Introduction

Foot Shop is a family owned retailer selling specialist footwear, socks, hosiery and foot comfort products across multiple sales channels, including mail order, wholesale, internet and retail shops.

Established in the early 1980’s, Foot Shop has grown from a small company originally supplying DIY shoe kits into a multi-brand, multi-channel retailer. Amongst its brands is Cosyfeet, the leading UK brand of Extra Roomy footwear; Walktall, the specialist online retailer for tall men’s branded footwear, clothing and accessories; Lookatmycrazyshoes.com, retailers of fashionable and functional footwear; and disabled footwear specialists, Healthyshoes .co.uk and Disabledaccessories.com.

Challenge

Foot Shop recognised that access to its customer data would be highly advantageous to the business, as it would facilitate a deeper understanding of its client base and enable the business to divide, segment, and then communicate with its customers appropriately and more effectively. However, with its customer data held within a SQL database off site and also within the CRM system Elucid, access to it for marketing purposes was extremely difficult.

The challenge for Occam therefore, was to provide Foot Shop with access to their customer data for querying, analysis, planning and campaign purposes with the aim of driving additional profit through intelligent targeting based on customer profile and purchasing habits.

Solution

The first step in achieving Foot Shop’s objectives was the creation of a consolidated data set from the SQL and Elucid data sources in order to identify and profile key customers for cross- and up-sell activity across the database. With a single data source in place, Occam set about applying deduplication and suppression techniques to produce a clean data source to be used for marketing purposes. Tackling data quality issues head-on at this early stage, meant that Occam could then process subsequent data supplies into FastStats much faster and more reliably, as any key issues had previously been addressed.

With the data preparation complete, the next key phase was the creation of a FastStats solution and the subsequent deployment of the Discoverer application on client site. Designed specifically to give staff access to Foot Shop’s data for querying, analysis and campaign purposes, Occam supported the implementation of its solution by providing full training and support from its software consultants.

With the system in place, response information was then fed back into the Foot Shop database and used to refine future campaigns, along with the use of transactional and basket analysis to determine the next best or most likely purchase per customer. This enabled communications to be tailored for cross-sell and up-sell depending on previous purchase patterns.

Results

Occam’s successful implementation of the FastStats solution has enabled Foot Shop to bring back in-house the insight and access to marketing data that was previously managed by an external agency. Importantly, this has been achieved very cost effectively through a combination of sensible data preparation within the originating data source and comparatively low software costs under the Occam FastStats bureau licence.

The ability to clearly identify which customers should be used for different campaigns and offers, whilst avoiding those customers who are unlikely to respond positively has significantly improved the effectiveness of Foot Shop’s marketing campaigns:

• Targeting and customer selections have improved email turnover by over 200%
• Project planning times have been cut by 50%
• In the last 6 months marketing costs have reduced by 10% due to more effective targeting of customers
• Sales have increased by 15%

A wholly owned subsidiary, Kia Motors UK currently has more than 140 dealerships with substantial plans to grow the network in order to support strong sales.

Like all manufacturers and dealerships operating in the Automotive Sector, Kia endeavours to co-ordinate sales activity for new sales, re-sales, and servicing and finance packages, with the aim of increasing sales and lowering costs.  Integral to this is the ability to be able to track marketing activity across all channels whether it be online, direct marketing, or footfall into the dealership; knowing how, when and why people want to be marketed to is essential.

The Kia Challenge

Kia identified the need for greater data quality and visibility.  As data had been managed externally, the key to achieving this  was to bring control in-house.

Having established this prerogative, Occam was tasked with the migration and development of Kia’s existing database along with the provision of an in-house facility to access customers and prospects.  This entailed the following set of challenges:

• The need for a single repository of clean, deduplicated, high quality customer information.  Integral to this is the notion of unique customer profiles (customers appearing once and only once in the repository), and the development of just a single version of the repository containing accurate and up-to-date data.

• Access to a range of information associated with this customer information including; all outbound marketing history, all Kia ownership details, and warranty claims, and all brochure requests.

• Establishing means by which users are able to analyse the data in the repository, perform counts, and then use these results to segment the repository and plan and execute campaigns.

• Given the limited time frame allocated to the data migration, Occam faced the additional challenge of delivering the above in a matter of weeks.

