Lunch and Learn: How Home Depot Engineers Online Experiences That ‘Get More Done’ During High Peak Seasons

We have set a tone for talking about amazing omnichannel stories today, and we're not going to stop, but we've been very much, we have been a bit focused, perhaps on the European side of the pond for the last half hour. We're now going to leapfrog ourselves over to the other side of that pond. But to talk about yet another household name and another great story about driving success with omnichannel personalization strategy. Home depot, which is a name I'm sure you all know. Their founders opened their first store in Atlanta back in 1979, and their vision was for a superstore that would offer a huge variety of merchandise with highly trained staff to offer customers personalized advice for their DIY needs. And thanks to its focus on supporting these customers, Home Depot has now grown to more than 2300 stores in three countries and has scaled its online presence to offer leading digital experiences for its customers. Now, I think this session and the topic is quite timely because around the world, marketers are gearing up for peak season, where, let's face it, a lot of the yearly revenue comes in, lots of acquisition of new customers, and people need to be nurtured through that process to keep them and keep them engaging and make sure they're customers after peak season. So as we're all thinking about this, I think you'll find it very helpful that Mauricio from Home Depot is going to take us through how he's transformed their approach to what Mexico calls their Hot Sales season. I love that term, and an opportunity to acquire new customers and collect really valuable customer data. So joining us to tell the story is Mauricio Gonzalez, the online experience manager from Home Depot. He's joining us from Monterrey, Mexico. Morris has been at Home Depot for ten years, so he has a wealth of experience, to bring to the conversation. He's currently focused on delivering Home Depot's customers the best possible online experience. That surprise, surprise sits their DIY needs back to their values and their focus as a company. He is going to be partnered by Stephanie Dymott, who's a product marketing manager of Emarsys and a member of my team who's here in London. She's been with us for a number of years now and has over ten years of product marketing, and has also her own perspective and a lot of knowledge to bring to this topic. So without further ado, can I hand over to Mauricio and to Steph? Thank you, Sarah, and thank you so much, Mauricio, for joining us today. Thank you Steph. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. I've been watching Power to the Marketers sessions for several years now, but now I'm on the other side of the screen. You know, I'm a little nervous, but it's going to be fine. You're going to be great. I'm really excited about this session, because I think it's one that retailers around the world will be able to connect with. And I'm from Canada, so I know Home Depot well. But for those who are listening from outside North America, I was hoping you could first share a bit more about the company and your customers. Sure. So, you know, like Sarah mentioned and you mentioned Home Depot is well known. You know, it's a very iconic store in the American retail landscape. But what many people don't know is that Home Depot is actually located in Mexico as well. We've been operating there for over 20 years now and enjoying the same degree of success as in the United States. So the core value of Home Depot in Mexico is the same as the original version in America, which is, you know, get everything you need, all on the same roof for your home improvement needs with the best prices, best low prices every day. And you know, when Home Depot came into Mexico over 20 years ago, the market in Mexico was very fragmented. There were a lot of smaller stores all around the country, so nobody was offering quite that same concept as Home Depot. So that's why we've been able to have such great success over the years. And ten years ago we launched our e-commerce website that was fully transactional. So that was something that was not happening at the time for many retailers. So we were ahead of the curve, and I think that has helped us, has success over the years as well. Amazing. It's great to hear how quickly Home Depot has grown in the region. Most of those listening in today will be from outside Mexico. So next, I thought it would be nice to hear about Mexico's growing e-commerce market, how it's different from other regions, and specifically the sales event. Right. So something very cool that I, heard just a few days ago was that Mexico, in terms of e-commerce growth, has been the number one country in growth for ecommerce for the last two years in a row. So that was great to hear. And the other thing I was told was that Mexico is currently has 13% of the share of the e-commerce sales globally. So that's a huge number where ahead of emerging economies in e-commerce like Russia and Singapore. So that was great to hear that, you know, really drives the point that Mexico is a big player and we keep growing every year. You know, we've been growing every year double digits. And, you know, the pandemic was a huge part of that growth. But even just last year, which I would consider a post-pandemic kind of year, we had over 23% growth from the last year. So, you know, I believe it is just a very good success story, Mexican success story for us on e-commerce. And I think, you know, what's something that people don't often talk about is the Hot Sales season. So the hot sale was an event created by the Amvo which is a Mexican organization for e-commerce. They are, you know, focused on growing and developing e-commerce in Mexico. So they created this event over ten years ago to incentivize and make people buy online for the first time. There were a lot of buyers back then that were shopping in stores that were kind of afraid of buying online. Is it safe? Is it safe for me? Is it easy to shop online? Will I get the product? Those kind of concerns that people had over ten years ago. So the event was created just for that so that people could, you know, buy for the first time with super, super aggressive prices and promotions. And every year has been bigger than ever. Just one that came a few weeks ago was our biggest event yet. So I would attribute part of the success, of the e-commerce in Mexico to this event in