STORES Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 47)

NUTS AND BOLTS / BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE sense of the 300 million lines of data collected over the past few years. Like many retailers, Hallmark is confronting what Alexi Sarnevitz, senior director of retail strategy for Cary, N.C.based SAS Institute, calls the “three C’s of retailing”: intensifying competition, the increasing importance of customer centricity and the complexity inherent in trying to tailor offers to customers. One way to meet these challenges is to boost the company’s effectiveness at reaching consumers through Hallmark’s loyalty program and increasing their buying share. Additionally, Dittman wants to be able to identify new ways to grow the business. To reach these goals, Dittman and his colleagues needed the assistance of a robust marketing analytics and business intelligence solution that could make sense of the data Hallmark had accumulated. In the past, extensive data movement and manipulation was required before it could be used to answer business questions. For instance, someone on Dittman’s BI program helps Hallmark target team would download a file from the marketing promotions mainframe to a server 3 C’S OF RETAILING and import it into AcBY KAREN M. KROLL cess. He or she would then use Excel to view intensifying competition hen Joyce Clyde Hall took the train to and analyze the inforimportance of customer Kansas City in 1910, he couldn’t have mation. All together, centricity imagined that the two boxes of postcards the process could take he carried with him would become the startcomplexity inherent in trying several days. up inventory of what now is a $4.4 billion enterprise. Having used multito tailor offers to customers ple SAS applications Hallmark cards, gifts and other prodlevel. The goal, of course, is driving for nearly a decade, Hallmark chose ucts are sold in some 43,000 retail outsales. “At corporate we provide insight that company’s Enterprise Intelligence lets in more than 100 countries, but it’s that turns database information into Platform in 2007. Dittman and his team the 3,500 independently owned Hallmarketing programs,” he says. use the BI application for querying and mark Gold Crown stores and nearly All Hallmark Gold Crown stores elecanalyzing the success of past marketing 500 company-owned stores that offer tronically transmit consumer sales data campaigns. the widest selection of products. Ensurto Hallmark’s corporate data center The software helps identify which ing that these stores are supported with nightly. Much of the data covers shopgroups of consumers have responded to the most effective marketing materials is pers in Crown Rewards, a customer loyspecific ads and promotions. Armed the responsibility of Jay T. Dittman, vice alty program in which members accuwith that information, the analytics president of marketing strategy for Hallmulate points for making purchases. application within the platform uses mark. About 14 million consumers participate predictive modeling to enable Hallmark Dittman and his team work to target in the program. to gain an understanding of how these consumers with compelling marketing To develop marketing materials that consumers are likely to respond to messages that are delivered at the right will resonate with these customers, future promotions. time and at an appropriate expense Dittman and his team first must make “SAS is the enabler that lets us do the Sending the Very Best W WWW.STORES.ORG STORES / OCTOBER 2008 47 http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - October 2008

STORES Magazine - October 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Force of a Different Collar What Shoppers Think Bagging the Competition 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Favorite 50 Sticky Strategies for Retention Concept2Watch Kiosks Online Business Intelligence RFID NRFtech Wrap-up E-Commerce Credit Warehouse Systems Logistics Selling Tools Supply Chain LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - October 2008

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