The Occam Solution

Occam proposed to host a solution and then provide access to that solution using a range of web-based tools.  The major components of this solution were:

• The Single Customer View (SCV) which is the core repository of clean, de-duplicated customer information.  The SCV includes individual, vehicle, and address level information and also includes full contact history at each level.  The core SCV is consistent across implementations, but has been tailored to meet Kia’s specific needs as an automotive retailer.

• Occam’s Core Processing.  All data containing name and address information will pass through Occam’s data processing facility to ensure that the data is cleaned, de-duplicated, and merged into the SCV with all the appropriate suppression information applied.  The core processing consists of a series of Occam common components together with the client specific business logic and file specific input and output modules.

• A Count and Campaign Tool which will allow users to perform counts on the SCV, segment the data in the SCV, and also extract customer data from the SCV.  The selected tool in this instance is the FastStats application supplied by Apteco.

• Interfaces between Kia’s systems and Kia’s suppliers’ systems.  The interfaces can be unidirectional (information just sent to Occam or just received from Occam) or bidirectional (a two-way interface).

• Modules to load campaign and response information.  Campaign information is updated directly by the count and campaign tools, whereas response information will be loaded from files provided by the fulfilment agencies.

• The provision of a high performance, user friendly data access tool.  This is a key component of the Occam solution, enabling users to navigate the systems easily and facilitate campaign management.

The Benefits to Kia

Where previously the incumbent supplier had managed the database and taken the responsibility for campaign selections, the Occam solution provided Kia with complete visibility.  Now the Customer Database Manager at Kia can perform all campaign selections using a high performance, user friendly data access tool.  As a consequence of this, Kia has greatly improved customer insight and benefited from the flexibility of managing campaigns how and when it wants.

Furthermore, the implementation of Occam’s core data processing components means that a high level of data quality is assured, thus increasing campaign effectiveness.  Not only are campaigns better targeted and therefore likely to yield improved response rates, but the costs incurred through campaign wastage have decreased.

“Occam’s implementation of Fast Stats has bolstered our marketing activity and contributed heavily to our retail sales which are currently up by 4% for the year.  Given the economic conditions, this is very positive.” (John Bache, Customer Database Manager at Kia)

Further Development

Soon after deploying the solution, Kia began to experience its benefits and have since begun to develop its scope.  Following the implementation of the original design, Occam has integrated a suppression tool that facilitates the cleaning of customer and prospect data against industry suppression products within the database itself.

Occam has also deployed twice daily cleaning routines for brochure requests ensuring that Kia’s fulfilment house are only processing cleaned addresses – something that was not done in the past.

This competitive environment has required RBS to change and to adopt a multi-channel approach for optimal contact, including the functionality to carry out trigger based marketing.  This has lead to a significant change in strategy and day-to-day working for the Cards Marketing teams.

What was the challenge we needed to solve?

RBS historically provided Occam with monthly data feeds, and marketing was run monthly and prepared quarterly. This was excellent for large scale communications, but inflexible and had limited scope for reactive event based targeting. RBS needed a solution that could manage a trigger based marketing strategy alongside traditional large scale monthly campaigns.

The existing methodology delivers successful targeting within and across campaigns. Lifecycle campaigns are aimed at stimulating / maintaining customer activity and there is a strong focus on ROI.  The use of analytics and ‘test & learn’ techniques are core to all activities.  This leads to high volume and high frequency contacts across the base with well tested and targeted knowledge developed over a long period.

The weaknesses are an extended time to market, and rising costs per campaign. Many campaigns are hand crafted, and with targeting becoming increasingly more complex, this is putting more pressure on the process. Added to this was a greater demand for new campaign content and digital print, as well as the ability to respond quickly to customer events.

How did we go about solving it?

Occam was tasked with developing an in-house solution that would provide:

• The architecture & business rules for event based capability and greater throughput

• An overhaul the existing data schema

• Lights out processing of trigger based campaigns

• Campaign hierarchy – full recording of contact rules

• Automated response reporting

Occam’s response was an interim database (Account Management Strategy – AMS) to sit between the Faststats campaign management tool that could house contact history information from all Direct Marketing run by Occam as well as contacts from other sources such as 3rd party partners and inbound call centre contacts. This database is hosted at Occam with web enabled access for RBS.

What results did we achieve with this solution?

