KDM CASE STUDY:
SMITH+NOBLE
Digging below the Report’s Surface: KDM Gets Circulation Flowing for Smith+Noble
Smith+Noble has created custom window treatments at affordable prices since 1987, successfully building their business on a combination of excellent product, wide selection, and superior service.
Smith+Noble contacted KDM during a temporary staff shortage in their circulation department. At the time, Smith+Noble did not realize that their catalog circulation was under-performing due to inaccurate reporting.
As KDM dug into Smith+Noble reporting, they uncovered areas where improvements could significantly increase the profitability of the company’s circulation planning and customer contact strategy. KDM discovered that the circulation department was working with bad data files. This resulted in ineffective house file mailings, as well as poor choices in prospecting selection. As they upgraded Smith+Noble’s circulation activities, KDM developed more profitable techniques for customer prospecting and improved their customer contact strategy.
“There are so many moving parts to circulation that many pieces often go unattended,” says Smith+Noble’s Marketing Vice President Claire Gordon. “KDM pays a lot of attention to quality control. They don’t take one pass at the numbers. They check and double check to eliminate mistakes and drill down to find the right answer, not just any answer. We are now getting better results than we ever thought possible.” Through their ongoing work with KDM, the Smith+Noble circulation department continues to make better, timelier, and more profitable decisions.
KDM CASE STUDY:
DOVER SADDLERY
Database Technology Provides Timely Information for Decision Makers
Dover Saddlery provides riding apparel, tack, and horse care supplies for English riders.
In 2009, Dover Saddlery was using a simple merge environment to control their circulation processes. The environment had historically worked well for them, but the business was expanding through additional retail stores that generated increasing amounts of data. Recognizing the limits of the system, their merge provider recommended that Dover Saddlery work with KDM to design a database that could handle the growing pool of data.
KDM developed a custom database that simplified Dover Saddlery’s merge/purge processes and provided more timely segmentation of names and addresses. Prior to KDM’s database solution, Dover Saddlery conducted a merge every six months, which meant that the circulation department was often working with outdated information. With the new custom database, they could merge and generate updated reports as needed.
“With the database that KDM developed for us, we are able to conduct more accurate and more in-depth data analysis because our data is all in one place,” says Dover Saddlery’s Vice President of Marketing Lorelle Carpenter. “A secondary benefit, which has become a primary benefit over the years, is that we’ve been able to build a wide variety of reports using the database to help us with e-commerce, merchandising, operations, marketing, and a whole host of other operations.”
Dover Saddlery’s circulation runs more efficiently than ever as a result of KDM’s custom database solution. As business flourishes, the database provides real-time reporting that helps Dover Saddlery earn a greater return on their marketing investments and, ultimately, make better business decisions.
KDM CASE STUDY:
HOLLY YASHI
Database Solution Improves Behavior Metrics, Boosting Confidence and Sales
Holly Yashi has been making quality, hand-crafted jewelry in their redwood coast studio in northern California since 1981.
When it comes to direct mail, best practices in segmentation and sales analysis are essential for business growth. If you don’t have insight into your customer’s purchasing decisions, you can’t determine how to approach them with future offers.
California jewelry manufacturer Holly Yashi began, in 1981, as a wholesale manufacturing company. Historically, they had relied on a customized MRP (Manufacturing Resource Planning) software system tailored for wholesale production. As Holly Yashi grew and shifted toward direct-to-consumer sales, they needed a system that could provide more detailed reports based on individual purchasing behavior. Their circulation department did not have clear and timely information about customer purchases, which made it difficult for them to create effective marketing campaigns.
In the fall of 2012, Holly Yashi hired KDM to develop a custom database solution that would bring their circulation department out of the dark. They needed an affordable solution that would integrate seamlessly with their established MRP system and provide accurate and timely information to their circulation department.
KDM developed a database solution that utilizes best practices for multi-channel merchants that standardizes and organizes the data at the beginning of each month, pulling sales activity into the database, where it is processed for accurate and timely reporting.
According to Holly Yashi’s president, Paul Lubitz, KDM helped the company improve their bottom line and add to their house file. “Before working with KDM, inconsistent results made us leery of increasing our marketing spend,” says Paul. “KDM stabilized our reporting, giving us the confidence we need to increase circulation and engage in productive prospecting.”