Transforming the B2B2C model: Stanley Black & Decker's journey

In today’s data-driven marketing landscape, businesses strive to understand their customers better and deliver personalized experiences throughout the customer journey. Stanley Black & Decker, a leading provider of tools and industrial equipment, began a significant transformation in recent years. Shifting from a traditional B2B (business-to-business) model to a B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) approach, the company has recognized the importance of understanding and engaging with end users while supporting its B2B partners. In this case study we learn from Ana Mourao, Global Customer Journey, at Stanley Black & Decker about the impact of CDP implementation on segmenting data, leveraging customer attributes and behaviors, and enabling dynamic customization of email content.

Understanding the B2B2C model and the complexity of challenges

Stanley Black & Decker’s classification as a B2B2C organization stems from its dual focus on selling to retailers and distributors (B2B) while ultimately catering to the end consumer (B2C). While the company’s primary business is B2B, it acknowledges the significance of gaining insights into consumer preferences and needs to better support its B2B partners and drive demand.

In the past, Stanley Black & Decker had limited visibility into the end user due to decentralized data management and a lack of prioritization. Each market or brand had its own separate database, hindering effective consolidation and activation of the end-user data.

The journey began with the company recognizing the importance of compiling an end-user database and deploying suitable marketing technology. They discovered that their martech stack lacked a crucial component – a CDP. While the existing email marketing platform facilitated data receipt and flexibility, it didn’t provide a long-term data collection capability. The team wanted to track data enrichment over time and gain insights into end-user behavior.

The customer journey team played a crucial role in Stanley Black & Decker’s B2B2C strategy. The team’s primary purpose is to grow, activate, and engage the company’s end-user database. By leveraging this database, Stanley Black & Decker generated demand on behalf of its retailers and distributors. The team focused on driving demand and ensuring a seamless customer experience throughout the buying journey.

Collaborating with data operations for effective data management

The first line of action was to drive collaboration between the customer journey and data operations team. The data operations team, previously known as the data science team, worked closely with the customer journey team from the early stages. Together, they compiled the end-user database and deployed a customer data platform (CDP) to collect, analyze, and activate data effectively. The partnership with vendors like Treasure Data provided valuable support in implementing the CDP and improving data ingestion, unification, and activation processes.

Implementing a CDP also necessitated establishing robust data governance processes. The marketing team actively collaborated with business stakeholders from different areas and teams including ecommerce, brand, digital marketing, product marketing and data privacy to develop and enforce these processes. Their stakeholders also contemplate a wide range of positions, from local to regional managers, directors, VPs and division presidents. Therefore, they understood the importance of collecting clean and accurate data from the start to streamline data workflows, ingestion, and unification. As part of their efforts, they implemented a checking process for data collection forms used in campaigns. Properly labeled data fields and meticulous data collection saved time and ensured smoother data ingestion and activation. This shared responsibility enhanced the marketing team’s accountability and fostered effective collaboration.

Educating marketers and aligning with privacy policies

Introducing a data-driven approach required educating the marketing team on the day-to-day details and implications of data operations. Despite their general familiarity with data collection, continuous education was necessary to ensure alignment with privacy policies and best practices. Discussions revolved around understanding the data being collected, its relevance to improving end-user experiences and aligning content with the collected data. The marketing team learned to emphasize the partnership between the customer success team and the company, fostering a sense of shared responsibility for enhancing the customer experience.

To ensure data cleanliness and accuracy, Stanley Black & Decker established robust data governance processes. Thorough checks were conducted on data collection forms, ensuring the collection of necessary information and explicit marketing opt-ins. Additionally, a dashboard was created to monitor database growth and track the engagement of active end users (which was the B2C side of the business).

The impact: Enhanced customer engagement and insights

Through collaboration with the data operations team, Stanley Black & Decker’s marketing team witnessed remarkable results. There has been an average growth of 20% in number of active/engaged end-users and 50% growth in number of end-users with enriched data in 2022 versus the previous year. Enrichment campaigns, aimed at gathering additional data from customers, often outperformed new product announcements in terms of open rates and click-to-open rates. By engaging customers in conversations about data collection and its purpose, the team fostered a stronger connection and understanding between the brand and its audience. They have tripled the size of the end-user database in the last two years. The marketing team’s ability to leverage clean data for personalized marketing initiatives improved overall customer engagement and satisfaction.

Putting the end user first: Overcoming limitations and prioritizing excellence

Stanley Black & Decker measured the success of its campaigns using specific metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). One important metric was the growth of the company’s end-user database, reflecting the expansion of its reach. The team also tracked the percentage of active users, focusing on end users who engaged with emails, clicked on links, or visited the website. As the campaigns progressed, the focus shifted towards enhancing engagement and personalization, enriching the database with additional information such as occupation, hobbies, and purchasing preferences.

Before the CDP, extracting specific data, such as occupation demographics, was challenging. However, with the CDP, they gained the capability to properly segment data and gain valuable insights into their customers’ attributes.

The integration of the CDP allowed the marketing team to leverage customer attributes and behaviors effectively, triggering personalized customer journeys. By analyzing various engagement metrics like email opens, page visits, and sign-ups, they could automate customer journeys based on specific actions, ensuring a tailored experience for each user.

Dynamic customization of email content

The CDP facilitated dynamic customization of email content using their marketing technology stack, specifically the email marketing platform, e-Treble. By combining data from the end user database with Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) data, they could create personalized email templates that showcased relevant products based on the user’s occupation and hobbies. They also utilized an API from their ecommerce partner, Mercado Libre, to check inventory levels and automate the email content, streamlining the process and reducing manual efforts.

Ecommerce for Stanley Black & Decker meant ensuring that they were creating demand on behalf of their retailers, and distributors (as they pretty much do not sell directly). This comprised using email communication with links to their regional ecommerce partner, local distributors websites or even to a ‘where to buy’ page where end-users could search for closest store using their zip code.

Future plans and continuous improvement

By recognizing the need for a CDP, implementing data governance processes, and educating marketers, Stanley Black & Decker successfully transformed their marketing to cater to the new B2B2C business model. Through shared responsibility and a focus on clean data collection, they achieved improved customer engagement and gained valuable insights to enhance the overall end user experience for B2C. Embracing data operations as an integral part of their marketing strategy propelled Stanley Black & Decker towards continued success in a data-driven manner.

Looking ahead to 2023, Stanley Black & Decker’s marketing team cements its plans for further enriching end-user data and leveraging dynamic templates to enhance email customization. They aim to be more real-time in their activation, delivering timely and relevant content to users while still processing and unifying data. Additionally, they highlight the successful utilization of CDP-driven lookalike audiences in their paid media campaigns, which significantly reduced acquisition costs.

Moreover, the dynamic customization of email content based on customer attributes and SKU data showcased the value of integrating CDP with the marketing technology stack. Looking ahead, Stanley Black & Decker plans to further enrich data, enhance real-time activation, and expand the CDP implementation to other aspects of the company.

Conclusion

Stanley Black & Decker’s transformation from a traditional B2B model to a B2B2C approach has enabled the company to better understand and engage with its end users. By prioritizing customer journeys, consolidating data, and leveraging technology, the company has improved its marketing effectiveness and enhanced collaboration with its B2B partners. With a growing database and a focus on personalization, Stanley Black & Decker continues to evolve its B2B2C strategy, delivering value to both its end users and business partners in the process.

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