The PRO Group buying organization has begun developing a targeted marketing program aimed at delivering select products and offers to its members’ most profitable customer segments.
PRO Group launched the initiative by tapping marketing services company Claritas to collect, analyze and segment customer data culled from member dealers’ files. Claritas said the analysis of the customer data is currently underway, and is being funded by an unidentified major CE vendor.
“This level of cooperation between retailers and manufacturers is groundbreaking and will result in the execution of target marketing strategies aimed at upscale consumers in all trade areas where PRO Group retailers are located,” said Neil Portnoy, Claritas’ consumer durables assistant VP. “PRO Group retailers will drive more foot traffic into stores by using precision marketing capabilities to target their most valuable consumers with products and offers that are attractive and meaningful to them.”
“This is a very exciting initiative for all of our members in advancing their customer-centric marketing programs through the use of Claritas’ segmentation data. This clearly demonstrates that our membership is dedicated to not only reaching its best customers, but also in providing them with the best products and services,” said Dave Workman, executive director of PRO Group.
Claritas, a division of the Nielsen Company, is employing a proprietary lifestyle segmentation system called Prizm NE that categorizes the population into 66 segments and ranks them on a socio-economic level. The segments are assigned whimsical names such as “Blue Blood Estates,” “Young Digerati” and “Bohemian Mix” that are intended to describe the characteristics of that segment population.
PRO Group will use the segmentation data to direct its targeted marketing campaigns.
