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Driving acquisition and loyalty with data-driven campaigns
The challenge
To acquire new customers and increase membership of the Liberty Loyalty programme.
Our response
Overlaid Liberty’s existing customer data with Personicx and provided prospect records enriched with relevant insights.
The impact
Focused campaigns boosted brand awareness and increased customer acquisition and programme membership.
Moving forward
Insights from Personicx were planned for use in more personalised marketing communications across digital and in-store channels.
Introduction
With a rich picture of its current and prospective customers, Liberty was able to reach the right people with relevant messaging. This led to acquisition campaigns achieving open rates of 35–40%, improved brand awareness, and growing membership of the valuable Liberty Loyalty programme.
Since 1875, Liberty’s distinct sense of innovative, eclectic and classic style had kept its Regent Street-based shop – its only premises – one of London’s most treasured retail destinations. And while the beautiful Tudor-style shop had a strong customer base, in recent years Liberty had also been developing its online business.
Trading via liberty.co.uk had been growing rapidly, but with only transactional data on which to base decisions, Liberty had little understanding of its existing customers and was therefore unable to identify new ones who matched its ideal profile.
“It was extremely important for us to build strong relationships with our current customers, acquire new ones and develop repeat online sales. We needed to understand our customers more by adding some real colour to our database with demographic and lifestage information,” said Jenni Cumming, Head of CRM, Liberty.
“We’re pleased that our targeted campaigns have achieved open rates of 35-40% and are having a positive impact on our customer base and levels of brand awareness. “
– Jenni Cumming, Head of CRM, Liberty
Detail-rich customer insight
To achieve this, Liberty required two things. Firstly, to enrich its database with detailed customer insight to provide a clearer picture of those already shopping with them. Secondly, access to data that could help identify ideal audiences for acquisition campaigns.
A test process saw Acxiom, alongside key competitors, enrich a sample of Liberty’s existing customer data. By applying Personicx, Acxiom immediately appended valuable details such as lifestage, age and affluence, as well as specific behavioural clusters. Liberty also evaluated Acxiom’s data – also coded with Personicx – to determine how accurately it could segment and identify new audiences.
“Personicx was rich in behavioural insight that wasn’t common in the marketplace. It was the obvious choice to meet Liberty’s objectives,” said Andrew Hooper, Business Development Director, Acxiom.
“Acxiom had previously profiled our customer base and this positive experience, together with their sample results, gave us complete confidence in their abilities. Their pricing was competitive too.”
– Jenni Cumming, Head of CRM, Liberty
Straightforward set-up
In just a few days, the Personicx code was applied to Liberty’s full database. Records that had previously been only transactional became rich in detail and distinct enough to group into meaningful clusters.
“Immediately, this insight gave us degrees of colour and depth we’d never had before,” said Jenni.
Once customer clusters had been applied, Acxiom created initial profiles showing Liberty’s ten highest-indexed consumer segments. Personicx was then used to identify matching segments from within Acxiom’s data, allowing Liberty to build audience models to reach ideal new customers.
Reaching the right customers
Developing acquisition campaigns became simpler. Liberty devised a campaign, selected relevant Personicx codes, and used them to identify the most suitable audience groups from Acxiom’s data. “From there, we developed and tested the creative and messaging, then managed the campaign delivery for Liberty in under a week,” said Andrew.
“Acxiom gave us a very good level of support and built campaign assets to a high standard,” said Jenni.
Compared with earlier efforts, the first three campaigns launched with Personicx support showed measurable uplift. A fourth campaign, aimed specifically at increasing Liberty Loyalty membership, also delivered strong results.
The Liberty Loyalty programme rewarded customers with vouchers based on their spend. These were distributed via direct mail to encourage repeat purchases and drive cross-selling online and in-store. Increasing membership was a key priority.
“Acxiom’s data meant we could pinpoint and connect with individuals most likely to sign up for Liberty Loyalty – this was crucial for boosting membership,” said Jenni.
With enhanced knowledge of existing customers, Liberty was also able to engage these audiences more precisely, helping drive repeat online and in-store purchases.
“It was a very straightforward process – Acxiom’s files were simply imported into our database. And because the solution was so intuitive, we could start using it immediately.”
– Steve Gallagher, CRM Analyst, Liberty
“It was a very straightforward process – Acxiom’s files were simply imported into our database. And because the solution was so intuitive, we could start using it immediately.”
– Steve Gallagher, CRM Analyst, Liberty
A supportive relationship
The strong and positive relationship between Acxiom and Liberty was key to campaign success.
“We found the Acxiom team supportive and flexible,” said Jenni.
Insights from Personicx were used across CRM, Buying & Merchandising, and e-Commerce. Liberty also explored how the solution could shape in-store experiences and power personalised digital content.
“Acxiom data really enhanced our customer view. While it was mainly used for acquisition at the time, we wanted to develop it for more strategic use – to drive content and create predictive models,” said Jenni.
“Acxiom’s data was incredibly granular, and the colour that Personicx gave us was essential in the retail environment – ideal for segmenting and reaching our very specific customer base.”
– Jenni Cumming
