Dive Brief:
- After Williams-Sonoma revealed its online sales grew 5.2% while in-store sales stayed flat, the home goods retailer plans to put more of its marketing budget toward digital channels, according to Internet Retailer.
- The retailer plans to leverage more personalized and targeted advertising. Targeted customers are three times more likely to buy from Williams-Sonoma — at just half the cost, according to CEO Laura Alber.
- Seeing that mobile traffic and conversions have grown "significantly," the retailer also plans to upgrade its mobile sites.
Dive Insight:
Digital is already Williams-Sonoma's biggest marketing channel ahead of catalogs and store-based marketing efforts, but the retailer plans to double down on digital after seeing growth driven by e-commerce.
E-commerce is the “principal driver” of brand growth, and the retailer plans “to surgically cut our catalog circulations to rebalance and to optimize our investments into digital channels as they continue to evolve,” according to CEO Laura Alber. Data underpins the retailer's digital marketing efforts and gives Williams-Sonoma "a material advantage."
Data plays an increasingly important role for digital marketers, with 70% of marketers saying in a recent survey that personalization is their key goal for using data. The more third and first party data that marketers can collect on prospects and customers, the more segmentation and personalization they can impose on databases — thus improving the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
