Personalised digital content and mobile app drive greater in-store sales, richer business insights and stronger customer relationships

In the past, Dagrofa had relied on a printed weekly catalogue to showcase its prices, but this approach was falling out of favour with customers. As Gubbertsen explained: “In some areas 70% of people said they didn’t want to receive the catalogue any more. We needed to look at new ways to reach our customers.”

Dagrofa recognised going digital would open up not only new customer channels but also new opportunities. “By digitising our advertising, marketing, we would be able to provide tailored customer offers based on time, place and personal preference,” said Gubbertsen.

To realise its digital ambitions, Dagrofa partnered with Salesforce. “We needed a solution that was ready to go. With Salesforce, there’s no hardware but there are loads of APIs,” added Gubbertsen.

A new era in digital engagement

For its digitalisation strategy to be a success, Dagrofa had to completely rethink the customer journey. With no online presence, customer relationships were primarily focused around its 600-plus stores, which operate under five brands.

“We wanted to be able to engage with customers before and after their visit to a store, not just during,” explained Gubbertsen. “With Salesforce, we’ve been able to transform our definition of customer service.”

In October 2015, Dagrofa introduced a new loyalty club in MENY, which coincided with the launch of MENY, a chain of 119 fresh food markets operated in conjunction with the country’s independent grocers.

The loyalty club provides access to marketing promotions and content via various channels, including email, SMS, store websites, and an app built with integration to Heroku, part of Salesforce Salesforce Platform.

By using customers’ payment cards as loyalty cards, Dagrofa can track every purchase in every store. “Our catalogue used to feature around 500 products, but a customer might only be interested in five of these products. We can now identify those preferences and personalise our promotions,” explained Gubbertsen.

The data engine behind Dagrofa’s customer promotions and preferences is founded on Heroku, which enables the retailer to process personalised offers in real-time at the point of sale.

Maximising results from digital marketing content

The creation and distribution of customer communications and promotions are co-ordinated via Marketing Cloud, with two to three messages pushed out every week.

“We want to deliver both personalised and dynamic content to our customers on their channel of choice,” explained Gubbertsen. “With Marketing Cloud, we can create customer journeys across multiple channels and for multiple in-store scenarios.”

Dagrofa also uses Marketing Cloud to test out digital content ideas to maximise results. For example, it can send the same email but with three different subject lines to compare response rates.

“With Marketing Cloud, we can do live testing, which improves the effectiveness of our customer communications,” confirmed Gubbertsen.

To ensure a consistent experience on different mobile devices, Dagrofa uses an app from the Salesforce AppExchange to preview digital marketing content.

Smarter business insights, greater customer loyalty

As more customers respond to more promotions and communications, Dagrofa can build even richer insights into consumer behaviour.

“We now have a wealth of metrics about customer buying habits that we can tap into,” explained Gubbertsen. “This doesn’t just improve our marketing strategy, it also improves our buying strategy as we know which products are the most popular.”

Eventually, Dagrofa wants all customer touchpoints to be captured in Salesforce solutions. This joined-up approach will not only boost efficiency and agility but also the retailer’s competitive advantage.

“With Salesforce, we can ensure we are in the customer’s mind before they even enter the store. This helps increase basket sizes and strengthen loyalty,” concluded Gubbertsen.