Pulling the email marketing trigger in the face of insurance!
by Natalie Cooke
Our client Swinton has over a million customers for which they have an email address and we had been working with them for a few months on some of their product focused emails. We knew that there was much more they could be doing with email marketing and wanted to push the boundaries for them. Our triggered email activity was first discussed in January when we received a nice timely email from Pizza Express offering BOGOF on all pizzas to celebrate the fact that the snow was finally melting and people were now able to get out to eat again. This triggered our own thoughts – “Wouldn’t it be great if our Swinton emails could be a bit more timely and relevant and well…. interesting really!”
It started with a sandwich…
We organised a lunchtime brain storm session with our lovely creatives and account handlers and pulled together ideas for the rest of the year, what were the events that we knew were going to take place that would give us yet another reason to speak to our customers and another opportunity to drive quotes for Swinton products? The elections, the world cup and even the start of X factor came up in discussions, but these were of course the obvious ones, the ones that every marketer would be capitalising on. At the end of two hours in the boardroom we had a huge amount of ideas. The first was to celebrate April Fool’s Day. It’s easy to send out a clever email with a funny gimmick – but to get it to sell insurance as well… not an easy feat!
We actually didn’t have to wait until April Fool’s day however, as one Friday afternoon a phone call from our MD Adrian really put our quick turnaround emails to the test! Toyota had been forced to re-call 10 million cars worldwide over the last 12 months and the problems began in January when it was found that the accelerator pedals on certain models had been sticking. Adrian had heard a radio news item on his way back across the Penines from a client meeting and thought this would be the perfect opportunity for us to speak to our customers about breakdown insurance and to re-assure them that their car insurance for their Toyotas would not be affected.
The key to triggered emails is relevancy and targeting and fortunately Swinton’s customer data is pretty comprehensive. We could easily identify all those customers who had a Toyota insured through Swinton, and even better, we could identify which customers had one of the affected models and who didn’t currently have any breakdown insurance with Swinton.
A total of 14,000 customers were selected for the mailing. Creative and copy were completed by the close of play Friday ready for client feedback first thing on the Monday. As everyone who works within the Financial Services industry knows – creativity can often be unfortunately stifled by compliance – the department we love to hate but who actually keep us all out of jail! To avoid any difficulties we ensured body copy was consistent with pre-approved website copy and that links for more information went directly to the official ABI site. The main purpose of the email was actually a customer service led brand enhancing piece but with a secondary push towards breakdown cover. The personalised subject header ”Relax Natalie, with Swinton your Toyota is covered” resulted in a 43% open rate.
April Fools day was our next triggered challenge and perhaps the email I am most proud of. It not only generated great results for our client in terms of insurance – over 1000 quotes and lots of policies – but it was also voted top ten hoax on the web for April Fools day 2010 by Techradar. Techradar.com is the largest UK-based consumer technology news and reviews site, so they know their stuff! We also received a lengthy trackback on our blog article from a gentleman in the US who makes thought screen helmets to protect against alien mind abduction – we drove about 3000 clicks to his site which we hope resulted in some orders for him.
It doesn’t have to be good news…
Good news or bad news there’s always an opportunity. Most recently we’ve turned round an email on the back of the emergency budget – all within 24 hours after one of our clients spotted the opportunity at 11pm the night before. We’ve also created a brilliant ‘great saves’ world cup email on the back of the impressive saves by Uruguayans Muslera and Suaraz . The great saves creative offered an increased cup offer on home insurance together with lots of value added content and even a dining out offer.
We are now 6 months into our triggered email plan and the results are looking extremely healthy. To date we have generated about 4,000 quotes from our emails and maintained a consistently good open rate, whilst of course keeping unsubscribes to a minimum. There were of course some initial concerns that the increased amount of email activity would have an impact on unsubscribes – creating a rich and varied inbox of timely and relevant messages has ensured that this hasn’t happened.
Test, Test, Test!
We don’t just create and build emails; we spend hours each month pouring over results, trend spotting and heat mapping, all to ensure that we are maximising clicks! Small creative changes, like the introduction of iconic side navigation and HTML body copy links and headers have all helped to drive incremental clicks. It’s an ongoing process of learning, testing and improvement.
Its all about the team!
It’s true to say that one of the keys to success is being able to turn things around quickly – from idea through to email distribution. But we also need to have a deep understanding of email click behaviour, know our target audience, make it timely and relevant. Above all, though, it helps that we can work with clients who push the boundaries are happy to test new ideas and are completely honest with you. Not to mention working with a great Account handling team and Creatives who are always looking out for new triggered messages and are prepared to burn the midnight oil to deliver them.
So a big thank you to everyone for helping make our triggered emails for Swinton a massive success.
Tags: April Fools Email Marketing, Digital Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Direct Response Agency, Email Marketing Agency, Insurance Email Marketing, Marketing Agency, PPC Agency, Responsive Email Marketing, SEO Company, Swinton Email Marketing, Triggered Email Marketing
