Website Marketing

Victoria’s Secret Takes Geo-Targeting Email Campaigns To New Heights

A couple of months ago, Victoria’s Secret starting doing something pretty interesting with their email newsletter. I started seeing unique emails from them marketing some athletic apparel with collegiate sports logos they’re selling now. The content of those newsletters is geo-targeted based on, apparently, the zip code you give them when you join their customer list. The really cool part is that it’s cross referenced with the major universities in the area. So, for example, a person living in Los Angeles, California might see “blah blah USC Trojans versus UCLA Bruins blah blah” because it’s rivalry week in the college football world so they play each other this weekend.

Pretty neat. The likelihood of someone (or a significant other) in L.A. being a Bruin fan or a Trojan fan is probably high. I think it’s a good idea and wish I knew how well it’s working for them. I know I’ve seen quite a few of the shirts they’ve advertised in the newsletter while tailgating at college football games this year but that may or may not be related.

So what’s not to like about this? Well, we live in a different state than the one with our favorite college sports team. In fact, almost all of their geo-targeted newsletter talk about two teams that I absolutely hate because of that. Every time I see one of those emails I alternate between being pissed off (my die-hard sports fan side) to being utterly impressed that they even thought of this (my internet business side). What I really think they need is an option for people like me to put in their favorite team. I’d gladly give up that marketing data so see stuff I’d actually buy for my better half.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, everything they’re showing me right now I might still buy but only to stomp on, douse in kerosene, and burn in effigy. That’s probably enough sports fanaticism for one article 🙂

If you’re doing email marketing you might think of ways to borrow this technique. Even though I’ve got a few minor beefs with it, it’s still a neat idea. Now we just need them to publish their conversion data so we know how effective this is. Or not.

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Thanksgiving. Football. Perfect.