• New capabilities for the Cards Marketing teams allowing event based activity.  These include time on book, significant life events such as marriage, the birth of a child or moving house, transaction events (categories, change in spend) and changes in customer preferences.

• Between 50-100% uplift in typical campaign response.

• Significant improvements in efficiency with additional campaigns delivered with no significant increase in headcount internally or externally.

• Test and learn environment, built to take new offers to market at the right time for the right customer through the right channel.

• Customer centric account management giving marketing and communications a process to enact new campaigns at speed

• Multi-channel contact. Ability to tailor message to customer preferences

• Speed to contact. Highly reduced time to contact through refined process

• Consistent contact management. A first step towards fully managing contacts across all channels – inbound and outbound

Direct mail response rates and ROI for acquisition are dropping – environmental awareness from consumers, over-use of the same lists and the availability of cheaper, more environmentally friendly on-line recruitment methods  have all played their part. Yet charities should not simply stop cold mail as a recruitment method. Not every potential supporter will be attracted by ‘new’ media channels, direct mail responders often will have better lifetime value and on-going relationships will still be partly direct mail based
Conclusion? A multi-channel approach is needed that allows charities to contact the right supporter, at the right time, with the right combination of channels.

The Challenges

BHF was finding that its donor recruitment was diverse and untrackable. As is the case with many charities, BHF was experiencing declining response rates on cold mail fundraising campaigns.

In addition, some research work showed that BHF could target a new audience – Heartland Heritage.

Given all these factors, BHF wished to step outside its existing targeting strategy and target this new group of prospects.

The solution

BHF asked Occam to design, build and implement a full prospect database solution, including an underlying targeted prospect data pool to provide BHF with:

• A single view of prospects and supporters

• The ability to append lifestyle data

• Campaign management and selection

• The ability to track responses and measure response rates

The implementation of such a solution would provide BHF with a robust and scalable  tool to support a long term acquisition strategy.

The prospect data element of the solution was individually tailored to meet BHF’s strategic requirements in the most cost-effective way. Data was purchased on an annual license usage basis, added to the database together with BHF’s existing supporter/customer base. Prospect data could then be matched against the existing supporter base and any pre-existing supporters flagged on the database, ensuring that these were not inappropriately targeted with cold acquisition mailings.

The remaining prospect pool could then be contacted and flagged on the database. Responses from the cold campaign could then be added to the database, enabling BHF to analyse who responded to each cold campaign and why. This insight is invaluable to building an understanding of supporter preferences and to building long-term supporter relationships.

Methodology

Plan
• Look at existing donors and previous campaign performance
• Analyse and build models
• Plan next campaign

Execute
• Test previous and new lists, creative designs, model(s), knowledge based
selections, control groups

Plan Again
• Build understanding continuously to improve results

Execute Again
• In an ever changing market what you do must continuously evolve and adapt

The Strategy

Occam’s strategy was to use the best performing model as the base, enhancing as new responders are identified after each campaign.

At the same time, to test other models, re-using any that outperform the base model and then enhancing them with new responders on a campaign by campaign basis.

Additionally, BHF has used the prospect pool as a source of names to support a non prospect pool model: Heartlands Heritage. This is a postcode based model and can easily be used to select high volumes of names from the 18 million usable names available in the prospect pool.

This can now be directly compared to core prospect pool models to ensure that the best performing models are always used.

Key Benefits

New Supporter Audiences
The provision of this strategically targeted prospect pool solution allows BHF to identify new, untapped sources of potential donors, thereby enabling the charity to widen the scope of acquisition targets.

Invaluable Supporter Insight
The solution enabled BHF to build a detailed understanding of individuals who are responsive to direct mail and those that preferred to be contacted in other ways. A ‘virtuous cycle’ of continuous learning and iterative improvement was implemented that would inform subsequent campaigns, allowing BHF to build a better long-term targeting strategy based on real supporter insight, as well as building stronger individual supporter relationships.

Reduced costs
Don’t pay to mail the same name every time

Increased response rates
Modelling and analysis enables improved targeting

Better return on investment

Better understanding of prospects and testing

Flexibility of communications

Reduced end-to-end process time

Results

At the time of writing, BHF has used the new prospect pool solution in 4 cold campaigns, 3 of which were ‘cash asks’ and one of which included a test campaign for committed givers. Some 691,000 names have been selected from the prospect pool for mailing.

