How Bath and Body Works Built its Massive E-mail File

Sometimes the best marketing is mind-bogglingly simple. Case in point: Bath and Body Works’ e-mail program.

The company began collecting e-mail addresses from customers just last January and has since built a whopping file of over 10 million addresses.

“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.”

Part of the reason for success of the young program is that when customers began coming into the store asking about specials offered online, store managers immediately saw the benefit of getting customers’ e-mail addresses. Another reason is pure store traffic volume.

“We make a lot of transactions,” he said.

Also, bringing customers back into the store is a crucial component of the program because of the effect physical contact has on conversion rates, he said.

“We have found that if an associate touches the customer’s hand, our conversion rate goes to 65%,” he said. “This is compared to around 30% otherwise,” he added.