Benefit Cosmetics has selected Dovetail to support the development and implementation of its marketing database.
This partnership marks the first time that Benefit has attempted to integrate its online and offline customer data into a single database. The makeup company, which is majority-owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, sells its products at 650 counters worldwide, through a quarterly catalog and on its Web site.
“We looked at a few vendors [and found] Dovetail is able to integrate point-of-sale data from our boutiques as well as data from the Internet and create a real customized solution that they could help us design,” said Laurie Penn-Moyer, e-commerce marketing manager at Benefit.
Penn-Moyer said that a targeted CRM strategy was a “big initiative” for the company going into this year.
“We had been doing things more manually and doing a lot of campaigns that went out to our entire database,” she said. “Our strategy going forward is to do some more targeted direct marketing efforts to customer segments and prospecting and really understanding who’s buying from Benefit and targeting messages to those individuals.”
The Dovetail Application, Dovetail’s flagship product, allows marketers to run counts, pull lists and perform analyses through a browser-based interface. The database company works mainly with middle-market companies in sectors ranging from tourism to telecom.
“I just like the fact that they are an industry that is growing, and they really seem to know their stuff and know what they want,” said Jeff Barela, COO of Dovetail. “The fact that they have this online and offline presence is exciting as well, and that they’re growing their database is going to be important to their success.”
“We’re going to do more segmenting and identify the behavior we want to drive with each segment,” added Penn-Moyer. “In some of the initial work we’ve done, the targeted mailings are driving higher response rates and reducing the churn and burn on our customers.”
With the Dovetail system in place Benefit executives plan to perform more rigorous analyses of marketing campaigns and results. The company will also increase its testing of specific target audiences.
Benefit Cosmetics targets luxury consumers with a fun-loving, whimsical aesthetic. The San Francisco, CA-based company is known for its “now-to-wow” fast fixes and cutesy product names, such as Thrrrob blush and Dr. Feelgood balm.
