Marketing software in action

Stuart Lauchlan looks at how telecoms operator Vodafone applied marketing software to solve its campaign problems.

By Stuart Lauchlan, news and analysis editor

With offices in 26 countries and representation in 34 others across five continents, Vodafone provides 206 million worldwide customers with a complete range of mobile telecommunication services, including voice and data communications. Vodafone Spain has 15 million clients who it needed to address with personalised marketing campaigns for specific target sectors.

Vodafone identified the need for greater understanding and analysis of customer data in order to support service improvements. Unfortunately – in common with many organisations – vital data was held in disparate databases. This meant that the marketing department faced the challenge of tackling a complex process to extract information about customer behaviours and preferences.

This in turn meant it was difficult for the company to achieve its aims of automating marketing campaigns, resulting in a reliance on the IT department to assist in the development, modification and execution of campaigns.

It as apparent that Vodafone needed a solution capable of automating the collection and analysis of customer data in order to create campaigns that could be tailored individually according to product and customer. This would also improve productivity during the planning and execution stages of relationship marketing campaigns.

Vodafone chose Unica’s campaign management solution based on its capacity to integrate distinct sources of information without the need for a single unified database. As part of a pilot project, Unica Affinium Campaign was linked together Vodafone’s existing campaign management databases and successfully ran three campaigns based on live data.

As a result of the implementation, the marketing department can now focus on more strategic tasks, such as the optimisation of the planning and execution of personalised customer campaigns. This prevents customers from becoming the targets of too many initiatives and suffering from "campaign fatigue". Another significant benefit is the ability to measure campaign results with a high degree of accuracy, allowing Vodafone to respond rapidly and effectively to future opportunities.

Vodafone now conducts approximately 120 consumer campaigns and 60 corporate campaigns every month, reaching a target audience of approximately 10 million individual customers. These campaigns are conducted across a range of different channels, including telemarketing, electronic mail, SMS and MMS. Personalised messages in invoices, loyalty points statements and notices of special offers are all now integrated into the wider CRM programme. In the medium term, the company now intends to integrate its marketing campaigns into new channels, such as point of sale, with a view to improving customer tracking and thereby fostering customer loyalty.

On the right track

TheTrainLine.com was launched in 1997 to meet demand for rail services delivered via telephone, the internet and other interactive channels. Following the launch of its internet service in early 1999, the firm now has over nine million registered users and handles over 150 million journey enquiries a year. TheTrainLine call centres answer one call every three seconds and spend more than 2.5 million minutes on the phone to customers every month.

TheTrainLine's business is split into two areas: TheTrainLine travel agency and a ‘white label’ agency which is used by most of the major train operators in the UK. It has two main objectives: to drive sales for thetrainline and to encourage train companies using its ‘white label’ agency to increase the volume of tickets they sell. The company's goal is to generate £3 million in revenue each month for TheTrainLine and the same again for its white label offering.

In order to maximise the success of campaigns and enhance strategy, TheTrainLine recognised that it required a CRM solution which would enable it to improve management of its campaigns and support the rapid business growth it was experiencing. It needed a solution which would support market segmentation, campaign design and development, campaign management, campaign measurement and increase overall visibility of customer outreach while freeing up valuable resources to focus on strategy.

Following a thorough audit, it selected Infor CRM Epiphany. The solution went live in early 2004 following a 12 week implementation. It was chosen partly based on its ability to communicate with customers in real time, with relevance, whilst they browse the site. This in turn helps to drive conversion and cross sales.

Three years on, communications with customers is more structured and consistent. Campaigns are tracked and measured in real-time with the result that visibility is far greater. This in turn empowers TheTrainLine's marketing function as it enables tangible impact and ROI to be reported back to the business in order to hone strategy.

Other articles in this focus report:

• The market for marketing software


• The secrets to successful emarketing


• Web 2.0: A mixed blessing for marketing?


• If you aren't using analytics, you’re not really marketing


• Marketing software vendors