The right direction

89 Degrees sets a course for client success with SAS® Business Analytics

Outsourcing data management, marketing analytics and campaign management to a full-service marketing agency is a strategic approach that many organizations employ to save costs, maintain consistent momentum in the marketplace and benefit from current and innovative best practices.

For clients of 89 Degrees – a US-based marketing service provider specializing in online and offline data- and analytics-driven marketing solutions and services – reducing expenses, increasing revenue and executing effective marketing campaigns is business as usual.

Customer insight = effective marketing
Offering a full complement of marketing services that include cloud-based offerings, strategic planning, program execution, database management and analytics and reporting, 89 Degrees is using SAS Business Analytics to help its clients achieve significant revenue lift and save millions of dollars in direct marketing costs.

SAS is doing more than saving money for 89 Degrees' clients; it has also helped the agency save more than $1 million in its own headcount and technology expenses, while contributing to an average annual revenue growth rate of more than 20 percent.

"Our clients are challenged by large data volumes from different communication channels and creating and delivering relevant customer communications," says Jundong Song, Partner and Vice President of Marketing Intelligence and Technology. "They require data- and analytics-driven marketing solutions to derive better customer intelligence and generate more effective communications. Using SAS has allowed us to deliver better, quicker and more cost-effective services and results to our clients, many of whom have been with us for more than 8 years."

Phenomenal results
According to Song, 89 Degrees’ clients are achieving phenomenal results by leveraging the agency’s highly calibrated marketing solutions, which combine an effective mix of people, process and technology. One retail client, he says, grew its average customer purchase amount significantly from better response rate and larger basket size,  resulting in tens of millions of dollars in new revenue, while reducing its direct marketing costs by $millions. Another client, he adds, saved more than $3 million by better targeting its mailing to the right customers. 

"The opportunity exists today for companies to run their businesses from a customer perspective, instead of just looking at how many products were sold or need to be sold," he continues. "Companies can now ask how many customers were acquired and retained, and how many more customers they need to acquire and retain. SAS is the solution that addresses the questions that competitive businesses strive to answer: who are my customers and how can we make our communications and services relevant to their needs and interests?"

Indispensible technology
In an effort to optimize and consolidate the data integration, analytics and reporting technologies that underpin its marketing services, 89 Degrees has centered  its entire customer intelligence and marketing platform on SAS. For example, the agency uses SAS to build its proprietary marketing intelligence applications that can track and analyze online, in-store and direct marketing response activities, organically grow customer intelligence and improve marketing communications effectiveness. The agency used SAS to develop its eCalibrator application and optimize email marketing. Route Remix, which optimizes direct mail and other marketing trigger programs, was also developed using SAS.

"Prior to SAS we tried many different tools but they all lacked the right alignment with our people talents and the flexibility to manipulate data and develop our industry expertise into solutions the way our clients needed it," explains Song. "The technology did not align with the statistical, analytical and marketing skills of our team members, who are tasked with managing and mining large volumes of data for customer and marketing insights."

"SAS is the right technology for us and an indispensable part of our solutions and services," Song concludes. "It enables us to develop solutions and execute programs quicker and better, as well as leverage our team's creative and innovative talents – SAS has been an important and inseparable partner in 89 Degrees' success."

The results illustrated in this article are specific to the particular situations, business models, data input, and computing environments described herein. Each SAS customer’s experience is unique based on business and technical variables and all statements must be considered non-typical. Actual savings, results, and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. SAS does not guarantee or represent that every customer will achieve similar results. The only warranties for SAS products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements in the written agreement for such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Customers have shared their successes with SAS as part of an agreed-upon contractual exchange or project success summarization following a successful implementation of SAS software. Brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

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