Case study: increasing seasonal revenue by over 400% with a behavioural trigger programme

Transcription

1 Case study: increasing seasonal revenue by over 400% with a behavioural trigger programme

2 CASE STUDY: JURYS INN 2 Alchemy Worx uses a behavioural trigger program with dynamic content to increase seasonal revenue by over 400% for Jurys Inn Background Jurys Inn is a chain of hotels initially founded in Ireland but now with 28 hotels across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. Their focus is great value, stylish and comfortable 3-star accommodation in the most convenient city centre locations. Typically their customers take advantage of the great locations and excellent value for business trips or city breaks. They offer a range of deals, from site-wide discounts to location-specific packages sent via an newsletter that also contains service updates and competitions. Challenge Historically, the holidays are relatively quiet trading periods for the hotel and travel sector. The bulk of the sales and subsequent marketing activity happens in the run up to holidays - January, February, April and September being the most active months. The holiday periods are, by definition, when most people are actually on holiday and this is reflected in marketing plans. As the marketing plan for the year had been set, the key challenge was how to boost revenue in the run up to Christmas without canabalising revenue from the all important January Sales. So any additional messages during the Christmas period would need to be creating value above and beyond the planned discounts.

3 Solution Although the holidays are relatively quiet trading periods for the hotel and travel sector, they are the most emotionally charged for consumers. The period in the run up to a holiday is full of anticipation, the holiday itself is excitement and the period after the holiday is full of longing for the next holiday. This is magnified at Christmas where nostalgia and generosity also play a large part. Alchemy Worx wanted Jurys Inn to tap into this feel-good factor with its seasonal communications. The primary focus of the s would be a feel-good seasonal theme attached to a Jurys Inn brand benefit - a reason to open and engage that wasn t just commercial. The commercial element would play a supporting role, reflecting consumer attitudes at this time of year. So Alchemy Worx proposed a seasonally themed newsletter series with behavioural triggers to: Newsletter content structure and corresponding trigger actions BRAND A consistent non-sales theme that gets customers to interact with the brand via tips, stories, social sharing and prizes. Click no purchase generates brand trigger. OFFERS Has pre-existing offers relevant to the brand theme. Click no purchase generates offer trigger. LOCATIONS List of locations. Click no purchase generates location trigger. SERVICES Customer service advice and messaging Generates a customer service follow-up 3 Engage: add value and keep Jurys Inn front of mind at this busy time of year by creating a series of 5 newsletters that present Jurys Inn benefits and themes in an engaging and seasonal way Learn: the newsletters also contain business objective areas for offers, locations and services to help generate consumer behaviour data Focus: the consumer behaviour data is then used to target the right offer to the right person at the right time with behavioural triggers Contact strategy and trigger logic If a customer clicked on a piece of content within the and didn t purchase within 24 hours, they received a targeted commercial offer via an automated trigger that was relevant to the content they clicked on. The triggers were capped at 1 every 21 days to keep the frequency at an acceptable level for the consumer.

4 Solution (cont.) The programme took broad Jurys Inn benefits and seasonal themes and presented these in engaging and creative ways: Brand Newsletters 4 Keep that Promise: theme around the promises we make to friends and relatives about catching up. It is the perfect time of year to keep that promise. Make it a Christmas to Remember: do something special this Christmas: go to a Christmas market, see Christmas lights switched on or venture abroad. Christmas Gifts: Jurys Inn gift vouchers and packages make a unique and unusual Christmas gift: the memory of a new city or theme park can last forever. Competition/Giveaway: Christmas is a time of fun and giving, so it s the perfect time for a giveaway, a gift from Jurys Inn to their customers. Last Chance: Your plans have changed or you ve left your Christmas gift planning to the last minute? Jurys Inn has the answer! The triggers contained dynamic content relevant to each action: Commercial triggers Brand trigger: these contained a map containing all of Jurys Inn locations and corresponding offers as well as three reasons to stay at a Jurys Inn with a simple Still want to keep that promise? message. Where the brand offer was gifts or last chance, these triggers contained additional gift offers and available locations. Offer triggers: these contained additional non-location specific offers and packages as well as 3 great reasons to stay at a Jurys Inn Location triggers: these contained additional offers for the location city guides and a Can t find what your looking for? customer service message

5 Solution (cont.) The programme finished with an animated Christmas card sent on Christmas Eve. Non-openers of the themed s received a re-send with a commercially focused subject line with the original being theme focused: First send: Why not keep that promise this year? Re-send: Seasonal 15% saving on all our Jurys Inn Hotels Graph1: seasonal trigger programme unique opens Unique Opens Mail Resend Trigger 5 Results: The 2014 seasonal programme had a significant impact on key metrics in comparison to the 2013 campaign: the number of conversions increased by 479%, the conversion rate by 241% and, most important of all,the revenue was up 413% with ROI more than doubling (chart1). Nov Nov Dec 3-5 Dec Dec Dec 23 Although rates were slightly down the number of opens and clicks increased by 243% and 141% respectively. Interestingly, there was an upward trend for both the number of opens and open rate over the course of the campaign showing that engagement grew over the course of the campaign. Chart1: Year on Year comparison of seasonal campaign revenue The unsubscribe rate for the seasonal campaign was marginally lower than the average unsubscribe for the year. The delivery rate for the campaign was marginally better than the 2014 campaign average Creating a feel-good, seasonally relevant content strategy and automated trigger programme for Jurys Inn achieved the dual goal of brand engagement and commercial success. is one of the few channels that can pull off this type of highly relevant messaging strategy because of its commercial reach, relative low cost and sophisticated automation technology. Dela Quist, CEO Alchemy Worx 0

6 6 ALCHEMY WORX HELPS LEADING BRANDS SEND HIGHLY PERSONALISED MESSAGES TO EVERYONE... EVERY TIME Established in 2001, Alchemy Worx is a global marketing agency with over 70 employees across three continents. They currently create, manage and deploy over 400 consumer and business s every month for more than 50 national and international brands. As well as strategy, ESP solutions, design, content, HTML coding, deployment services, reporting & analytics, they are the leading implementer of Intelligent Automation. This pan-esp solution automates message delivery, content, analytics and optimisation so clients can send highly personalised messages to everyone all the time. They have also developed a number of industry leading optimisation tools including a custom analytics dashboard, automated image personalisation software and a virtual subject line testing tool, Touchstone - The No.1 tool for marketers that want an unfair advantage (mailup.com). Alchemy Worx London Alchemy Worx Sydney Alchemy Worx Atlanta 4th floor, America House 2 America Square London EC3N 2LU +44 (0) Suite 3, Level 3, Grafton Bond Building 201 Kent Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia Lenox Road, Atlanta GA USA