Red C Marketing

At any one time, Bupa have a number of care homes across the UK that aren’t in a position to welcome new residents. Despite this, each of these homes still runs regular activities and events for their residents, however it became apparent how little exposure the good work the homes were doing, and the activities the residents enjoyed, were receiving.

We helped develop a process for the homes to tell us about the activities and events they were running in the home to celebrate the residents as well as their own staff. As each care home is unique in its set up, we created a newsletter template that could be easily updated for each home, however unique it is. These included a mixture of articles such as latest events, birthdays, community involvement and new initiatives.

The newsletters have been very well received by staff and visitors alike. They are now being rolled out beyond homes that aren’t in a position to welcome new residents, with plans to run them on a quarterly basis going forward. Following the success of the initial pilot we’re planning on larger print runs and developing an approach for the newsletters to be distributed and viewable online to reach a wider audience and improve SEO.

The UK’s leading photographic specialist approached Red C to develop an eCRM programme that would deliver a significant ROI and demonstrate their passion for everything to do with imagery creation.

As with any new challenge, it all starts with insight. So we met with key stakeholders from all areas of the business, including sales, product and customer service. In addition to this, several members of the team also worked in high street stores to discover the different type of customers who shopped with Jessops and what motivates them.

When our induction was complete it was clear to us that the key issue with the email programme was that it wasn’t tapping into the passions and love that their customers had for photography and imagery. Their email programme consisted entirely of a series of weekly communications that offered discounts and money-off savings.

It was our suggestion that given their audience wouldn’t always be in the market for a DSLR camera or the latest filter that we had to give them more than just promotions. We had to give our database a ‘rich and varied inbox’.

Therefore, we went about creating a series of templates, which provided customers with a reason to engage with Jessops even when they were not in the frame of mind to buy. Not only did we continue to provide our database with offers and discounts but we supplemented this by producing emails that offered exciting photography based competitions, helpful advice, tips and inspiration.

In the first three months, the programme quadrupled the gross demand and total direct sales were up 510%.

In 2015, Red C helped JD Williams launch a VIP loyalty programme for their top 100k customers. To introduce the customers into the programme a welcome pack was sent out, which included: a 12 page booklet, letter and a keep-safe card. Red C had the task of making it engaging, sophisticated and ensuring the recipients were clearly informed that they were receiving this mailing because of their VIP status.

Red C created a VIP welcome pack with relevant fashion advice and a gold design to highlight the exclusivity and prestige of the loyalty programme. We also included a patterned overlay on the booklet to give a luxurious, velvety feel.

We saw an amazing response rate of 22.5% and the total demand generated was close to £3M. These were truly great results from a non-selling mailing, which shows that making customers feel special pays off.

There is no magic HTML fix you can apply to see your organic traffic surge. Marketing pub meals is a long tail strategy – less than 10% of search volume for phrases like ‘pub lunch’ and ‘pub restaurant’ is exact match. As digital consumers, we have learned to add a ‘local area qualifier’ to our searches when we are eating out: to seek out positive referrals from other sites, to do more research online to consider our options and to use longer, more precise search phrases to find exactly the right kind of ambience.

We quickly learned in our PPC campaigns that running ‘national’ ads was a flawed strategy, and that the more ‘localised’ we could make our ad copy and targeting, the more effectively we could draw in new guests to our pubs. More than 85% of pub restaurant guests come from within a 5 mile radius, so not only did a tightly defined catchment area mean that we cut wasted spend, but also that every ad we ran was ‘talking to the locals’.

We developed ‘pseudo-UK’ campaigns for display advertising and events like Valentine’s Day, and used geo-targeting strategically, with wider catchments for ‘destination’ pub restaurants and tighter areas for ‘town locals’. Paid Search proved particularly valuable for special events, and we were able to regularly ‘sell out’ every pub’s capacity for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas and Boxing Day, closing off campaigns on a pub by pub basis as they became fully booked. We also created World Cup campaigns for the sports-focused pubs, including a very successful Rugby World Cup campaign for Metropolitan Pub Company, even targeting fans on a match by match basis.

