Hallmark's Data Transformation: How Dot Collective Streamlined Operations and Enhanced Customer Insights

About Hallmark

Hallmark UK & Ireland is a division of the long-established Hallmark brand, renowned globally for its century-long presence in the greeting card industry. While Hallmark has a rich heritage rooted in traditional paper products, the UK & Ireland division has been focusing on expanding its digital presence, particularly through its e-commerce operations. Although Hallmark has been online for several years, the UK & Ireland division operates with limited in-house data engineering resources, making it challenging to manage and utilise the vast amounts of data generated from platforms like Shopify, Google Analytics, and other digital tools.

Challenges

Before partnering with Dot Collective, Hallmark UK & Ireland faced several key challenges:

1. Data Management Complexity: Integrating data from various sources such as Shopify and Google Analytics was a manual, time-consuming process. With a small team and limited budget, this was not sustainable.
2. Limited Insights: The absence of a comprehensive data model made it difficult for Hallmark to gain a clear understanding of their customer segments, impacting their ability to effectively target marketing efforts.
3. Resource Constraints: Without a dedicated data engineering team, Hallmark struggled to meet the demands of modern digital business operations, particularly in terms of data integration and analysis.

Objectives

1. Automate Data Integration: Reduce the manual effort involved in consolidating data from multiple platforms by implementing an automated solution.
2. Enhance Customer Insights: Leverage extended data sets, to enrich their customer data model and gain deeper insights for segmentation.
3. Accelerate Decision-Making: Implement a solution that would enable faster data processing and reporting, allowing the team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual data handling.

Solution

Hallmark UK & Ireland chose to partner with Dot Collective as their unique assets enabled Hallmark to get an insight platform up and running extremely quickly. Using the Data Refinery, one of Dot Collective’s build accelerators, Hallmark was able to get the data model up and running within a day—something that would have taken weeks with a custom build..

1. Automated Data Integration: The results streamlined the process of consolidating data from multiple sources, significantly reducing manual workload and ensuring seamless data flow. This automation saved the Hallmark team approximately 20 hours per week, time that was previously spent on manual data entry!
2. Enriched Customer Data Model: By integrating extended data sets from ONS and other public sources, Hallmark gained deeper insights into their customer segments, enabling more precise targeting.
3. Dedicated Support: The Dot Collective team continue to provide operational support to Hallmark, ensuring Hallmark are optimised for client insights and service availability.

Results

A rapid ‘go-live’ of the data platform brought about several key benefits for Hallmark UK & Ireland:

Efficiency Gains

The automated data integration eliminated the need for manual data entry, saving the team several hours per week, with minimal time needed for the set-up phase, allowing them to focus on strategic business growth and driving valuable insights from the data.

Improved Customer Targeting

With a more comprehensive customer data model, enriched by additional data sources, Hallmark gained a clearer understanding of their customer segments, leading to more effective marketing efforts.

Rapid time to value: Using the Data Refinery as a build accelerator meant Hallmark could begin leveraging its benefits almost immediately, an important advantage given their limited resources.

“The most valuable thing I found about working with Dot Collective so far would have to be just the levels of service and the amazing attentiveness from the team. We’ve had regular catch-ups, really proactive help, and just an amazing service in terms of finding out about how we’re using products, what our use cases are, and how they can solve any problems we have. It’s just fantastic customer service.”

Mike Durrant, Head of Data and Analytics

Conclusion

The decision to partner with Dot Collective was transformative for Hallmark UK & Ireland, particularly as they navigated the complexities of growing their digital presence. They not only provided the technical capabilities Hallmark needed but did so with a level of service that exceeded expectations. For businesses in similar situations—those with limited in-house resources looking to scale their digital operations— working with the Dot Collective and leveraging its accelerators like, the Data Refinery offers a compelling solution that delivers both immediate and long-term value.

See how Dot Collective can create the springboard for momentous organisational leaps with your data. Get in touch.