Response Rates

Response rates closely matched the expected average response rate for a cold campaign. The high mailing volumes enabled by the prospect pool meant that it could be used to replace under
performing cold lists and raise the overall campaign response rates.

BHF is now able to understand:

The optimum number of times to contact a prospect before they will respond

What offer – or combination of offers – is best suited to each prospect

What creative/offer/channel works best – and for whom

The ‘triggers’ to successfully contacting prospects, i.e.
- Life stages
- Moving
- Purchases
All valuable insight that enables BHF to stay ahead of other charities that are not maximizing the insight in their supporter data management infrastructure.

In 2005, Eurostar carried a record 7.45 million travellers and achieved record sales of £464 million. Almost 70 million people have now travelled with Eurostar since services began in 1994, and the company is responsible for doubling the number of visitors from London to Paris and Brussels. A combination of a robust fleet servicing and maintenance programme, good operational performance and strong performance by infrastructure providers, Network Rail and Eurotunnel, ensured Eurostar achieved such good results.

Richard Brown, Chief Executive of Eurostar, commented,

“We’re continuing to win travellers from our competitor airlines, as strong punctuality and superior service make Eurostar the carrier of choice.”

In 2007, the second section of the new UK high-speed rail line, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), will open on schedule, and Eurostar’s entire operations will move from Waterloo to its new terminal at St. Pancras International. The completion of the high-speed line will create a link to the Continent from the heart of the city and further reduce Eurostar journey times, for example London to Paris will now take only 2 hours 15 minutes.  Coupled with the new high-speed rail link connecting the Channel Tunnel to London, to be completed by 2007, Eurostar’s customer base will change dramatically – for both out-bound UK and in-bound French and Belgian services.

Before August 2005, Eurostar did not have an overall view of its customers and prospects. There was no real understanding of the behaviour of individual travellers – either leisure or business. The company enjoyed communication with only a small proportion of actual customers. Eurostar wanted to build the necessary foundations to both increase the efficiency and effectiveness of its marketing and also to provide analysis of its entire customer base to predict the effect of new stations and services.

The Challenge

Eurostar’s overall objective was to increase customer intelligence to improve relationship building and help strategically drive operations – particularly in light of the impending major UK station changes.

Before the customer database project began, Eurostar held operational data about ticket sales plus data from its Frequent Traveller programme. Marketing analysis was limited by the extent of the available data and little differentiation between customers based on their previous behaviour and preferences was possible. A communication programme had to meet the needs of the entire database.

Eurostar’s initial goal was to create a single customer view, with associated database marketing tools in order to increase understanding of, and hence significantly improve, its relationship with customers, thereby maximising the potential of its data. The new approach had to underpin Eurostar’s preferred channel for DM campaigns, email, due to its associated cost, speed and measurability benefits.

The second marketing goal, ahead of the important service changes due in 2007, was to profile Eurostar travellers to understand the affects the changes would have on existing and future customer catchment areas. The output would help drive the decision-making process, not only in Marketing but also within Eurostar’s Business Planning, Market Research, eCommerce, Customer Service and Customer Operations divisions.
One of the key challenges these objectives presented was to overcome the data quality and subsequent integration issues of a huge variety of datasets held in different countries. A small sample includes: marketing data from the last two years held in the UK, France and Belgium; inbound North American data via partner Expedia; Management Information Systems data; website data; Frequent Travellers programme and customer contact, complaints and remarks held in London and also data from the ticket booking system.

It was vital that the marketing database could work effectively cross-border between the three countries. The database also needed to be accessible to Eurostar’s external partners such as advertising and media agencies.

The Solution

Eurostar decided to minimise the risks involved in creating a new marketing database by securing the consultancy and software services of Occam. The project commenced in January 2005 and an initial version of the new system went live in September 2005.

The solution is a combination of Occam’s accelerated delivery marketing technology platform and components: core cleansing and de-duplication components, an operational data store in SQL Server and the Alterian applications ‘Data Discovery’ ‘Visualisation’ (DDV) and ‘Campaign Manager’ – each leverages Alterian’s core engine technology.

Occam created a new customer marketing database capable of managing the large volumes of Eurostar’s raw data, which grew from an initial 30,000 contacts to 18 million unique customer IDs.

