One of our sister publications, Direct, has an insightful report about how retailer Bath and Body Works built a file of 10 million email addresses in less than two years.
“By November, we'll have the largest e-mail file in all of specialty retail,” said Brian Beitler, vice president of customer marketing for Bath and Body Works, at a presentation during eTail 2007 in Washington, DC last week.A customer's e-mail address is worth $18 to the company, Beitler added.
To entice customers to give over their electronic addresses, Bath and Body Works offers free tubes of lip gloss. However, they don't get it on the spot. The company takes a true multi-channel approach.
The gift comes as an offer in customers' e-mail boxes that they must take back to the store to redeem, Beitler said.
“E-mail is significantly more valuable to us for a store customer than for a Web customer,” he added.
“When they're in the store the first time, they make a $24 or $25 transaction,” he said. “When they come back to the store, what do they do? They make another $24 or $25 transaction.”