2017 Gold Best use of email

TMW Unlimited

Client: Virgin Trains East Coast

The most tailored journey ever created. Ever.

Campaign overview

A smooth and stress-free train journey; it’s the stuff of dreams.

Virgin Trains East Coast wanted to utilise everything they knew about their customer to deliver a deeply personalised end-to-end experience.

Strategy

Virgin Trains had invested heavily in sophisticated technology to create one-to-one experiences for their customers.

They carried out customer experience research, 68 hours of footage captured with 61 customers, which identified the major pain points for customers, such as uncertainty about tickets, understanding First Class offerings, and ensuring their reservation info was at their fingertips.

Fully utilising the data capability, TMW Unlimited’s strategy segmented bookers and ensured the comms programme flexed and responded to individual booking behaviour.

Segments were based on their customer data history, for example, whether the customer was a first-time booker or whether they had visited their destination previously.

An additional layer of personalisation would allow customers to select the information they wanted in subsequent emails, creating a truly one-to-one email experience, with the customer at the centre.

Creativity

A clear modular template allowed the enormous amount of variable content to be easily targeted, with an unmistakably Virgin tone of voice.

The programme commenced with an email entitled 'Your journey. Your rules'. This allowed customers to select which information they wanted to receive in future emails, and start the countdown to their departure.

For those travelling with children, a specific email was designed to overcome associated anxieties that come with parenthood.

Closer to departure, specific information around the station and at the station was communicated.

The day before and on the day of travel, communications focused on the customer's outbound journey, with a handy SMS with a reservation reminder also sent on the day of travel.

Finally, customers returning home who had suffered a poor experience were sent an email to mitigate negative feeling, and ensure Virgin Trains would be their first choice when booking again.

Results

The increase in engagement with the emails saw a 28% increase in CTR over the previous unsegmented version illustrating the impact of the new approach.

Virgin Trains have also seen a large volume of positive customer comments since the launch.

Team

Lizzie Shlosberg (Account Director) TMW Unlimited - Sally Schumacher (Data Planning Director) TMW Unlimited - Kelly Glover (Senior Account Manager) TMW Unlimited - Emma Lester (Business Director) TMW Unlimited - Kate Wheaton (Strategy Director) TMW Unlimited - Richard Colville (Planner) TMW Unlimited - Dave Willis (Creative Group Head) TMW Unlimited - Luke Clark (Creative Group Head) TMW Unlimited - Lorena Teruel (Associate Design Director) TMW Unlimited - Stephanie Martin (Designer) TMW Unlimited - Claire (Cardosi Head of CEM) Virgin Trains East Coast - Angela McKenzie (CRM Campaign Manager) Virgin Trains East Coast - Jane Winton (CRM Manager) Virgin Trains East Coast - Mark Jones (Client Engagement Lead) Merkle Comet - Mark Shuttleworth (Operations Lead) Merkle Comet - Petar Lafchiev (Campaign Build) Merkle Comet - Daniela Moraes (Campaign QA) Merkle Comet