Founded in Bordeaux in 1983, Millésima is the leading direct-to-consumer brand for French and foreign wines. The specialist commands a portfolio of 12,000 referenced wines and cellars holding more than 2,500,000 bottles. With a full selection of half-bottles, magnums, double-magnums, jeroboams, and imperials, Millésima serves more than 150,000 clients around the world.
While the wines are vintage, the company counts among the most technically savvy in the business: 75% of sales are realized online and the Millésima website attracts more than four million unique visitors every year. In 2019, the specialty retailer generated more than €50 million in turnover.
Would you like another? Iconic wine merchant Millésima wanted to increase the sales frequency and average purchase value for its customer base of wine connoisseurs – without souring the experience or losing its luxury image, cultivated since 1983.
Working with Selligent partner agency and data-driven campaign specialists Avanci, Millésima looked deep into its troves of data to maximize the value of each customer. That helped to identify a vital growth segment: new customers. On average, the brand welcomes 3,000 new clients per year. This includes 84% men, of which one in five makes a repeat purchase within 12 months.
Based on these insights, Millésima wanted to increase second-purchase conversion by enticing new customers to increase their order frequency and average cart value within the first 12 months – all while maintaining a personalized, premium customer experience.
Selligent has helped us a lot. Thanks to its ability to carry out complex personalized campaigns with different templates, variations, and the implementation of intricate scenarios with multilingual management, our plans are being developed in several countries.
Véronique Thibaud
Consulting Director at Avanci for Millésima
Because wine connoisseurs are a diverse bunch, Millésima and Avanci analysed customer data and created five different customer personas, each with different character traits, purchase behaviors, and tastes in wines. Personas included:
Using Selligent’s journey automation, personalized content capabilities, and omnichannel delivery, Millésima and Avanci created campaigns to reach each of these personas, who received targeted email communications to encourage effusive spending.
Within 30 days of their purchase, after a sequence of emails to thank them for their purchase, to verify their satisfaction, and to welcome them, these customers received discount codes and special personalized options to trigger a second purchase. Big spenders were also pampered with courtesy phone calls. During the subsequent ‘nurturing’ stages of the campaign, Millésima kept pouring out wine recommendations and discounts.
Avanci is a consulting agency specializing in CRM, data intelligence, digital marketing solutions, and customer loyalty strategies. For over 25 years, Avanci has helped clients achieve business objectives by collecting, using, and analyzing their customer data to provide a 360-degree view and by recommending the right relationship strategy: the right message, at the right time, through the right channel. Avanci believes that data is at the heart of marketing and helps clients to provide their customers with a unique experience to attract them and retain them over the long term. Learn more at avanci.fr.
Playing the role of personal sommelier via digital channels left a very good taste with Millésima’s customers. Personalized communications and VIP treatments successfully translated the elevated wine purchasing experience into the virtual realm. Millésima and Avanci achieved sparkling results in terms of conversions and order values.
Asked about the role of Selligent in the campaign’s success, Véronique Thibaud, Consulting Director at Avanci for Millésima said: “The platform’s ease of use and ergonomics were decisive in managing this project.” What’s more, the improvements on customer experience were not only quantitative, but qualitative as well: “The client service team has been getting very positive feedback on the client experience and some very good comments were noticed on social networks.” With that said, cheers to more successful campaigns!
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