Many of the pubs within the Greene King estate have excellent meeting and function room facilities, and already host events, celebrations and special occasions for those ‘in the know’.

But they had barely a mention on the website, and were reliant on word of mouth. Greene King felt this was a missed opportunity, and commissioned Red C to build a website that would function independently of the pub brand, and fully promote the function room facilities.

The trial launch in 2014 featured just 30 pubs in London, but the success was such that over 100 pubs from all over the country are now featured, and the site is capturing hundreds of valuable enquiries every month and ranking high in local and national search results.

We challenged ourselves to create a content hub for Selco Builders Warehouse with the aim of improving SEO, as well as promoting Selco’s range and expertise in the building trade.

Selco Builders Warehouse sells over 15,000 in-branch products (pretty much everything you need to build a house a from scratch, apparently!), from hundreds of trusted brands. Red C wanted to use content marketing to both highlight the range and showcase Selco’s expertise to tradesmen. Our idea was to create a 'project hub' that tradesmen could visit to get useful information on common building projects.

The first of these was the Selco Bathroom Installation Project hub. The hub covers all stages of bathroom projects from planning and plumbing, through to electrics and tiling – offering helpful guidance through how-to videos, imagery and checklists, as well as the latest bathroom industry news and FAQs. The aim is to improve SEO by offering tradesmen content they will return to time and time again, increasing brand awareness and ultimately driving sales of Selco products.

The Selco Bathroom Installation Project hub went live in March 2018 and will be promoted across social media, email, in-store and web.

JD Williams tasked us with tackling their customer data segments to identify ways in which we can make our communications more relevant for their target segments.  The aim was to boost engagement and re-engage customers who had not bought from the brand recently.

We identified a number of communication tools, which we could utilise to achieve these goals. We highlighted a need to raise awareness of the multiple departmental offering that is available at JD Williams in order to build brand loyalty.

We sent a cross department one-piece mailer to the top file of online and offline customers who had browsed but not bought recently. The campaign idea was for the mailer to last 7 days with a different offer and discount code available each day.

Over the 7 days, we had close to 7,000 responders to the paper mailing campaign of the original 423,000 packs that were sent out. The campaign proved so successful for JD Williams, that it was then extended via telemarketing for another week and a half, this received over 4,000 responders.

It was our job to help Freemans make a big impression on their return to UK TV screens. They tasked us with creating a concept that captured their ‘Be Fabulous’ proposition and conveyed a range of positive emotions that people would associate them as a home-shopping brand.

We pitched a number of concepts to the team at Freemans. Concepts that would make them stand out and embrace the ‘Be Fabulous’ proposition in a number of different ways.

Our pitch was successful and we were soon involved in finding a large cast who had rhythm. People who you’d believe were just dancing at home and being happy because they’d got what they wanted in life, with the help of Freemans.

Our choreographer Ruth Goulding (who would also take the lead in the commercial) helped us devise a number of routines to a piece of music, which was created by Synctracks in London.

The day of filming was great fun, both cast and crew enjoyed getting into the ‘Be Fabulous’ spirit of the concept. Once wrapped, we began the tricky process of finding all the best bits from every routine, which was made especially difficult because there were so many great performances from the cast. Eventually the final edit was delivered… an edit that was full of energy, fun and felt every bit as fabulous as the Freemans brand itself.

The campaign was hugely successful – especially given that this was very much viewed as a test campaign to provide a gauge as to whether TV would be a suitable long term channel for Freemans. They have been on TV for every season since.

In 2011, we become Manchester City Football Club’s strategic and creative email partner. They challenged us to revolutionise their under performing email programme so it became an engaging and profitable business asset.

After reviewing their existing programme, in terms of strategy and creative, we created a suite of hardworking and well-designed templates that delivered engaging content to Manchester City’s global fan base. We began with a content rich newsletter and a ticketing email.

However, over time the programme evolved and developed to include pre and post-match emails, transfer updates, international newsletters, hospitality focused communications and a membership programme that totalled 10 or more emails. Many of the campaigns we created for Manchester City Football Club required to be translated into a total of 13 languages.

