United Supermarkets began its journey with HubSpot a few years ago when it realized that working with a third-party marketing vendor didn’t allow them to cater to their audience’s needs in real-time, or to make adjustments quickly. Mary Myers, Manager of the Digital Engagement Team says “We had emails created and sent by a third-party and we knew that we could better manage it within our company. We believed HubSpot brought the best-in-class email features along with reporting, social media, and workflows.”
Although the company was able to significantly reduce email expenses by creating and sending their own campaigns, the overall email marketing strategy was still a work-in-progress. United Supermarkets wasn’t leveraging any of the additional tools at their disposal within the platform. The need for a strategic approach to email marketing that would continue to increase their reach resulted in a detailed metric analysis through all online channels.
In November 2018, United Supermarkets had assembled a strategic digital engagement team that was tasked to taking its marketing activities to the next level. The team began to develop, implement and measure, a new online strategy. Since then, the team’s focus has been to ensure the company’s websites, social media, digital advertising, and email marketing initiatives are all optimized through HubSpot.
After assembling the new strategic digital engagement team, United Supermarkets needed to reignite the light in this team that had already been introduced to the platform years back. Therefore, their HubSpot customer success manager arranged a day-long training that was designed to provide both a general overview of the platform as well as a hands-on session to drill down into the strategy. The session was filled with best practices and guidance for each one of the tactics to be optimized.
After the creation of an effective digital strategy, the team at United Supermarkets used HubSpot to build enhanced landing pages, personalized emails, and timely text messages. They are also able to successfully nurture e-commerce shoppers, establish automated workflows, and accurately segment audiences.
Furthermore, HubSpot allows United Supermarkets to fully visualize their marketing performance in one place. Previously, the team had to wait for their third-party vendor to report on performance, whereas now they can measure and report on performance in real-time. This allows United to quickly pivot strategies when needed.
Email marketing and automation are both important parts of United Supermarket’s strategy. The previous method of so-called “email blasts” were proving less effective and an improved email strategy was needed. With HubSpot, United Supermarkets sought to increase engagement with both prospects and existing customers.
With Marketing Hub’s easy-to-use automation, United Supermarkets has been able to generate increased customer engagement by creating a personalized loyalty program. E-commerce shoppers also have a specific automated workflow that delights every single client throughout their journey in an informative and highly personalized way that is catered to their interests.
Mary Myers, Manager of the Digital Engagement Team says “Being able to use workflows and automation to cultivate a buyer journey is something that, when done well, can mean everything for a retailer.”
Now United Supermarkets is starting to use existing contact information to generate more business. With lookalike audiences, the company is leveraging existing data to target their ideal persona using Ads to grow their footfall.
Going forward, the single biggest priority for the team is to design a balance in creating content that is specific, content that resonates with their ideal persona, and content that appeals to mass audiences. United Supermarkets also wants to continue improving its marketing automation strategy by creating new and improved workflows that provide excellent customer experience, no matter what stage of the journey that their audience is currently residing.
Each one of United Supermarkets’ brands, audiences and branches are different and it’s the digital team’s responsibility to find that engagement sweet spot for every single one of their audience. “Over the next couple of years, that goal would be absolutely impossible without HubSpot. The integration of the data and the measurement tools are a game-changer. I can’t imagine how we could've accomplished what we already have without HubSpot, much less what we will be able to accomplish over the coming months.” Mary Myers says.