A few times a year, the K-Supermarket chain conducts a national Superpäivät campaign, the after-sales marketing for which the chain has carried out in cooperation with Posti for years. The after-sales marketing campaign offers K-Supermarket retailers a natural and easy way to acquire new customers.
The aim of after-sales marketing via email and direct mail in paper form is to boost sales, strengthen the image of a better grocery store than usual and also attract new customers to K-Supermarket with good offers and visible campaigns.
Reach potential customers with target group definition
After-sales marketing for the spring 2023 Superpäivät campaign was conducted in March–April in two campaign launches targeting about 92,000 customers.
The target group consisted of Kesko’s current Plussa customers who have shopped and used their Plussa card at least once during the Superpäivät campaign in a K-Supermarket, reside in the core impact area of the supermarket they visited and are potential customers.
Two channels were used for the after-sales marketing campaign: email marketing and direct mailing. Only part of the target group can be reached electronically, so the retailer can also use direct mailing to expand the target group if they wish to.
Printed direct marketing attracts attention
K-Supermarket’s sales during the after-sales marketing campaign of Superpäivät developed as expected. Of the target group, 8.3% used the benefit included in the campaign.
Email marketing is cost-effective for retailers as it does not include sending costs, which lowers the participation threshold. However, investment in a printed direct mailing is worthwhile: in the spring after-sales marketing campaign, the number of customers who took advantage of the offer through direct marketing was 3.75 times higher than those who received an email.
For those who used the benefit, the purchase rate increased by 8% during the campaign and weekly sales by 16%, whereas for the control group (email marketing-permitted households from stores that did not implement the Superpäivät after-sales marketing campaign), they remained the same.
Increasing the shopping cart limit decreased the benefit use percentage. However, additional sales were generated with a better pricing percentage when the total purchase amount was higher than before.
"The after-sales marketing campaign for Superpäivät offers K-Supermarket retailers a natural and easy way to acquire new customers. Participation in the campaign is voluntary for retailers, but the ease of participation and good results have inspired retailers to take part. We strongly recommend that retailers also send printed direct letters, as the attention value of print and therefore the use of benefits is clearly higher in the target group of potential customers than in the email target group," said Kesko's Marketing Director responsible for the campaign following the campaign.
The implementation of Superpäivät is a good example of how to reach out to different consumer groups in channels that are right for them. By using personalized direct marketing in addition to email, you can achieve significantly better sales results in addition to reaching a wider audience.