Throughout our relationship with Manchester City we have continually reviewed the performance of the programme. We’ve made both tactical and creative changes to the templates with a view to optimise the programme’s performance.

In 2015, we were also tasked with creating responsive templates for both New York City and Melbourne City.

In our very first season of working for the club we delivered a 90% uplift in website visits. Due to a robust and thorough testing programme we have continued to build upon this early success and have continued to deliver improvements to all KPIs across the programme.

In 2013, eConsultancy also published an independent report that recognised Manchester City as having the best email programme in the Premier League - see the full article here

The successful VIP loyalty programme that JD Williams runs, collates its VIPs from its customer base on a yearly basis. Customers who don’t meet the requirements for VIP status in the previous year, lose out on the subsequent benefits. A good VIP scheme relies on good VIP customers and we want to keep them and add to the base! After mailing the customers with a warning that they are close to failing to qualify as a VIP earlier on in the year, we had to find a way to break the bad news.

We came up with a digitally printed letter with oodles of personalisation plus a strong discount to help them on the road to VIP status once more. Our tone of voice remained gentle, understanding and encouraged them to continue spending with the incentive of being a VIP.

We saw some impressive response rates and reported that using a generic discount was preferred over a discount in one department. The generic discount mailer received a response rate of 7.2% and the preference discount was best received in the footwear department with a rate of 4.8%. A good spin on making the best out of bad news!

At the start of summer 2016, we were pleased to hear from the UK’s largest mutual life and pensions company, Royal London. They dared us to improve their direct mailings and, seeing as we are experts in the field, we rose to the challenge. A new concept was needed to inject some life into the packs and make best use of their iconic branding. A test was proposed of a ‘challenger pack’ versus the control; the game was on.

Our best creatives began conception. Ideas were batted around on how to use our expertise and make the most of what Royal London has to offer. Adhering to the comprehensive brand guidelines from the client, a major reshuffle of the ‘look and feel’ took place. We added in direct marketing techniques that had been overlooked- adding personalisation and strong call to actions the letter looked like a younger Pierce Brosnan: classic but eye catching. After pitching to the client and slight alterations we got the show on the road. The letter was sent to over 50k people and we are delighted with the results so far!

The new pack has uplifted sales volumes by 32% with an increase seen in: postal sales, telephone sales and online sales against the control. Royal London has also seen more requests for their enquiry packs that provide the customer with more information on the products potentially leading to further sales. A sub-objective was to reduce the cost of the pack and we managed to meet this through application of logical formatting to reduce the cost by 1p per pack. Senior Direct Marketing Manager (Existing customers), Katherine Timms praised “Positive news all round!”

A great success for both, us, and our new client! We are excited about what the future holds for this new relationship and look forward to exceeding expectations on upcoming objectives.

When Great Rail Journeys (GRJ) approached us to be their email marketing agency, we were thrilled to get on-board. Our first task was to inject life into their underachieving email programme by introducing templates that would reflect their passion for travel and expertise in the sector.

After reviewing existing templates, analysing results and gaining an insight into their current programme, we made a series of strategic and creative recommendations, which on the whole, were implemented.

We began by developing a number of templates that provided the GRJ customer with promotions, value-added content and information – something we call a ‘rich and varied inbox’.

We subsequently managed the email programme for Rail Discoveries (and their sister brand, Treyn) – our team we’re responsible for design, build, distribution via Cheetahmail, strategy and reporting.

Through a robust programme of testing, the new suite of emails improved all key performance indicators, including open rates, click rates and conversion.

In 2015, we were approached to develop Curvissa’s AW15 TV campaign as part of an agency pitch process. They set us the task of producing two highly responsive DRTV adverts to maximise the production budget to drive new and existing customers to the website.

From the six concepts developed by the Red C team, Curvissa chose to go live with two. The first chosen concept was a ‘stills focused’ route entitled ‘Trends In Motion’. The second was a ‘live action’ concept called ‘Feeling Good’.

