Eddie Bauer: Strategize with Secondary Marketing Data
Who do you believe are their best customer prospects?
Answer – As per information given in the case, Eddie Bauer targets both men and women who are
seeking high quality, classically styled and versatile merchandise, and sells a wide range of products
in apparels and home furnishings and through multiple channels such as physical stores in prime
locations, through its online website and through a large database of mail order catalogues. They
cater to customers who is technology savvy and who want to shop at their own convenience and
timings, and at the same time offer best fashion and styles at stores that are located in prime areas.
Based on this information, we can say that their best customer prospects would be people who are
adults from both genders, with a good disposable income and with yearly household income of more
than $40,000 and how are setting out to make a family or who are already well established but
would be spending on themselves or their homes to make it even better. Thus, upper income level
or affluent individuals and families would be the best way to describe the best prospects from a
target customer perspective for Eddie Bauer.
What do you think their customers are like?
Answer – This is a very important question for Eddie Bauer to understand and find out information
about, as customer demographics and lifestyles are changing at a very fast pace and they would
need to align product and marketing strategies with them if they are to remain successful and make
a strong bond with the target customer. Given the number of choices that customers have in
everything that they choose to do, this is a difficult question to answer without engaging in market
research where the customers are actually asked this question. However, at a broad level it can be
said that customers are more appreciative and aware of technology now, are mobile and internet
savvy, are very busy all the time and hence seek convenience while shopping, are tending to drive
vehicles that are eco-friendly and probably smaller cars that what they used to do before, and
pursue a wide variety of interests and hobbies ranging from sports, literature, culture to being
actively engaged in social work and working to make the society better.
Where should Eddie Bauer look to find customers?
Answer – Given that customers are now spoilt for choice with them having options and choices of
buying their favourite and a wide variety of products in different ways and price points, it is very
important for Eddie Bauer to have a very good understanding of the customers, and also where to
find them so that they are able to approach them in a very targeted and meaningful manner, to
create a powerful connection with strong branding and also ensure customers choose Eddie Bauer
products over competition. Given the changing lifestyle and alignment with technology of the
customers, a very effective place for Eddie Bauer to look for customers would be online. They should
look at actively targeting search based marketing, e-mail marketing and Facebook marketing where
they would be able to engage customers in a very targeted manner and even on a personal basis,
that would allow them to effectively and meaningfully reach out to target customers. In addition to
the online space, another very rich source of customers for Eddie Bauer is the established database
of customers from their catalogue business. If they have information about all the customers, and if
they had been tracking their orders and purchases over time, they would be able to understand
what do the customers like, which area they are from, and also form targeted geographical
segments and communities that can be actively targeted as key future target customer segments. In
addition to these two sources that would help them leverage technology and an existing customer
base, Eddie Bauer should also engage in active primary market research and analysis of secondary
data, where they should look for key attributes such as household profile, income data and ethnic
profile and such parameter and then come to an informed decision based on key secondary analysis.
What demographic and geographic information should Eddie Bauer collect to select store
locations?
Answer – The demographic and geographic information that Eddie Bauer would collect should
effectively enable them to create target segments that are profitable to target, large or at least
sufficient in size, and which can be effectively reached and engaged with. Based on this, the key
demographic information that should be collected is the age profiles, income profiles and
occupation. Using this demographic information, Eddie Bauer would be able to come up with key
insights on what are the major customer segments, come up with a target customer segment that
they could then try to address as part of their marketing efforts. In terms of geographic information,
this would be very key to have in combination with the demographic information as this would help
Eddie Bauer in excising on where they should locate their stores and also on which areas or localities
should they focus on as part of their marketing efforts. The geographic information that should be
collected includes home address or location, work address of location, places that are frequented on
a regular basis, their online browsing habits and durations and where they shop for categories such
as clothes and home furnishings. These would provide very key insights when mapped to the
demographics information collected, that could then be used for coming up with store location
decisions and targeted marketing strategy.
What information on the competitive environment should Eddie Bauer collect?
Answer – Given that competitors would also be trying to target the same customers, it is very
important to have competitive intelligence that would help Eddie Bauer to incorporate competitor
information to come up with a more effective marketing strategy. Eddie Bauer would like to know
who its direct and indirect competitors are, which target segments are each of the competitors
targeting, what are the major product lines and product categories, what are the strengths and
weaknesses of each of the them, their approach to marketing and how they use technology as part
of their marketing and operations and also information on what is their financial position in terms of
revenues, profits and marketing budgets. All this information, if it is able to get on its major
competitors, the company would be able to come up with suitable tactics to address competitor
strategies, and also focus on core capabilities while ensuring it is able to stand up to very tough
competition that exists in the retail industry.
Suggest methods by which Eddie Bauer can conduct marketing research to identify the shared
characteristics of those customers who frequent Eddie Bauer stores versus the characteristics of
customers who frequent the stores of competitors at various locations?
Answer – While collecting demographic and geographic information, at an individual customer level,
Eddie Bauer would be collecting information about income levels, age profiles, lifestyles,
occupations, where they live, where they work etc. In addition to this, they should also collect
information about where they shop, how they shop, their top three brands and the approximate
amount they spend on each shopping visit and how much they spend on various product categories.
Based on this, using the tools and software, Eddie Bauer should be able to come up with various
customer profiles or its own customers, customer profiles of its key competitors, profiles and habits
of customers who shop at multiple brands. Based on this, Eddie Bauer would be able to analyse and
gain insights on characteristics of these various customer profiles, see commonalities and
differences, and leverage that to come up with a more effective marketing strategy.