Interview with Cabestan: "Ensuring a strong link between the customer and the brand requires customer knowledge

This week we find Cabestan in our cycle of interviews with email platforms. Cabestan was in the news in 2012 following its acquisition by Mediapost.

Can you give us a brief history of Cabestan? When was the platform founded, by whom, has the business model evolved since the beginning of the adventure?

Cabestan was created in 1998 by 5 partners: Daniel Breton, Lionel Hubschwerlin, Philippe Simonetti, Jérôme Gays and Jean-Benoît Lacassagne. Since August 2012, Cabestan is a company of MEDIAPOST Communication, a communication group specialized in relationship marketing.

Present since the beginnings of the Internet, Cabestan's activity has not stopped evolving over the last 15 years. Originally specialized in the simple distribution of email marketing campaigns, Cabestan's activity has, over the years, evolved towards the management of increasingly personalized and automated campaigns, taking into account the needs and expectations of consumers. We have also gradually integrated other customer relationship channels.

Today, Cabestan offers a true multi-channel marketing campaign management platform in SaaS mode. It is a complete tool capable of executing marketing actions on email, mobile, telephone, mail and social networks, while fully supporting the integration and routing of email and SMS campaigns.

Our expertise is multi-faceted and comprehensive: from building a unified customer view to multi-channel marketing campaign execution and feedback analysis, to customer journey automation and behavioral targeting.

Of course, mastering all the channels requires the associated services and know-how: hosting and data enrichment, postal address processing, RNVP (Restructuring Normalization Validation Postal), deliverability and integration of email marketing campaigns.

Based on advanced projects with major accounts such as Tape à l'œil, Gallimard, Orange, NAF NAF and Renault, Cabestan has truly established itself as an essential reference in the management of multi-channel marketing campaigns.

What makes Cabestan unique? What distinguishes you from other players in this very competitive market?

This market has become more and more competitive over the years. It is true that at some point we had to distinguish ourselves. We have always been convinced that the success of marketing projects depends on customer knowledge. In 2008, we chose to develop our solutions around data exploitation to obtain a global and 360° vision of the consumer and thus maximize customer knowledge. The data collected by online and offline operations are all information that draw up a profile of the individual to whom the brand wishes to address itself. Digital channels and more traditional channels, such as postal mail, complement each other to enable a targeted and well thought-out brand strategy. Cabestan centralizes customer information from different sources (email, points of sale, website, mobile, CRM tool, offline marketing campaigns...) within a single marketing database, the Marketing Datamart.

Cabestan also offers all solutions associated with data quality: TIA processing, rectification, normalization of postal addresses, NPAI, bounces. Cabestan has already designed and implemented the Marketing Datamart for major accounts that are leaders in their market (Kiabi, NAF NAF, PSG, Renault, NRJ group, GDF Suez...)

Aware that data management is a crucial and sometimes complex issue, we accompany our clients throughout their project: from the analysis and design phase to the production phase. We also provide personalized advice by analyzing the state of our clients' databases and the results of their marketing campaigns.

What are the 3 main challenges for the next few months in the emailing world?

Experts agree that within the next 2-3 years, there will be more connections to the internet via mobile than via a traditional computer. We need to prepare for this trend. Mobile marketing and its new supports such as push notifications will become more and more a part of marketing strategies. This is due to the real proximity that these channels establish with consumers. From now on, brands are truly deploying their offers in multichannel (email, website, application, SMS) and more and more of them are testing push notifications on application.

One of the great advantages of this channel is geolocation. For example, the app is able to send a notification as soon as consumers are near a brand's store.

These are great ways to generate traffic to these points of sale. The development of 4G will make the mobile, and therefore m-commerce, a full-fledged purchasing channel. The future of mobile is also social. Half of Facebook's audience already comes from this medium. The challenge is to reinforce the synergy of these tools. The steps linked to social CRM will gradually be put in place: qualification of the social audience of customers, the implementation of influence scores, the link between the eCRM base and Facebook to promote community growth, but also the socialization of media thanks to sharing buttons and the creation of viral activities (contests) to generate traffic and interactions.

What are the next evolutions of your platform?

In a few weeks, we are releasing a new version of our platform that offers a better visualization of the data and performance of marketing campaigns. It includes the management of new communication channels such as social networks and mobile as well as the more traditional channels of customer relations such as mail and telephone.

And in less than 3 months, we are integrating another channel to our platform: push notifications on mobile applications. Our customers will be able to send personalized push notifications to mobile app users on iOS and Android operating systems.

Do you offer your customers a "Freemium" mode (free version with reduced features)?

No, we do not offer a free version.

If yes, what do you get out of it? If not, why not use this model?

By using our platform, our clients entrust us with their subscriber data which is extremely valuable to them. They also trust us with the availability of our platform, with which they build their marketing strategy, which constitutes a large part of their company's turnover. More than anything else, they want to be accompanied and receive personalized advice to take their marketing strategy to the next level.

What do you think of the French emailing market? Are we or is there still room for new innovations?

The death of emailing has often been announced and it is not! Each time, we have seen that the new features are complementary to the technologies already in place. It is obvious that reading media are moving towards mobile. Advertisers must therefore ensure that their media are well adapted to the new screens. Emailing, as such, is becoming more mobile and more social, but it is important to keep in mind that Internet users want above all to receive relevant information according to their interests and needs. They are also more demanding in the notion of immediacy. It is therefore on customer knowledge and multi-channel interactivity that we must play.

A last word to conclude?

Ensuring a strong link between the customer and the brand requires customer knowledge and personalization. This is the real strategic challenge with a real impact on the performance of companies.