‘Trends in Motion’ was a simple concept using the Curvissa photography in a fast moving and stylish way, which highlighted the depth of range available at Curvissa. ‘Feeling Good’ was a concept all about feeling positive and having fun. It was as simple as that!

Strategy Director at Red C, Steve White, who managed the project said “having worked with Curvissa in 2012 on their very first TV commercials we were thrilled to have been successful in the pitch process to deliver these commercials. However, what we found most rewarding was recently being notified of the commercial success of the campaign – we’re thrilled!

“We’ve worked with Red C since the brand was launched in 2011 and over that time they have never failed to deliver. As soon as we were presented with concepts for ‘Trends in Motion’ and ‘Feeling Good’ we knew they would resonate with our audience and we were proved correct, having received a fantastic response to the ad so far. It’s certainly been a factor in our recent record sales figures” Laura Sutherland, Brand Manager.

In the spring of 2015, we were contacted by HSS Hire to help make some significant improvements to their eCRM programme – both creatively and strategically.

The first stage was a thorough induction, which involved meeting a multitude of key stakeholders. With any new relationship it’s important to understand the key challenges and obstacles facing a business with regards to their objectives.

After our induction we conducted an audit of their existing email programme, which consisted of reviewing their email templates, the customer journey and their results to date – both KPIs and heat maps.

Based on our findings, and our email experience, we then went about creating a suite of hardworking email templates that could be easily and cost effectively updated to suit either of their key audiences – residential and business.

We created a healthy mix of templates including hard hitting, single-minded promotional postcards, product showcase emails and a monthly offer email.

Given a large proportion of the HSS audience were engaging with the emails via their smartphones we approached the project with a mobile first approach. This involved creating device specific content, such as a burger navigation menu for both mobile and tablet and a number of image swaps.

This approach led to significant improvements to the HSS email programme, including an uplift in open rate of 30% and an uplift in click through rate of 25%.

As part of an acquisition programme, Bupa wanted to establish the process of welcoming new dental centres into the Bupa family, whilst helping them generate new patients and build awareness through geo-targeted campaigns.

Following a successful integrated campaign across other Bupa Dental Centres, we proposed a bespoke marketing approach. This was through Out of Home opportunities and within a tight catchment area of new centres.

In addition, we increased awareness with branded signage across public transport, GP surgeries and health and leisure centres. We also assessed how the incorporation of these new dental centres would work within the Bupa branding. This included evaluating stationery, marketing collateral, signage and each centre's web presence.

This approach was developed into brand guidelines in order to demonstrate to new centres how they can be part of Bupa.

Initial feedback on the approach to incorporate was positive and well received. It was also acknowledged this was a constantly developing project as new centres join. The localised marketing campaign has demonstrated the flexibility and scope available giving the team a pick and mix approach to match each centre’s specific needs, and budget, with available marketing support opportunities.

ResponseTap might be the UK’s market leader in Call Intelligence, but that doesn’t mean they’re resting on their laurels. Quite the opposite.

Their brief to us was simple “how do you get busy agency account handlers to recommend yet another martech supplier to their clients?

We figured agency people would be quick to spot a tool that could give them an obvious competitive advantage. Nevertheless we recognised that we were basically asking them to do us a favour. So we decided to reframe our request as an opportunity and appeal to their self-interest.

We devised a competition, with a prize that had real desirability – a luxurious stay for two at one of Mayfair’s finest boutique hotels. Something you might not buy for yourself, but if someone treated you to it, you’d be pretty chuffed.

We used direct mail to bring the proposition to life. Our pack contained a die-cut ‘do not disturb’ door hanger, a hotel room key-card and a simple lead message: open a door for us and we could open a very special door for you.

The results for this campaign were outstanding. We were mailing people cold and asking them to do something pretty high-risk: recommend a company you’ve probably never heard of, to one of your clients. We contacted 1,500 agency account handlers via direct mail and email. From this activity we generated 97 inbound referrals. That’s 6.46% response rate in cold B2B direct mail – and a great number of warm new leads.

