2014 Silver Best Use of Direct Mail

Client Homebase

How did the campaign make a difference? The British Summer. It’s been wonderful this year, but back in March who knew? This is the annual challenge faced by Homebase, who rely on the vagaries of the weather and a short window of consumer excitement and anticipation for close to 50% of their business revenue every year. Spring is their Christmas – sales are critical and it only comes around once a year. Gardening takes the lead and analysis showed that customers who started early were more loyal and spent more – so the campaign identified potential high value gardening customers, encouraged them to start early and maximised their overall spend.

Results far exceeded expectations. By inspiring and helping customers plan ahead, 81.7% were motivated to start a project in their gardenand ended up spending 20% more across the garden season – totalling £30.2m revenue and £866k incremental sales. Incremental ROI was 3.4:1.

Strategy To maximise this window Homebase wanted to get customers, many of whom only shop at Homebase in the spring, thinking about their gardens and shopping early in the season.

Data analytics and research had shown that gardeners tended to build a season-long preference for the garden retailer they started with. Homebase knew that if they got them first they would go on to be over twice as valuable over the season.

Starting early enough in the season is one thing, but knowing what to do when, in which order and during different conditions requires knowledge that many don’t have. Homebase targeted 500,000 customers who had gardens and some level of interest and focused on supporting three things: ease, relevance and enjoyment.

Creativity Getting started is the hardest part, so multi-layered DM was sent to inspire would-be gardeners. The pack opened with motivational ideas, hints, tips and tools and demonstrated what could be done with any amount of time – from five minutes to one day. ‘Visual longing’ recalled the smells, sounds and tastes of summer. Homebase introduced its RHS Chelsea range and showed how to grow herbs in a simple window box. A garden planner highlighted useful long weekends and provided checklists.

To keep the mailer useful and retainable, offers were valid throughout the season and kept customers coming back as their project expanded. A survey prompted people to share their plans, triggering further DM and email activity when transactions showed they had started. And to help keep the customer enjoying their project, they could share their success with the community at www.getintogardening.co.uk.

Results 81.7% of the 500,000 mailed customers got stuck into garden projects – perfecting the lawn, landscaping, growing their own or putting a bit of colour into beds and hanging baskets. Responders visited 33% more often and spent, on average, £110 (20% more than the control group), amounting to £866k incremental revenue (8% of total garden sales) during the campaign.

Homebase also enjoyed long-term brand engagement and loyalty: customer Life Time Value rose 8% year-on-year, driven by increased retention, whilst customers moved onto other decorating and home improvement projects. 27,594 completed the survey, allowing Homebase to talk more personally to them. And the campaign has been expanded it into autumn, making it a yearround programme – because if you want asparagus, cabbage or broad beans you’d better get planting now...