Teradata

Kansas City-based Hallmark has been helping people communicate, celebrate, and connect for nearly 100 years. Hallmark publishes products in more than 30 languages and distributes them in 100 countries across the globe. Hallmark greeting cards and other products can be found in more than 41,500 places in the U.S. alone, including upscale Hallmark Gold Crown stores. The company's Crayola subsidiary provides fun and imaginative ways for children to colorfully express themselves. In 2008, privately held Hallmark reported consolidated net revenues of $4.3 billion. The Hallmark brand also reaches consumers online at Hallmark.com and on television through Hallmark Hall of Fame original movies and the Hallmark Channel.  

Hallmark needed a way for owners of approximately 3,500 independent Hallmark Gold Crown stores to access and respond to their Crown Rewards Loyalty Program members’ purchase behavior. The company turned to its Retailer Customized Marketing (RCM) to provide these independent owners with the ability to use complex targeting criteria to build custom, Hallmark-branded postcards and to send greeting cards that can be in their consumers' homes within five to seven business days of ordering.  

Through RCM, Hallmark provides a powerful marketing tool to independent Hallmark Gold Crown store owners. The RCM website empowers thousands of store owners to very efficiently complement Hallmark’s overall marketing efforts on a micro level that would not have otherwise been affordable or possible as a company. RCM has effectively extended the reach of Hallmark's marketing budget by 10% with minimal cost. 

Through a series of iterative counts using different targeting attributes, store owners can do a quick analysis of their consumer base. Targeting attributes available are: dollars spent, greeting card and Keepsake ornament units purchased, number of transactions, and average spend per transaction. Those targeting attributes may be selected across one and/or two date ranges. For example, an owner can find the top decile of their consumers, how much they spend and how often they shop. 

RCM also helps store owners find consumers who are new to the Crown Rewards program or whose favorite store has recently closed. Owners choose from a variety of standard offers or they can customize their own offer using a library of images. With more than 1,000 individual components available to them (product templates, headlines, offers, images, logos, etc.), owners can be as sophisticated as they want. While this gives retailers flexibility, Hallmark is also able to maintain the vision and quality of the Hallmark brand. 

By feeding all orders nightly into a recurring campaign using Teradata Customer Relationship Manager (TCRM). Hallmark was able to automate the process of outputting the file to the print vendor and consolidation to contact history. By building the RCM website, Hallmark enabled remote access to consumer data without replicating terabytes of data and with no significant effect on the other users of their data warehouse. The company also reused a sophisticated enterprise model loyalty formula to associate consumers to stores. 

TCRM recurring campaigns control Hallmark's nightly processes (acting as the "traffic cop"), and the company uses automated emails to send out alerts if there are issues. SQL stored procedures build tables that feed the recurring campaigns so they are as efficient as possible. Hallmark has also built TCRM personalization rules to deal with exceptions – such as a rule to delete an order if the owner cancels it or if it was a duplicate. Another rule restores an order file if the TCRM campaign fails or if the file is not received by the POD vendor. 

Integration with TCRM has allowed Hallmark to maintain an enterprise view of 1-to-1 contacts that moves the company closer to its goal of a 360-degree view of the consumer and has enabled results reporting and analysis versus other marketing tools. By feeding the RCM consumer contacts along with all other 1-to-1 contacts (mail, email, telephone) into the Market Media Mix analysis, Hallmark is able measure the revenue and ROI generated by these retailer-funded consumer touchpoints. 

"The program is great. Our numbers show that. We have achieved redemption rates of 12 to 27% on a variety of offers. The postcards bring traffic into the store… and they spend more while they are here. The program is a stroke of genius when compared to other programs out there." -Hallmark Gold Crown Store Owner

From the initial pilot of 10 retailers in the spring of 2006, the number of Hallmark retail owners depending on RCM has grown to almost 1,000 in 2008. Depending on the season, RCM mailings account for 5 to 20% of retail revenue generated by direct contacts. That percentage continues to grow as usage and experience with the program increases. In 2008 Hallmark mailed triple the volume of RCM postcards over 2007, from 5 to 15 million. 

In 2008, RCM postcards generated a 25% greater dollar sales lift and RCM greeting cards generated a 250% greater dollar sales lift than national mailings that did not contain a loyalty program reward certificate. RCM greeting cards even generated a 12% greater dollar sales lift than other reward certificate mailings. Overall, Hallmark estimates RCM direct contacts (postcards, greeting cards, and email) generated approximately $5o million in retail revenue in 2008. 

This program has allowed Hallmark to balance the goals of owners with the goals of corporate marketing. Store owners reap the benefits of Hallmark's enterprise data warehouse services, such as:

• CAAS-certification and National Change of Address (NCOA) needed for USPS postage discounts
• Tracking deliverability
• Consumer preferences, such as "do not mail"
• Access to Hallmark creative design resources that support brand image
• Volume printing costs and comingling mailing speed
• Supplier relationships

Responses to RCM postcards are clustered in the 3 to 5% range with average dollars spent clustering around $30 to $50. For the RCM greeting card program, average response was 8 to 12% with average dollars spent of $30 to $60. The average response to coupons in Hallmark national mailings ranges from 10 to 15%. 

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