But the good news didn’t stop there. Of the inbound referrals generated, 32 went on to become ResponseTap clients!

The fact we achieved the results we did is testament to Red C’s application of strategic nous and strong creativity. We turned a big ask into a tantalising opportunity, by appealing to what we know would motivate people.

After a short break from TV in AW17, it was our job to help Fashion World make a big impression on their return to our screens for SS18. We were asked to produce a concept that would translate through TV, digital channels and press.

A key element of the brief was to create a campaign that would drive awareness and action for the new credit proposition – 30% off your first credit order and 0% interest. This is the strongest credit offer in Fashion World history!

We presented two concepts to the Fashion World team that would bring their ‘Make it Happen’ proposition to life.

The chosen idea centered around the everyday life of a busy, working mum. We split the ad into three scenes – Girls’ night, Away days and Me time – which highlighted the depth of range available at Fashion World. Plus, to get across the message that Fashion World are here for the whole family, we chose to cast a family, consisting of mum, daughter and son.

The magenta circle, Fashion World’s recurring motif, was seen throughout the ad to strengthen the brand identity. We used this as our ownable call to action, which can be seen as a button on the tablet featured, inviting customers to ‘Make it Happen’.

After the huge success of the ‘Hotel campaign’, which has subsequently been shortlisted for two Northern Marketing Awards, we were asked by ResponseTap to create an even ‘bigger and better’ campaign that would generate leads via their agency network.

Given the success of our initial campaign, we saw no reason to drift from the premise of trying to appeal to self-interest of busy account handlers. So yet again, we devised a competition, with a prize that had real desirability – an unforgettable 24 hours for two in Paris, the most romantic city in the world. Something you might not buy for yourself, but if someone treated you to it, you’d be pretty chuffed.

Given the premium nature of the prize we had to ensure that the campaign elements were also of ‘high quality’ and felt ‘exclusive’. We achieved this through novel printing techniques (personalised white text on colour), quality stock, stunning design and emotive copy. The direct mail was made to feel as though it was a travel wallet, which was personalised throughout. This was accompanied with a roll fold leaflet, which showcased the prize in more detail. We used a 5th colour (gold) which certainly helped to create that feeling of quality and exclusivity.

To ensure a high open rate, and overcome inertia, we teased the pack’s arrival, and sent three follow-ups using email. We also created a simple landing page to optimise campaign conversion.

The results for this campaign were again outstanding, especially given that we were talking to the same data. We contacted 1,960 agency account handlers via direct mail and email. This activity generated a whopping 142 inbound referrals, which is a fantastic 7.2% response rate, for what was fundamentally cold direct mail and cold email.

To date 12 of those inbound referrals went on to become ResponseTap clients!

Royal London had learned that customers with Over 50s Life Cover regularly review the cover they have. Some customers even opt to up their monthly payments to secure bigger payouts for their family at the time of need.

Which makes sense. Someone investing in Over 50s Life Cover will often start with the lowest level of cover because it’s the most affordable. But ultimately, they want to ensure that their family gets as much benefit from the product as possible.

Royal London challenged Red C to create a mailing that tapped into the customer’s mindset.

We had to tread carefully with the proposition. We didn’t want the reader feeling like the cover they had was insufficient. Nor did we want to inundate the call centre with calls from perplexed customers. So we positioned the offer as an opportunity for Over 50s Life Cover customers to review their cover and secure bigger payouts if they felt they needed to.

In only 3 days, we’d achieved a 174% uplift in sales – not just enquiries, actual sales – and that was for August alone.

As Stuart Johnston, Marketing Campaign Manager noted: “this is great work!”

We were tasked by Swinton Insurance to create an e-newsletter which would give customers added value, drive visits to the website and maintain overall engagement with the brand.

Insurance customers typically only need insurance once a year, so the challenge was to create an email coming from Swinton, packed with enough interesting content to keep customers opening and clicking month after month.

