73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs across channels. And when companies don’t meet expectations, consumers will look for different solutions. According to Salesforce's 2022 State of the Connected Customer, 71% of customers switched brands at least once within the past year. 

To reach customers with the right messaging on the right channel at the right time, SPARC Group LLC reached out to Lev. For those who are unfamiliar, SPARC Group is a fashion industry leader that designs, sources, manufactures, distributes and markets women's, men’s and kids' apparel and accessories worldwide with brands such as Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Forever 21, Lucky Brand, Nautica, and Reebok. With Lev, SPARC Group is striving to build the best, most efficient and productive Salesforce Marketing Cloud (MC) instance to enable them to send personalized emails that drive revenue and customer engagement. While the journey has been well worth it, their digital transformation hasn’t been without roadblocks.  

In the beginning, it was difficult to gain a holistic view of their customers and personalize their experience across all brands. Karilyn Anderson, the Group Vice President of Digital Marketing & CRM at SPARC Group, reached out to Lev due to their expertise building marketing optimization roadmaps for retails that increased revenue and customer engagement across all their brands.  

Digitally Transforming Marketing Operations One Brand at a Time  

Lev and SPARC Group LLC initiated their partnership at the end of 2020. Starting with one retailer at a time, they prioritized the following strategic initiatives:  

• Centralize data by integrating customer data in one platform  
• Improve segmentation using centralized and unified data  
• Enhance personalization using unified data in real-time within emails 
• Increase email ROI by building more productive, efficient, and personalized emails that drive revenue  

Before partnering with Lev, SPARC Group’s segmentation could only be used across their email program. While Lev was helping them map out the requirements of their customer data platform (CDP), which assists them in activating customer data downstream, they had already begun ingesting purchasing data into their Salesforce MC instance to begin creating product category segmentation. Once all their data was centralized into their CDP, Lev worked alongside their team, helping them think through data flows and segmentation strategies. This ensured they had the data necessary to build a strong foundation for discovering new personalization opportunities beyond segmentation.   

Lev and SPARC Group have implemented consistently designed MC instances and processes across many of their brands, so they can nimbly adapt their marketing strategy across retailers. SPARC Group is continuing to work with Lev to strengthen their segmentation and data foundation while experimenting with new automation and personalization opportunities. Now, they are now sending customized, dynamic content to their segments based on purchasing history and behavioral data. This ensures their segments are getting more relevant offerings. 

Digital Transformation Is An Iterative Process

It’s important to remember that digitally transforming your marketing operations isn’t linear, but rather, it is an iterative process. By having strategic conversations with partners, SPARC Group is consistently strengthening their data utilization plan. They are always adding new data to their CDP and finding better ways to segment customers and provide personalized experiences.  

Increasing Email Effectiveness with a Robust Segmentation Strategy  

In the case of one of SPARC Group’s retailers, Karilyn and her team set out with the goal of reducing subscriber churn and increasing engagement and revenue for specifically targeted segments who shop at Forever 21, the fashion industry-leading retailer with over 540 locations globally and worldwide who is making the latest trends accessible to all while inspiring unique style and confidence.  

In just two weeks of segmentation testing with Lev, they discovered that only 15% of their subscribers contributed over 70% of their total revenue via email. Additionally, an even smaller cohort contributed to the majority of the churn. 

Lev provided a strategic plan that laid out recommendations for developing key audience segments and always-on targeted journeys. This led to sending more relevant emails less frequently to exclusive segments. As a result of introducing win-back and loyalty journeys, their new strategy maintained 100% of their revenue while sending 60% fewer emails. With this change, they were sending more relevant content to the right individuals, increasing their overall email ROI.

SPARC Group + Lev in 2023 and Beyond  

Since SPARC Group and Lev have aligned processes across brands, now they are focused on building a consistent customer experience. By working with Lev, SPARC Group is beginning to create a blueprint for standardizing their marketing operations across all their brands. Now, they are building their processes and data utilization strategy with their customers at the center. Also, they are establishing more customer-centric KPIs that empower them to measure how certain campaigns are solving customers’ needs.   

Are you ready to undergo a digital transformation at your organization? Watch our latest webinar on-demand. You’ll discover how SPARC Group LLC unified their customer data to deliver personalized experiences across email, web, SMS, and mobile. The webinar also includes a framework for how you can start your own digital transformation.