Exclusive: Michaels improves personalization via email program

A leading North American specialty arts & crafts retailer is successfully reactivating customer email addresses for marketing purposes.

During the 2021 holiday season, The Michaels Companies Inc. initially discovered the 4.8 million customer email addresses were at risk of becoming inactive due to customers not opening an email from the retailer in nine to 12 months. The retailer exclusively provided details of this campaign and its longer-term results to Chain Store Age.

To re-engage these email subscribers, Michael’s leveraged 3radical audience engagement solutions to implement a survey and holiday-themed “advent calendar” that included a combination of unique events, incentives to purchase, and a progressive data capture mechanism.

In addition to wanting to re-engage inactive email users, Michaels wanted to learn more about its customers’ hobbies, why they shopped with the retailer, and what type of communications they preferred. So, customers received two emails a day for seven days promoting the advent calendar, as well as an invitation to take a survey and subsequently receive rewards.

Customers were presented with an initial five-question survey related to their shopping habits, hobbies, and communication preferences with the retailer. As a result, Michaels was able to reactivate more than 80,000 customer emails, with an estimated value to the retailer of over $400,000.

Four in 10 (41%) of targeted customers who clicked the email engaged with the introductory survey, and 53% of those continued to engage with more than one day of the advent calendar. Michaels collected more than 2,500 unique data points, including customer identity, what they’re looking for, and their communication preferences.

As a result, the retailer has been able to offer customers who responded to the surveys more targeted offers. Shoppers can receive personalized discounts, sneak peaks, and/or exclusive deals, based on their individual preferences.

Michaels says will continue to capture and utilize data provided with customer intent, with the objective of building insights that drive performance improvements to better align content, offers, and website experiences based on customer-defined needs and intent.

“As we looked to further engage our audience and define preferences and relevancy through direct consumer interactions, the adaptive customer journeys delivered through 3radical were a perfect fit,” Stephanie Turner, who recently left her position as director, targeted marketing, Michaels and helped oversee this project, told Chain Store Age. “We are very pleased with the results of our initial experience deployment and look forward to the success of our future programs.”

Michaels streamlines, expands loyalty program
As part of broader efforts to increase customer engagement, Michaels also recently made a number of significant updates to its loyalty offering, the Michaels Rewards Program, with the aim of simplifying the program while maximizing its value for its most loyal customers.

Customers told Michaels there was room to improve its rewards program, and in response, the retailer simplified the program and added value through everyday rewards on all purchases and by increasing the frequency and relevance of personalized bonus offers, among other steps.

Based in Irving, Texas, The Michaels Companies operates more than 1,200 stores in 49 states and Canada.