Car Insurance and Home Insurance is a necessity and a purchase only made once a year. We knew we needed to provide some real added value in order to keep a very varied target audience interested.Our newsletters include a mix of car and home related advice, how-to guides, lifestyle articles, offers and competitions. Each newsletter also has a seasonal theme to keep the content relevant and timely.

The newsletters continue to be sent on a monthly basis and they serve as a great way to introduce customers to other Swinton products such as Travel, Bike and Business Insurance.

In November 2018, we worked with AkzoNobel to produce a Black Friday email for their Dulux Trade customers by offering 50% off Dulux Academy courses. With customers already on the hunt for deals, Black Friday offers a great opportunity to drive customers to your site and increase spending.

Dulux Academy is a niche extension to the Dulux Trade brand, which caters to both decorating apprentices and tradespeople. With that in mind, there were two key objectives: to improve upon the current brand awareness of Dulux Academy. But more importantly, to uplift AkzoNobel’s overall sales of their Academy courses.

Due to the competitive nature of Black Friday, it was obvious that if we were going to produce the desired results for AkzoNobel, we had to cut through the clutter. So, we kept the email’s design simple with a clear message.

Taking a closer look at the email’s design, one of the key features of the postcard sized send was the inclusion of an animated GIF that rotated the 50% off offer. Our copy was direct with a sense of urgency and the subject line was concise, promoting a clear offer ‘Black Friday price drop ⬇️ 50% OFF courses’. Finally, by using an exclusive discount code we could easily track the email’s performance.

Overall, the results were impressive! The open rate stood at 24.64%, meaning that almost 1 in 4 customers who received the email opened it. The Black Friday send also generated a remarkable 19.66% click through rate. 

Jenna Keating, CRM Manager at AkzoNobel confirmed that "a combination of pre-awareness and on the day comms led to us achieving the most successful month ever!"

This proves that with the right offer, it is possible to play the Black Friday hysteria to your advantage. This was certainly the case for Dulux Trade and Dulux Academy.

JD Williams asked us to create an effective piece of direct mail that would encourage the lowest spending segments to order, and ultimately, spend more with them. As part of the brief, we were also tasked with increasing awareness of all departments, as opposed to just womenswear, and highlight the ease of shopping on their website.

We chose to target customers with a tailored Director’s letter. The personal touch of this format, with an irresistible offer and prominent deadline helped to achieve a good response rate.

We offered a 20% discount for departments that customers may have forgotten about. We included bright images and a summery, pastel colour palette across the mailing to make the letter striking and memorable.

This beautifully designed letter was mailed to over 150,000 customers and saw an amazing response rate of 2%. There was on average a £20 increase in the customer order value. Stunning results and a massive uplift from these important and often, forgotten customers.

The announcement of Colour of the Year is an important moment in the Dulux Retail calendar. So, the marketing team challenged Red C to get customers excited by revealing the big news over email.

Using assets created by the Akzonobel Global team, we created a campaign of 3 emails with 3 distinct aims: tease the launch, ramp up anticipation and reveal the story with an option to buy.

Email 1 was a classic teaser. We used a GIF of an early morning skyline and an intriguing message encouraging the reader to keep their eyes peeled. Four days later we mailed Email 2. This time we gave some specifics – Colour of the Year would be announced the next day at 10am. The final email used a GIF in the header panel showcasing the colour in all its glory and in situ on a roomset. We also included the suite of complementary palettes and an option to buy a roller tester.

The campaign generated an average open rate of 21% and a click-to-open rate of 20%. Given the success of the campaign, we then created 3 extra ‘themed’ emails, showing how the colour can work first in a living room, then in a kitchen, and finally in stripes.

The Dulux Social team tasked Red C with creating an email promoting the popular Emerald Glade colour, which was performing strongly. The project was a first – never before had Dulux put out an email focusing solely on one colour.

As you might expect, Dulux has a wealth of beautiful imagery it can draw on for its marketing materials. We decided to use shots that would speak to the reader, telling them exactly how they could use Emerald Glade to bring a room in their house to life.

