success stories

Understanding the recipient: Truprint

Maximising the return on your email marketing campaigns can be a daunting task that relies heavily on knowing what will engage and motivate recipients.

While many companies depend on the click-through rates of previous emails, this gives a limited picture with many gaps to fill and only shows who is responding - not who isn’t.

Gaining an edge

This incomplete snapshot was exactly what marketers at Truprint, online digital print retailer, felt the need to address three years into their email marketing programme.

Their existing software was only allowing them to view the open and click-through rates which, while still of use, was only providing a very general overview.

They knew they were missing some crucial information that would help them really maximise the value of their email strategy; reading customer interest down to an individual level.

In a crowded market place with little distinguishing between retailers in the eyes of consumers, they realised they needed to understand what didn't engage people with their brand as much as what did.

Customer segmentation

Their old system had allowed them to do some initial database segmentation, but by implementing a system that allowed Truprint to look at very specific information on individual elements of an email, in this case Pure’s Enterprise Level Reporting module, they could see exactly what motivated each individual recipient and target them accordingly.

One campaign was specifically to encourage those who had never made a purchase to become customers.

Following an email aimed at driving sales they examined who hadn't opened the email and clicked through, then instantly generated a list of those people and sent them another, offering a further discount.

The campaign proved to be a success; targeting 'non-open' recipients in this way Truprint were able to increase the sales revenue attributed to that campaign by over 30%.

Testing the water

'Test emails have also played a large part in gaining a clear understanding of customers' behaviour.

In one instance, two campaigns were sent out - first a single email with an immediate call-to-purchase and another announcing a slightly longer limited time offer, with follow-up mails advising of the days remaining.

Using the Enterprise Level Reporting module in their email software, they compared the success of and response to each campaign and found out at which point recipients were compelled to open or click-through.

Truprint has even been able to identify the specific day of the week and time that people are likely to click-through on an email and can now ensure their marketing is delivered to inboxes at the time most likely to elicit a response.

One of the most useful aspects of their new system and a key element to their use of behavioural targeting is the ability to instantly create new address lists of the recipients that respond to a particular link.

This means that Truprint can quickly create an email marketing campaign that's relevant to the recipients, accurately reflects their areas of interest and most importantly, is most likely to generate a positive response.

Filling in the gaps

Database segmentation in this way has enabled Truprint to implement relatively sophisticated behavioural targeting in their email marketing strategy and now each campaign's objective is dependant upon the customer type.

As a result, this year Truprint will be looking to test email further as an acquisition tool. Digital Marketing Manager, Carolyn Searling, explains the advantage they've gained: 'What the system added was the ability to see the full picture - to see how customers reacted right from the moment that they got the email, to be able to refine and test messages and clearly measure results.

'We're still learning and hope to test even more strategies in 2007 – such as dynamic content - in our drive to deliver 100% relevant and compelling emails to all of Truprint's customers'