2021 Retail Regeneration Award Spotlight: Q&A with Daniel Kan, Society6

As the winner of the Bluecore Performance Accelerator award, Daniel Kan, Senior Manager of Retention Marketing at Leaf Group exemplifies values of personalization and optimization. Daniel reinvented email outreach and led the Society6 team to success with a 30% reduction in send volume. With a dedication to finding new ways to drive lifetime value from Society6 customers, Daniel led his team to transformative results. 

Tell us about your role at Society6

I manage the retention marketing program here at Society6 and help design the customer life cycle journey. This includes on-site experiences from the moment a new customer visits Society6 all the way through their first, second and subsequent purchases. While there are many different channels that comprise our retention program, email is still by far the best performing. 

What are you most proud of in your work with Society6?

I’m most proud of how we’ve been able to consistently grow the retention program every year even in the face of unprecedented circumstances. It hasn’t been an easy task but it really speaks to how great the team is here at Society6.

Keeping with the idea of retail’s regeneration, how did your team transform something old into something better this past year?

At the beginning of last year, we took a step back and re-evaluated the entire retention program. Our goal was to become more personalized, create campaigns that we knew customers would engage with, while also continuing to grow the program. Something that wouldn’t have been possible without the technology that Bluecore offers. 

What was the biggest challenge you encountered in making that shift?

In the past, sending more emails usually meant more site traffic and revenue. The challenge was to send fewer emails but improve the quality of email traffic and revenue. With Bluecore, we were able to achieve this and far more.  It just goes to show the power of personalization and being able to communicate to customers in a meaningful and impactful way. 

What are you most excited about in regards to the changing retail landscape?

I’m excited to see the shift towards eCommerce.  People are changing the way they shop and turning more towards eCommerce for things they might have otherwise purchased in person. I think we’ve just begun to scratch the surface and I’m excited to see how far we can grow from here. 

What is your top goal for the coming year?

We saw huge growth in 2020 and acquired a lot of new customers as well as subscribers. My goal for this year is to keep them invested and engaged with Society6. The best way to do that is to move away from batch and blast and further improve our personalization and targeting.   We’re constantly working on different ways to improve the retention program and we have some exciting projects in the pipeline!

What is your advice to others trying to navigate the shift to digital-first retail?

There’s a lot of noise in the digital space as far as customer communication goes. In the current atmosphere, I truly believe “less is more” and the best way to stand out in a cluttered inbox is through better content and personalization. Long term, this will make the biggest impact and improve customer loyalty.

Get More Success Stories from Retail’s Regeneration

The past twelve months have shown us that even with twists and turns, digital marketing teams are capable of amazing things. See more stories from the winners of the 2021 Retail Regeneration Awards in each category here and discover how the teams from Express, Modcloth, Heritage Brands and more grew beyond the twists and turns to transform their marketing outreach.