We also made a decision early on to test two creative layouts – a fluid ‘all green’ version and a more structured ‘white block’ one. Email is a medium that’s most effective when it communicates quickly. So, finding a layout that guides the eye seamlessly is important.

Copy-wise, we adopted an editorial tone to match the Dulux retail magazine, Let’s Colour. We titled the email, Seasonal Refresh to suggest something that was both topical and easy to achieve.

Overall, the emails generated an 18% open rate and a 12% click-to-open rate. However, the structured ‘white block’ layout performed better in terms of click-to-opens. We had a positive response from the client, too. Ewa Moxham, Dulux Creative Lead had this to say:

“I’m loving today’s email... gorgeous imagery, great ‘Dulux way’ copy and a simple, single-minded focus on the colour. Well done to all involved.”

Jet2holidays’ customers tend to be creatures of habit. Once they’ve visited a country once and enjoyed the experience, they’ll revisit that country year after year. Red C was challenged to find a way to persuade these set-in-their-ways travellers to try somewhere new.

Our solution was an inspirational mailing that would bring a new destination to life – starting with Greece. A common problem among travel brands is they make every destination sound similar. Golden sands, blue skies and crystal waters – nice, but not very distinctive.

We recognised that the Greek Islands offer a much richer story. The question was, how to tell it? We decided to write the mailing as if it were a travel guide.

We kept the copy ‘snackable’ by structuring it around three themes: wander, savour and marvel. Rather than try and sum up an entire island over several paragraphs, we let its sights, secrets and flavours do the work for us.

The mailing was so successful that we went on to create brochures promoting Italy, Croatia, The Balearic Islands and most recently Turkey.

In 2018, Midcounties Co-operative Travel invited Red C to pitch for the production of its biannual cruise magazine, Sailaway. The client felt that the magazine wasn’t delivering a good enough return on investment and asked us for fresh ideas.

Our starting point with long form content is to perform an audit. This helps us to identify any quick wins – simple editorial changes for enhancing readership – as well as areas for improvement going forward.

We felt the magazine wasn’t working hard enough to sell the cruises it effectively advertised. So, we proposed a number of editorial decisions to uplift response.

Over one-third of the publication is made up of paid advertising from cruise brands. Yet often there was no connection between the advert and the article sat next to it. So, we worked more closely with the advertisers to get better synergy – if we had an article about, say, Gulf cruises then the advert that followed it should offer one of those cruises.

We also looked at messaging in relation to audience. We felt that the content was trying to be all things to all people, so we pushed the client to get some research on who we were actually talking to – was it first-time cruisers or seasoned travellers? This would allow us to write more specifically and tailor our content accordingly.

Finally, we did our own research into travel magazines to get a feel for the kind of content that engages readers. By studying the techniques that publishers use to keep readers reading, we were able to come up with a variety of article types, keeping the content of Sailaway fresh with each issue.

By delivering more effective, targeted content, the new version of Sailaway has delivered an uplift in web traffic and travel agent visits. We look forward to improving results going forward too.

Turkish tourism had suffered a serious slump following the political unrest that gripped the country in 2016.

Once the country was declared safe to visit once more, Red C was tasked with producing a brochure to entice wary travellers back to this beautiful country.

We realised we had to work hard to change people’s opinions. So, we decided the brochure should feel fun and summery. We chose shots bursting with vibrant colours, to show off Turkey’s beautiful scenery, clear seas and gorgeous cuisine. Copy-wise, we made a big deal of the low deposit and created a typical menu of familiar dishes we knew people would love.

We also devoted specific spreads to the range of activities on offer – whether you’re travelling as a family or without children. And we gave an overview of Turkey’s rich cultural heritage.

In short, we brought Turkey back to life as a holiday destination and look forward to seeing positive results when the bookings start to roll in.

With consumers becoming increasingly savvy shoppers, often searching for the best deals and discount codes, a well thought out affiliate programme can be a lucrative channel for e-commerce brands.

Knowing this, Getting Personal came to us to help grow their affiliate programme, with the aim of turning the channel into a core revenue stream for the business.