particular. Amazing. I think a lot of marketers struggle to prepare for these events, whether it be Hot Sale, Black Friday, Singles Day or just these peak, sales seasons. So next, I thought you could walk us through your approach. Sure. So, you know, before you, I think what works for my team and I is that before you even start planning and making a strategy for this big event, you should look back, to what you did the previous year, what worked, what didn't, and then start from there, you know, capitalize on what worked. Integrate the things that you've learned along the way and just, you know, make the event the best possible way possible. So something that really has worked for us in terms of automation and personalization is, I would say it's three key points of three types of segments. So the first one is fairly common. Everybody uses it I know, which is you know, the categories that the customer browsed or clicked in the previous weeks. That's very normal. People use it all the time. But two things that we developed alongside the strategic services team at Emarsys, which, before I delve into that, I got to give a shout out to Ashley Boffo and Ashly Kennedy who helped me and my team, you know, get the most out of that program. So that's something that I'm super thankful for. I will talk about that a little bit more later on, but we created two types of automations and segments. The first one is, very immediate, which is we know that most customers when they're going to shop online for, you know, a big season, they already kind of know what they want. You know, most people know, hey, I'm going to buy a fridge or I'm going to buy a washing machine. That so even though they want to be surprised with the event and they might buy something else, they have that one big thing that they're looking for. So what we do on those kinds of situations is, on the landing pages and any other pages that we have on our website, we, you know, really straight up ask them through a sign-up form like "hey, what category are you interested in on this event, and I'll send you the latest info on the deals on the day one of the event." So that's something that just really worked for us. I'm going to show a little bit of that on the next slide. And then the other, segmentation and personalization that we've been doing is called progressive profiling. And what it's really all about is that we go beyond the categories. We try to go for something. I'm going to say timeless, I think, which is like, what are you interested in long term or what is your hobby with Home Depot? There's a lot of things that, you know, customers have a long-term interest in. For example, you know, if you are a person that likes to stay on top of t he latest decor trends, Home Depot has a lot to offer you, so you're probably going to be, even if you buy a flooring or you renovate your your kitchen, you're going to be interested in the the latest decor trends for the next years to come. Same thing for you know, I'm a cleaning freak myself, so I'm always going to be interested in buying the latest products for cleaning, even though you know you never stop cleaning your house. I'm always going to be interested in that. Same thing for people that own gardens. If you have a garden and tend to it constantly, you're interested in the latest products, the latest projects, the latest tips and content for your garden. So that's something that we're taking advantage of for this peak season and just in general. So how does it look? How do we capture it. It is basically it's really easy. And we try to make it as non-invasive as possible, which is like I mentioned on the landing page for the Hot Sales season, we ask them through a sign-up form, what category are you interested in? And then we store that in a database, and we send that information through an automation on the first day of the event. But the other one is a pop up that we develop with the strats team that, you know, basically visually asks you what category of concept you're interested in. So like I mentioned, you could be interested in technology, in gardening and cleaning and tools. And that's a very long term kind of interest. So we take advantage of immediate and long term interest. And then you might wonder, like, how does it look like? How does it come alive? So, you know, I have several pieces of content that I can show you. Obviously when you on the first day on the bury, I'm going to say it like at 7 a.m. in the morning. I'm not going to send it at 12 a.m., but at 7 a.m. the customer will receive, the email for the category or concept that we're interested in with the best promotions, the best prices, the best products for that type of, you know, concept. For example, I'm showing there that technology one and the gardening one. So depending on the interest or the category, we're going to send just that to the customer. But that doesn't stop just there. You know if you enter our website you're going to be seeing personalized banners and attraction heroes where you can see the latest content on gardening, the best deals. And then we also use for these kind of events, SMS messages with the people that obtain and then we send those messages to the customers. So if customers are interested in gardening, they're going to be receiving, hey, check out the latest promos on gardening at The Home Depot. So that's those are the things that we usually do to get the most out of our data, get the most out of our segments that we have. So that's something we're very proud of. And the engagement is through the roof. I'll be showing some of that on the next presentations. Amazing. I love that you're asking customers for data, but then immediately providing the evidence of the value they get in exchange. You also said that, a lot of these new customers coming to Home Depot in this time might have never shopped online before. So how do you ensure that they get a good experience, stay online and continue coming back? Yeah. So it's basically like I said, you know, Hot Sales season was created to get customers to buy online for the first time. And that is true for us. Over the years, we've noticed that over 50% of the customers that buy during this season are actually new customers. So we at Home Depot believe that you got gotta talk to these customers differently. They're not the same as a customer that buys online all the time. This customer, this new person that's buying from you, you know, they want to know more about