more than 50 percent.

After outsourcing to various e-mail service providers for two years, officials at Personal Creations were displeased with the performance of their program, including production time, distribution methods and service costs. They decided to bring their e-mail marketing program in-house.

“We felt we could do a better job managing the strategy and creative ourselves,” says Geoffrey Smith, president of e-commerce and new business development at Personal Creations, a Burr Ridge, IL-based cataloger of personalized gifts. The company went hunting for a new solution that would:

>provide the necessary tools and technology to independently create and manage an e-mail marketing program (e.g., uploading lists and creative elements, scheduling campaigns);

>include basic analytics to measure and report e-mail statistics; and

>determine the type of e-mail subscribers should get (e.g., text, HTML, versions for AOL users).

VerticalResponse, a direct marketing solutions provider based in San Francisco, offered a quick fix. Its iBuilder solution, offered as an application service provider, meets all of Personal Creations’ above-noted parameters. For example, it allows users to create, control and measure key functions within a direct e-mail marketing program, including list management, campaign development, e-mail delivery, and results measurement and reports.

When Personal Creations tested its then-current e-mail provider against iBuilder, results showed that e-mails sent through iBuilder consistently resulted in higher sales. Moreover, Smith says, VerticalResponse’s pricing model had a much better ROI.

An Easy Implementation

Smith notes that iBuilder’s implementation was a simple process. After establishing an account, it took about one day for Personal Creations to set up other administrative terms. After that, the cataloger was able to start sending e-mails. Personal Creations began the implementation process by uploading its mailing list. Campaigns quickly followed suit.

Since adopting iBuilder, e-mail sales at Personal Creations have increased 70 percent annually. “Most of that is due to growth in our housefile,” Smith admits. “But our sales per e-mail have grown 10 percent to 15 percent a year … mainly due to better conversion rates, lower bounce rates and better open rates.” Additionally, e-mail marketing costs decreased by more than 50 percent.