marketing gets personal customer case cycletours

customer case

cycletours

The Netherlands loves bicycles.

With thousands of bicycle paths

and more bicycles than inhabitants

on average, the Netherlands is

truly number one when it comes to

bicycling.

on the right

path with

clever email

communication

And it’s not just as a mode of transport - the Dutch also love to take a recreational tour once in a while. Cycletours has caught on to this and offers a range of cycling holidays. In order to keep all of those bicycle lovers up to date with all of the newest holidays and latest developments in the bicycling world, Cycletours regularly sends messages to a large group of bicycle fanatics. This year Cycletours started segmenting their customers and prospects so that they could send more relevant and specific emails, with the aid of the email marketing automation solutions that webpower offers.

the challenge: everyone has their own style of bicycling

Marketing Manager Diederick Janssens describes his job: ‘We organize bicycle holidays across the entire globe; we offer around 250 different holidays so there is something for everyone. The challenge in the communication with this group is primarily based on that ‘something for everyone’’, Janssens explains. ‘Everybody bicycles in their own way. Due to the large variation of holidays we offer the target audience is varied. On one hand there are racing cyclists who enjoy being challenged and really going the distance. On the other hand, there is the epicurean bicyclist who simply enjoys the view.’ Janssens: ‘Some love taking their children while the others go mad just thinking about it. When we approach racing cyclists with child-friendly campaigns we scare them off.’

the solution: different newsletters for each segment based on interests

Once upon a time Cycletours sent out the same newsletter to everyone. In order to send more relevant emails based on interests and needs, and to realize a better result, Cycletours has now started segmenting their customers and prospects. ‘At the moment we are especially focused on differentiating between the group holidays and the individual tours, due to the holiday period. We are still trying to fill up the group holidays, but if we send emails promoting them to people whom are only interested in individual tours, we will quickly lose their interest.’ Cycletours therefore uses the email marketing and the progressive profiling tool by webpower: dmdelivery. ‘We are still getting used to sending segmented newsletters, once in a while we encounter an obstacle, but then we just ask webpower to help us to correct it.’

target audience oriented communications

Email still yields the highest conversion compared to other online campaigns (banners, keyword ads, and social media). Nurturing customers through email has proven to be effective. Emails with a social boost, from which content can be shared and the customers are rewarded for sharing content, will only contribute to this effectiveness. ‘Direct email grabs attention. A message will remain in your email inbox until you decide to remove it’, Janssens says. Strong content is crucial, ‘‘otherwise the message often disappears in a timeline where it is hardly read.’

Emails that are relevant and personal, are up to 30% more likely to be opened. Knowing your customer, or in the case of Cycletours, the bicyclist, is always the first step. Janssens definitely recognizes the value of target audience-oriented

communication. ‘When you want to approach people you need to get them interested. It is of great importance that you emphasize on the right points and set the right tone.’

strong content

is crucial

segmentation doubles the open rate percentage

What results have Cycletours noticed since they started sending different emails per segment? Janssens says that thanks to the new way of sending, the open rates have increased dramatically. ‘Where we used to have an open rate percentage of 27% for general newsletters, we have seen the percentage nearly double for the direct emails, sometimes even over 50%. I should say that it works so well that it is slightly addicting,’

admits Janssens. ‘You no longer need to write general emails, you can change the text to the interests of the recipient, as well as your tone of voice’. An example of a successful email is one in which an ex-professional racing bicyclist talks about cycling techniques specifically for women. That email was sent to women interested in

racing. ‘A newsletter like that isn’t as likely to be deleted. You can tell by the open rates, it’s a great experience,’ Janssens tells enthusiastically.

less is more

What truly matters is to start a one-on-one dialogue with the customer and/or prospect. That way you can deliver the right message through the right channel to the right person at the right moment. In addition the customer and/or prospect decides in what way they would like to be contacted. Marketing and technology only facilitate this by providing the right content through the right medium. Therefore, Cycletours would benefit from a solution of digital email marketing in combination with campaign management; an entirely automated cross medial system, with which customer profiles could be expanded even more, and campaigns fully customized. Webpower about the collaboration with Cycletours: ‘The collaboration with Cycletours is incredibly pleasant. Diederick Janssens is an enthusiastic marketer who understands the game. The dialogue between us is mainly focused on our common goal: achieving successful online marketing!’

Marketing manager Janssens is extremely satisfied about the platform used to send the emails: ‘It just works, less is more for webpower.’ Janssens explains how he has encountered far too many examples of cumbersome systems where IT logic was put ahead of the usability. ‘The collaboration with webpower is great, the Business Development Manager keeps us in the loop, the workshops are inspiring and practical and everything the IT professionals create is incredibly user friendly.’

at the right

moment, to the

right person,

with the right

content

Webpower is an international player in smart email marketing and marketing automation solutions. This means:

• better understanding of (online) customer behaviour and digital customer profiles • increased customer engagement through personal and relevant communication • greater savings in time and costs through automated campaign tasks

• higher conversion from online marketing activities

Want to know more about the improvement potential within your online marketing

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