Too many brands fail to take full advantage of email marketing

Gail Dudleston is managing director of digital agency twentysix. She has
been working in the DM industry for 18 years, delivering campaigns for
clients such as SSL International, the Royal Navy, Waitrose, Wella, IDM,
RBS and Proctor & Gamble.

Suzanne Jiggens is customer relationship management and new-media
marketing manager at Zavvi. Previously she worked at HSBC managing the
bank's direct marketing customer retention campaigns.

WAITROSE SEGMENTS CUSTOMERS TO BOOST RELEVANCY

In January, Waitrose kicked off its first strategic eCRM activity
following a successful redesign of its site and tactical email marketing
campaign last year. The programme was created by integrated agency
Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw and enables the supermarket to segment its
customers into seven categories. This means that when they receive their
monthly email it is targeted towards their interests (such as the
provenance of food) and their location (customers are directed to their
local store or to www.waitrose.com).

"Waitrose had been running email campaigns before we developed the eCRM
programme but it wasn't very structured: there was no clear strategy
behind it, no clear segmentation and emails were treated more as a
tactical tool than a channel to support the Waitrose brand," says Lazar
Dzamic, joint planning director at Kitcatt Nohr.

Last year, the agency relaunched waitrose.com and ran an email campaign
targeting prospects and customers already in its email database.

"Results-wise, the campaign was quite spectacular," Dzamic reveals.
"There were 1.25 million unique visitors in the first month of the
campaign - a 27 per cent increase year on year in the website
performance - and an average email opening rate of 31 per cent, which is
huge for this sector."

The success of this campaign persuaded Waitrose to launch a full-blown
eCRM strategy - beginning early this year - that targeted customers
based on whether they had shopped at Waitrose before or the John Lewis
Partnership (which Waitrose belongs to) and if they were based in a
store-catchment area. The agency also created a new template for email
campaigns, which could be adapted to suit newsletters or ad hoc emails -
if there's a food scare, for instance - quickly and easily.

It's too early to reveal any results from the email activity, but since
launching the eCRM strategy earlier this year, Dzamic says: "Before,
there was no strategy in place to maximise the value of its loyal
customer base and Waitrose often missed opportunities. Now, Waitrose has
consistency in how it talks to customers and also increased relevance as
it can segment customers based on different criteria."

Neil Stead, marketing manager for direct marketing at Waitrose, adds:
"Our eCRM programme will allow us to give our customers relevant and
personalised information about our online offering and details of their
local branch. We will continually tailor our messaging to maximise the
effectiveness of the communication."