With a total of 24.2 million members, communications across all channels are now relevant and personalised, leading to 158 million possible permutations of the direct mail pack alone. Few other loyalty schemes are operating at this level of mass personalisation.
On joining, members can pick their Pet Perks – personalised offers and preferences which are then used for propensity modelling – while a VIP app deepens the experience by offering tips and advice to pet owners. There is a separate part of the club just for new puppy owners, while a parasite control subscription service encourages customers to treat their pets for the benefit of all. Members can also use the membership group and its social media to search for lost pets.
Careful test and optimisation has been applied and compared to a control group to identify hero elements that drive behaviours and loyalty. This led to an upscaling of the number of variations to ensure highly-personalised communications and encourage multi-category usages, which has been shown to drive higher customer retention.
Revenue from the VIP Club now accounts for 5.6% of total group sales and it is achieving response rates of over 60%. New member sign-ups – and their pets – are helping to drive year-on-year growth for Pets at Home of over 75%.
