Hibiya Kadan, a company that continues to “revolutionize the florist industry,” had been working with AnyMind Group since 2022 to develop various aspects of its e-commerce business.
Founded in 1872, Hibiya Kadan Co., Ltd. was established in 1950 and opened its Hibiya Park Store in Tokyo. The company currently operates 190 brick-and-mortar stores across Japan, and offers wedding floral arrangements, floral gifts through its offline and online stores, individual floral sales, funeral services, landscaping, and floral graphic services. Going forward, the brand will offer not just sales and decoration of flowers and greenery, but also looks to “change tomorrow’s lifestyle to one that is more colorful and rich.”In this interview, we speak to Mr. Sato, General Manager of Hibiya Kadan’s Retail Division 1, on how the company is maximizing earnings from its e-commerce business.
Interviewer Profile
Mitsuharu Sato
General Manager, Retail Division 1
Mitsuharu Sato joined the company in 1999 and was assigned to the hotel banquets and weddings unit. He was later involved in B2B2C sales, head office planning department, store supervisor, store opening development and new business.
E-commerce as a future growth driver for the business
Please give us an overview of your e-commerce business and the areas you are in charge of.
I am in charge of the online floral gift sales business for individuals. The e-commerce business is one of Hibiya Kadan’s key business units, and we provide color and excitement through flowers to both individuals and businesses – from important occasions to daily life. Thanks to the support of our customers, the business is growing and recently achieved annual sales of approximately 2 billion yen.
The scope of the e-commerce business includes product planning, website UI/UX improvement, online advertising, campaign planning, CRM, and more. Therefore, the scope of our business unit is diverse. I am in charge of the entire e-commerce business, and my mission is to further grow the e-commerce business in cooperation with my own department, ther departments and our partners.
The challenge of dealing with a wide range of digital commerce channels
What were the challenges for your e-commerce business?
The challenge in growing our e-commerce business was in omnichannel marketing.
There are a wide range of marketing channels for e-commerce, such as online advertising, SEO, CRM, etc., but at the same time, specialization is required. In order to differentiate yourself from the competition in an increasingly competitive e-commerce space, you also need omnichannel marketing. However, it takes time to train specialized personnel, and there is also the planning and implementation of measures for monthly marketing campaigns. In the midst of all this, we had not been able to do cross-channel analysis and marketing.
This was when we came across AnyMind.
AnyMind’s strength is in its ability to provide cross-channel support from data analysis to planning and site implementation
What was the deciding factor in choosing AnyMind as your partner?
We decided to work with AnyMind because of the company’s cross-channel marketing capabilities and track record.
A support team for Hibiya Kadan was set up, comprising of staff specializing in campaign planning, online advertising, SEO, and analysis and strategy, enabling cross-channel marketing support from analysis to planning and implementation.
Although they are not the first to offer this type of support, but they have their own technology developed in-house as well. One of the deciding factors was their track record of launching dozens of brands in-house and working with a host of other companies.
Reaching more than 3 million people with a three-pronged approach that starts online
Please tell us about the strategy and results you have achieved with AnyMind
Since last year, AnyMind’s consultants have provided us with strategy design, consulting and campaign support. One of the outstanding ones was the Birthday Rose Campaign, which enabled us to reach a new audience – a challenge we faced in our e-commerce business unit, and this project encompassed our website, advertising, social media and even offline.
For the campaign, we asked the general public to post their thoughts about their partners and loved ones on social networking sites with the hashtag “#BirthdayRoses” and we delivered 100 roses to the person selected. A video of the actual delivery was also made.
By asking people to post their thoughts about their loved ones on social media, the campaign was driven by user-generated content that touched the hearts of many users. We were able to reach people who had never heard of Hibiya KAdan, expanded awareness about our company, and learn about the needs of users.
As a result, we received a reach of more than 3,000,000 users, and more than 900 submissions within a short span of time.
The social media campaign is being implemented again this year, and we’re working with AnyMind to improve on last year’s campaign. We have also built momentum that enables us to reach an average of 500,000 people for 10 consecutive weeks.
In addition, the husband/wife who received the winning bouquet submitted the following comment: “My wife has been talking about wanting a bouquet someday, but I haven’t been able to find the right timing, and I hope that I can use this campaign to gift her a bouquet with my gratitude.” This new point of engagement with customers was able to solve their problems and brought smiles to their faces. It is also in line with our corporate philosophy: “We will continue to be ‘together’ with flowers and ‘together’ with our customers.”
https://www.hibiyakadan.com/campaign/birthday/?sc_zid=hktwt20220810_2
CPA was reduced to 85% and conversions improved by more than 120%
What other measures are you looking at?
Since last year, we have received consulting support not just for our campaigns but also in terms of improving ad performance. Online advertising is a channel that directly leads to sales, but there are many media and it requires a great deal of expertise, so there is never enough time to look into it in detail.
We are able to receive detailed analysis and improvement measures on a weekly basis, and have gradually made improvements to our own efforts, resulting in the ability to reduce CPA to 85% and improve conversions by more than 120% compared to the previous year – achieving both cost reduction and revenue increment.
Recommended for those who are operating an e-commerce business with multiple channels but are experiencing sluggish growth
Do you have any words of advice for those who are considering implementing AnyMind’s solutions?
It depends on the industry, but I think companies that are doing complex marketing will benefit greatly from the implementation of AnyMind’s solutions.
The more channels there are in marketing, such as online advertising, social media and CRM, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to analyze each channel individually and consider measures and tactics across them. Companies that want to conduct omnichannel marketing to maximize effectiveness, and differentiate themselves from the competition would be a good match.
I would also recommend companies that are struggling with growing their e-commerce, as AnyMind’s lineup of e-commerce marketing includes influencer marketing and brand collaborations, PMP advertising, and standalone initiatives.
We want to strengthen the execution of our measures and accelerate growth
What initiatives do you want to further strengthen in the future?
We started a new term recently, but before this, we mostly leveraged on AnyMind’s consulting. However, we are looking at onboarding more of their solutions into our stack, which we believe will help us achieve even higher growth.
Also, after one term of working together, I think we are gaining more depth in terms of collaboration and understanding, and I look forward to even more accelerated growth!
