STARS Group

Success Story: STARS Group

In a world where digital technology plays a dominant role, businesses are constantly seeking to innovate in order to offer their customers the best possible experience. The STARS Group, a leader in the teleshopping sector, provides an illuminating account of its digital transformation, notably thanks to Actito’s involvement.

The Client

With over 35 years’ expertise, the STARS Group is an undisputed leader in video sales, skilfully blending television, the web, live shopping and social media channels. Under the leadership of Jérôme Dillard, the group has successfully adapted to market changes, combining audiovisual media and e-commerce to deliver an unrivalled customer experience.

In partnership with iconic brands such as Télé Shopping and M6 Boutique, the STARS Group has around 1.5 million active customers and attracts an average of 200,000 viewers per day, demonstrating its impact and reach in the field of teleshopping in France.

The Context

The e-commerce and digital marketing landscape has undergone major upheavals in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated these changes, profoundly altering consumers’ shopping habits and expectations. Businesses have been forced to adapt rapidly to meet these new needs, whilst grappling with logistical and operational challenges.

Against this backdrop, the STARS Group also had to navigate the turbulent waters of its departure from the TF1 Group, carrying with it the legacy of a system that was inflexible and costly in terms of internal resources. This transition brought organisational and strategic challenges, requiring a complete overhaul of their marketing strategy and a reassessment of their market positioning.

The Challenges

Faced with a constantly evolving market and in light of recent challenges, the STARS Group has identified three key challenges to ensure its long-term viability and success:

1. Repeat purchase and retention challenge: With 80 per cent of its customers being opportunistic, the STARS Group faces the challenge of encouraging them to return and make repeat purchases.
2. Customer loyalty challenge: Although the group has a solid base of active customers, only 20 per cent of them are considered loyal.
3. Customer experience challenge: In a world where consumers are spoilt for choice, the customer experience has become a key differentiating factor.

The Solution

Faced with these challenges, the STARS Group realised it needed a robust and flexible tool to meet its specific marketing requirements. This is where Actito comes in.

Actito was chosen for its ability to provide a comprehensive, integrated solution that unifies campaigns across all brands. Data integration within Actito has enabled the STARS Group to create a sophisticated multi-brand data model, allowing it to refine its targeting and segmentation in order to personalise its communications. Deliverability is a key aspect of any marketing campaign. With Actito, the STARS Group has been able to ensure that its communications actually reach their intended recipients.

The Results

With Actito’s help, the STARS Group has not only successfully adapted to the challenges posed by the pandemic, but has also seen a marked improvement in the customer experience. Furthermore, the autonomy provided by Actito has enabled the group to reduce its reliance on IT and BI teams, whilst still achieving its business objectives.

Thanks to this shift towards a more editorial and relationship-based strategy implemented during the pandemic, the newsletters sent have recorded:

• open rates of 50 per cent
• click-through rates of 26 per cent
• response rates of 51 per cent

Future plans

For 2023, the STARS Group plans to build on this momentum by continuing to roll out its relationship-focused strategy and maintaining this balance between relationship marketing and promotional marketing.

With Actito as its partner of choice, the group intends to fully harness the potential of its customer data to deliver an ever more personalised experience.