Like most marketers, Jim Driscoll knows it costs more to acquire new customers than to retain old ones. As Director of Marketing and Retail Logistics for Carlton Cards, the largest greeting card supplier in Canada, he’s well aware that his customers include some of the largest—and most sought after—mass retail, grocery and pharmacy chains. Even just one defection among these major retailers could be a serious financial blow.
“Carlton Cards’ purpose is to make the world a more thoughtful and caring place every single day,” says Driscoll. “To fulfill that promise, it is imperative that each store carries a mix of cards appropriate to the consumers shopping in that location.”
Driscoll has found an unusual way to retain his business-to-business (B2B) customers: treat them more like marketing partners. He now shares with them detailed information—demographic, lifestyle and values data—about their consumers in every trade area of their stores. The reports help his retail partners not only sell more cards but better understand their consumers so they can improve sales in other categories as well.
Carlton Card’s B2B campaign began when Driscoll teamed up with Environics Analytics (EA) to provide trade area reports for Pharmasave, the chain of more than 500 neighbourhood pharmacies and drugstores. Through EA’s micromarketing tool ENVISION, Driscoll could easily generate executive trade area reports for any location in North America. But Driscoll wanted to customize the reports for retailers based on card buying behaviour. By augmenting ENVISION’s demographic tables, maps and lifestyle profiles for each store with primary research, he hoped to devise customized reports to help Pharmasave determine the best merchandise mix for each store.
Driscoll’s approach highlights the growing role that analytics plays in B2B marketing. Thanks to sophisticated data analytics, EA can provide valuable research to help companies understand the needs of their business customers. It’s no longer enough to merely map the locations of competitors and track revenues per store. Just like consumer marketers, B2B marketers need the latest data and innovative analytics to provide actionable insights on customers and markets.
To develop the new reports, Driscoll first tapped ENVISION to analyze previous primary research on card shoppers using EA’s PRIZMC2 segmentation system that classifies Canadians into 66 distinct lifestyle types based on demographics, behaviour and values to his proprietary research. Because Carlton Cards offers cards that celebrate a wide range of holidays and personal milestones, it has shoppers in all of PRIZMC2’s segments, spanning rich, poor, English-speaking and French Canadian groups. Researchers sorted the PRIZMC2 segments into seven target groups based on level of engagement and then mapped each group’s presence in the trade area of every store.
One target group, nicknamed Young Modern Shoppers, consisted of predominantly young, well-educated singles and couples who are progressive in their outlook, such as those who live in the Grads & Pads segment. “They’re quite open-minded and will purchase cards from the humour section,” explains Driscoll. “And they’ll also consider environmental factors when buying cards, so having the cards printed on recycled paper is good for that group.”
Another group, called Upscale Families, contained wealthier consumers with higher-end tastes, including members of the wealthiest segment, Cosmopolitan Elite. “They tend to be more conservative which means that we have different tones in our cards,” says Driscoll. “So the stores should aim their cards at the family-oriented woman as opposed to the working mom.”
When Driscoll presented his information at a Pharmasave national conference, many of the nearly 160 owners who stopped by his booth received an electronic copy of the report loaded on a flash-drive keychain emblazoned with Carlton Card’s logo. The response, he recalls, was overwhelming. “Some people stayed at the booth for nearly forty minutes,” Driscoll says. “This analysis was a powerful way for us to show that we’re a good partner who can benefit the company in many ways.”
As Carlton Cards continues to roll out similar reports for its other B2B customers, Driscoll knows he is tightening the bonds that lead to success. And that’s worth celebrating, perhaps with a congratulatory card.
Michele Sexsmith is a vice-president and practice leader at Environics Analytics, overseeing the retail, media, real estate and entertainment industries.