This significant increase in the amount of available data came from including all transactions within Eurostar’s core markets over a four year period; plus the original data sources.

Delivered via Occam’s ‘rapid fire’ implementation methodology, the solution allows rapid and easy analysis and selection from the new database. Immediately, Eurostar were able to begin segmenting the database, providing insight to drive targeted, profitable email campaigns:

Business travellers’ behaviour (and previous journeys taken) is analysed to ensure targeted, relevant offers are sent to this profitable key traveller group

Outbound emails relating to the Ski Service to the French Alps have been reduced from 500,000 to 70,000 based on new insight drawn from the newly available analysis

Potential users of the daily service to the French theme park Euro Disney were targeted by email, resulting in an  open rate of 35%

Targeted micro sites have been created on the main Eurostar website to increase data capture

Andrew Wythes, Eurostar Customer Database Manager, comments,

“With the implementation of the database, Eurostar have been able to create targeted communications based on traveller behaviour and profiles. The results have been far beyond expectations.”

As well as enabling Eurostar to apply analysis to its data to gain customer insight, Occam also made it possible for Eurostar to begin to address the challenge of understanding customer journeys and translating this information into targeted marketing campaigns:

Contacts that have registered via the website but not purchased can be emailed to ‘boost’ uptake
Customers returning for the first time are contacted to gain ‘new traveller’ customer feedback

Eurostar is beginning to feed all this new customer intelligence to its media agencies to assist and inform campaign planning. The system is already a strong, strategic business tool, used for significant analysis and profiling of customers within the existing catchment areas of Waterloo International and Ashford.

Occam hosts the marketing database solution on its network of secure, state of the art servers, ensuring continual data security and 24 hour data access. A continual process of data quality management, performance tuning, and enhancement of the analysis and campaign management capabilities is in constant operation.  Web access to all data, campaign contact history and facilities is provided for Eurostar users across three countries; access permission levels can be applied on an individual basis to assure security across the system and all data.
Occam provided training in the new system for all Eurostar database users, enabling them to execute extremely successful campaign selections in-house, for a range of scheduled, automated campaigns, as well as occasional campaigns run in support of a specific marketing objective. For more complex campaigns and at peak times, Eurostar relies on Occam’s analysis and campaign selection expertise to execute more complex data extractions from the database.

In addition to increasingly targeted email campaigns, Eurostar is now able to measure and report upon the efficacy of its entire marketing activity, across all channels. The solution enables seamless integration between email and web activities, ensuring that Eurostar’s marketing activity will be supported as new technologies and channels are embraced.

After just one campaign Eurostar were able to measure and demonstrate the following increases in campaign effectiveness and response:

• Open-rates increased by 100%
• Unique click-throughs increased by 50%
• Average revenue increased by 400%

This new ability to undertake strategic analysis has been invaluable in providing insight into customer behaviour across Eurostar’s three core markets. Eurostar has been able to accurately plan and assess the huge opportunities that will arise and predict future sales volumes thereof. The database has empowered Eurostar to model its current and future customer catchment areas, insight which will underpin all relationship marketing activity during 2007.

The Future

From such measurably successful foundations Eurostar plans to create even deeper segmentations of its  business and leisure target audiences, embracing such areas as ‘high-frequency, high-value travellers’; ‘dormant customers’ and ‘one-time travellers’. This deeper insight will drive future campaigns, facilitating up-sell and cross-sell initiatives and re-educating customers and prospects in the run-up to the new station openings in 2007.

The new customer marketing database has helped propel Eurostar’s understanding of its customers to a new level of sophistication within a short space of time, fast tracking both short-term marketing objectives and longer-term strategic business goals into realisation.

The marketing database implementation has already resulted in many significant business wins for Eurostar. The benefits resulting from the effective application of marketing data analysis include:

• Complex data integration to create a single customer view of 18million traveller records;
• Dramatically increased customer intelligence
• Creation of a highly targeted and effective dialogue with customers
• Successful cross-border and inter-departmental collaboration

Where previously, it had relied upon limited market research projects, Eurostar now has a clearer picture of its customers; its catchment areas and how service changes will effect both – not only in the UK, but for prospective passengers travelling from Brussels, Paris and Lille.
Vital foundations have been laid to ensure that Eurostar may continue to increase the sophistication of its direct marketing, ensuring it maintains and continues to build upon its market leading position.

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