2011 Gold Best use of email marketing

01 Dec 2011

Client East Midlands Trains

What is wonderful about this work? Our objective to grow off-peak volumes was designed to boost profitability of off-peak services. Our approach, inspired by behavioural economics, tackled key barriers to purchase and minimised cost while maximising effect. We increased revenue by 9% among customers in our programme, reduced the off-peak cost per passenger and delivered an 8:1 ROMI.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? Most of East Midlands Trains (EMT) revenue comes from peak tickets, but peak trains run near capacity, offering little room for growth. Off-peak/leisure services typically run with over half the seats empty and are significantly less profitable for EMT. Our objective to grow off-peak volumes would boost the off-peak profitability. Research told us customers think leisure train trips expensive, with anecdotes of budget flights being cheaper than train tickets. Plus, habitual travel behaviour is notoriously difficult to change. We saw an opportunity to tap positive intentions to take leisure trips by train, but inertia makes it hard to convert them to action. Behavioural economics inspired our solution. Nudge. Deceptively simple, yet effective. Email was the most direct channel to tackle inertia, making it easy to find low-price tickets by clicking straight through to the relevant booking page. It also works indirectly, reminding those intending to purchase and bumping it up their mental to-do list.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? We analysed and segmented the database based on recency, frequency and value of ticket purchases. This revealed clear insights enabling us to design discrete, targeted tasks to maximise revenue. 1) Encouraging repeat purchase: we developed a series of emails to establish a relationship, with the critical six-month email being a trigger to re-purchase. A money-off incentive helped justify the purchase. 2) Preventing lapsing: we triggered re-purchase at 11 months, reminding customers why booking online is easy and provides great value for money, reinforced with a ‘money off your next online booking’ offer. 3) Rewarding frequency: analysis of high-value customers revealed that a surprisingly high proportion of value came from customers frequently purchasing low-value tickets. We recognised and rewarded these customers with tailored emails.

Results Between August 2010 and March 2011, the customers in our eCRM programme have generated over £4.3m incremental sales revenue, compared to those in our control group. This delivered nearly £4m net profit and 8:1 ROMI, and contributed a 9% uplift to total sales revenue. This programme has been so successful for EMT that eCRM will now drive the marketing strategy for the final three years of their rail franchise.

Judge's comment:“A fantastic execution using email technology to solve a strategic problem. This campaign achieved outstanding ROI through harnessing the power of personalisation.” Tink Taylor, dotMailer

Team Natasha Joslin – Data Strategy Director, Camilla Patel – Group Account Director, Cressida O’Shea – Senior Strategist, Dan Jenkins – Account Director, Nicky Bullard – Creative Director, Sharon To – Project Manager, Inger Nordby – Copywriter, Andrew Pogson – Art Director

Other contributors TBDA – Database management, eCircle – Email broadcast

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2011 Gold Best use of email marketing

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