you. They want to be, you know, immersed in what some people stand for. So once again, shout out to the strategic & services team because we created alongside with them, something we call welcome series, which is once you buy online with us for the first time, you're going to be receiving or you're gonna be entering an automated flow of content, three types of content that you'll receive during the, during the week. And the first content is some sort of introduction to Home Depot, which is, you know, what does Home Depot stand for? Our story, our brands, get to know us, but also get to know you. Like I mentioned, I, we use progressive profiling to ask the customers what is their hobbies? What do they like about Home Depot? What's their favorite room, and then we personalize of that. So this welcome series is all about just getting to know us, but getting to know you through these questions. And we're going to be using that data in the latest in later pieces. The second piece is education, which is we're going to be talking about, you know, the benefits of buying a Home Depot, the services that we offer, payment and credit options, our extended catalog, online-only catalog. So that's something we also want to share with our customers. And then the last piece, which is very important, is motivate you to get inspired. You know, what do we offer in terms of projects in terms of products, shuttle inspiration, top categories and promotions? So those three pieces of content, you know, inform a higher strategy of onboarding a new first time buyer customer into Home Depot and getting them to, you know, engage with us and get to know us. So that's something we do. But that doesn't stop there. Once the customer stops being on that automated flow, they enter another flow, which is the projects flow. And I remember I mentioned that we asked them questions on the welcome series. Well, those questions and that data, we use it for later segmentation and personalization. So for example, on these particular pieces that I'm showing, I send a general piece where I tell them, hey, what's your next project these are the promos. But if you mentioned that you're interested in technology or gardening, you're going to be getting that same content, but with different information regarding your interests. For example, you were to receive a content for gardening with the latest concepts for gardening promos, like projects and then technology you're going to be getting, hey, these are the latest things we have in technology, the latest gadgets, the latest tips for you. So depending on what kind of customer you are, you're going to be getting different content. And the content that's personalized to your hobby or needs gets better engagement than the one that seems very broad or general. So for example, I would say it's about eight times higher engagement in general when you get a personalized content from Home Depot. So that's something we worked on with the strats team and that was super successful and we're proud of that. Something we also do that doesn't stop there. That's, you know, pick up on the example for gardening. So if I go into more personalization for gardening, let's say you're a customer that likes tending to your garden. So we have different automations for that customer. If you buy a product that is a gardening product, you're going to get a post-purchase email or post-purchase landing page that we created the website for. What's the next project for the next products that you might compliment on your first purchase or original purchase? There's also the next project, which is if you bought a certain, you know, project from us for gardening, what is the next project for your garden that you could be using? For example, if you bought irrigation systems, but you could also be buying the grass or you could be getting fertilizer. So that's something that we also offer and we send that to the customer depending on where they at at the at the buying funnel. But something else we do is we curate specific emails depending on whether the latest trends at the moment. So something we do is we send a daily email to these customers with very specific content. So and that has very high engagement. The piece you see there, which is called Daily Email, is a piece based on urban vegetable patches, which is something that's very hot in Mexico right now. And that's so a click to rate of of over 400%, which is like huge, which I've never seen before. I've never seen that before. And which means that probably many customers open the piece, engage with it. And there's days later they open the piece again and saw it again because they there was a lot of relevant content for them. We're very proud of that and what we've been working on this kind of personalization. So that's something that I wanted to share, where, you know, tradition meets transformation. Okay, so hot sale ended in Mexico around two weeks ago. So next let's check out the results. So yeah, like I mentioned, you know we saw great results in this season. The engagement for personalization was eight times higher than average during the hot sales season. And our sales obviously increased in double digits. So that's, you know, aligned with the customer, with the market in general and aligned with our expectations. And the conversion rate kept increasing, even though we have a very good conversion rate with all of our Emarsys contents increased 5%, which is great to have during this high season. Something that I'm very happy to share is that we were the top six retailer in searches during the peak season, and that's huge for us because we're a specialty store. We're not, you know, general assortment kind of store, like for example, Amazon or Walmart. So to be up there is, you know, a very humbling kind of achievement. But we love that. We love to be up there and for people to, you know, like us, buy from us and consider us for their purchases. Thank you so much, Mauricio. I'm sure a lot of marketers will have found that helpful, especially as we approach the second half of the year. Next, I'd love to ask you a few questions. The first being like, what is the biggest piece of advice you would give a fellow marketer preparing for a high peak holiday season? Yeah. So what works for my team and I is. You got to look at what you've been doing on the previous events, like that's where it starts. So what did you do on the previous event that worked? What did you do that didn't work? What