Serenata Flowers Blooms with E-Mail Marketing from Responsys

Online flower retailer Serenata Flowers Limited tapped Responsys for its e-mail marketing campaign efforts.

The Britain-based bouquet dealer found e-mail to be the right medium to target its customer base and build a relationship.

"We really weren't retaining customers and we wanted to find a way of increasing retention and trying to engage customers more," said James Saunders, head of e-business development at Serenata Flowers.

The site at Serenata Flowers is very colorful with catalog of arrangements that customers can choose from. Shopping departments are broken down into occasion, style, sentiment, color and variety. A bouquet of pink lilies costs approximately $40, and a dozen red roses costs about $35.

Serenata offers flowers for every occasion like the popular birthdays, anniversaries, and funerals, as well as for when traditional etiquette demands, "Get Well Soon", "Thanks" and "Romance."

Mr. Saunders said that the firm had found that its customers tend to buy flowers only once a year -for a spouse's birthday, an anniversary or for Valentine's day.

"We are using e-mail to encourage them to buy more often and for other occasions, like a new baby or passing an exam," Mr. Saunders said. "We came up with other excuses."