didn't work? Just cut it out. Have no mercy on that. But what did work? How do you capitalize on that? What have you learned over the, you know, months leading up to these events like Black Friday or, you know, Singles Day or Hot Sales for us and, you know, build on that. And if I would say like, you know, approach your Emarsys representative and see what else is out there that you could integrate into your marketing strategy for the hot sales season? I do that all the time with Diego. I hope he's watching because that's something that has really worked for us in the past and in the present. You also said that you worked with Emarsys's Strategic Services Team, so I also wanted to know what was it like working with them and what was your biggest takeaway or divergence from your previous thought process from that project? Yeah, right. So it was a fantastic process. I miss them. And hopefully we'll work again very soon. And something that I would say really, you know, was the best thing about the project itself. You know, besides that, all the things we worked on together that, you know, has seen great success, as I mentioned on the previous slide, is that, you know, you see your strategy from a different point of view. You know, you do things a certain way, you automate a certain way, you personalize a certain way. And this particular team is specialized in showing you the different ways you can, you know, increase your engagement, make things better, or even integrate things that you didn't know where possible before. So once you start doing that and you see the results, it's just fantastic. And so the biggest takeaway for me was just that, that it opens your mind to different kinds of ways of making marketing, automated marketing and personalization. So very happy to share that with you. Amazing. My last question is, you're doing so much already, but I want to know what's next. So what do you have planned for, end of 2024, or 2025? Of course. So this kind of success that we have with personalization and automation is just the tip of the iceberg. I think we gotta still continue to push that forward, refine and see what works and what doesn't. What other, you know, personalization, whether there's segments of hyper buyer personas we should be working on next, that's something that it never stops. You always have to be working on those types of refinements. So we'll keep on that. But also I think we have to start, you know, we use AI for a lot of things. But I think, you know, it should always be more there's so much that's going on right now. There's always the latest new trend, a latest new thing that you could be doing. So that's something that we're looking into from the perspective of production. We produce a lot of content, a lot of landing pages, a lot of, you know, texts that we could be working on AI better to get more done. And the last thing I want to say is that what's next for our marketing strategy is that we're working on a new app that should be launching in the next few months, and we're working alongside Emarsys to really bring that to life with, you know, the latest things you can do with an app, then the engagement tactics, that's going to be great. So that's something we're working on with you guys and you know, can't wait to share that next year. The success story of the app. Thank you very much Mauricio. And Steph that was a really fascinating session. I have to say first of all there's been comments in the chat. We love how you're on-brand with your apron, we think that's amazing. Yeah. Exactly, Fantastic. I was especially made for the session, so. Love it! That's a that is a that is a true marketer in my view. And thank you for making the amazing connection to our theme of tradition and transformation. That was I enjoyed that personally. So thank you for that. Before I let you escape, can I throw one more question at you then I will promise let you get back to the rest of your day. You've done an amazing job of making personalization utterly fundamental to everything you do, and you were showcasing that in so many ways. But many marketers want to do that. But I think they're a little overwhelmed by actually doing it. And then they struggle. You really seem to have found the secret sauce. Could you? Do you have any advice you could give to people who are really trying to do some of the interesting things that you're doing. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's true. It is a struggle, to, you know, get everything done, getting ready, tested. But I think the first thing you gotta do is, you know, make sure you're focused on the right things and the right coded messages and have your team, all the team marketing teams aligned. Because I'm not just, you know, I'm in charge of the website and the emailing SMS, but there's also social media team, there's the, overall marketing team, the TV team. All of them have to be aligned with the overall strategy. So the more you work, you work alongside all the other parallel teams, you're going to get the most out of your marketing strategies. So personalization, you know, can be hard. But as long as you have the right people along side with you and you know, you're very focused on what you want to do, I'm going to say that's the key core of the key to the success. You may want to do everything at the same time. I know I'm like that. But you know, as long as you know, hey, what are the main things I gotta do first before I head into so many other things. I think as long as you focus and you have the right people, the right teams and everybody aligned, you should be good to go. Yeah. Thank you. I think that will give a lot of encouragement to people out there who will be looking at what you're doing and really wanting to take it and apply, you know, the learnings into their own businesses. Well, Mauricio, thank you very much again for taking the time to be with us and to showcasing all the fantastic things you're doing. Congratulations on a hot sale. It clearly went exceptionally well and we will definitely have that. And we definitely want you back next time to talk about the app. So we will be looking forward to chapter two, at The Home Depot and be going back to Mexico. Me excellent. All right. Great, wonderful. Anybody who has any questions from retailer or staff, please do feel free to connect with them directly. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to share anything. They didn't have the opportunity to, in their session.