So, we took the opportunity to build an effective strategy and approach to managing key publishers through their affiliate management platform, AWIN.

By analysing past performance data through the AWIN platform, we spotted key trends with a number of Getting Personal’s core publishers. From here, we developed an offer hierarchy with competitive but cost-effective offers and cashback rates to ensure each publisher has the best deals for their member base.

Through our relationships with the publishers, we were able to ensure that we were getting the best exposure deals possible to push these offers, and in return generate more revenue. It also meant that we were able to adapt offers quickly, which was crucial for the business in a rapidly changing retail landscape.

Overall, the strategy and approach has been highly successful for Getting Personal and has become a core revenue stream for the business.

Since the beginning of 2020 we have seen revenue increase MOM, as well as YOY.

In fact, June 2020 has been the best performing month since November 2011 :)

Part of the AkzoNobel Group, Armstead Trade offers quality, durable paint at a great price. In 2020, the brand realised it needed to increase awareness of its products amongst decorators. So, it set up a dedicated Facebook page and asked Red C to help.

Red C knows that one of the best ways to encourage sign-ups is to make it fun. So, we devised a Drimify game, based on Bubble Pop, the classic retro arcade game. We invited prospects to sign up and play the game, for the chance to win a 1 of 20 Armstead Trade hoodies.

We promoted the game over 4 weeks, spending just £200 to boost our posts. Over the 4 week period, 411 people played the game and 251 of those opted in to the brand’s marketing comms. On top of this, we increased Facebook followers from 267 to 311 – an uplift of 16%.

Towards the end of 2020 we were approached by Moneycorp to take a look at their email templates. As a high tech, fast growing business in the banking industry they needed emails to reflect that. Our job at Red C was to design and build templates that were new and exciting, incorporated their brand identity and worked hard to get results. 

The first thing for the team at Red C to consider was the ESP Moneycorp use – Adobe Marketo. We’ve used this ESP before with other clients and due to the templated nature of the system, design had to be carefully considered.  

We started by designing 2 template styles - one for B2B and one for B2C, making sure there was a strong differentiation between the two. B2C having a more approachable, understanding feel and B2B having a more corporate edge to engage both demographics. 

Once the designs were signed off by the Moneycorp team, the build began. When built, we uploaded the code into the Marketo system and used testing sites such as Email on Acid and Litmus to ensure the emails were top quality and worked well across all email clients.  

Each template had 8-10 modules, all that could be dragged and dropped, images updated, and text edited to give them templates that could pump out fresh newsletters and solus emails as and when they wanted. 

The Moneycorp team were pleased with the final result and are now using the templates throughout their email marketing activity. Only time will tell if they generate the click through rate improvement that Moneycorp were hopeful of, but the initial signs are positive.

After a lengthy pitch process, that lasted almost 6 months, we were appointed Eurostar's strategic and creative email partner tasked with revolutionising their underperforming eCRM programme.

After a comprehensive induction period, which involved meeting key stakeholders in London, Brussels and Paris, we began creating a suite of email templates that would deliver their database with a healthy mix of value add content, promotions and offers. We were responsible for both both their b2b and b2c offering, including their loyalty programmes.

This involved not only developing attractive and content rich templates for a UK audience, but also adapting them to suite 3 other markets by translating all content into the French, Flemish and German.

Once we had developed a hard-working set of email templates we began developing a suite of automated campaigns that were triggered by how a customer or prospect had engaged with the email programme, the website and histroric buying behaviour.  This involved a welcome programme, a set of nursery emails, a re-engagement programme and an anniversary email.

The richer and more varied eCRM programme gained significant improvements in all KPIs including open rates, click through rates, conversion and, most importantly, ROI.

The FlavorStone Diamond is pretty much the most versatile pan that money can buy. Those who discover it, come to swear by it. So, when Thane UK introduced the new FlavorStone Diamond Family Collection, they tasked Red C with promoting it to both new and current customers.

Red C knows that one of the best ways to get people engaged with your message is to make it fun. So, we came up with a cute scratch ‘n’ win game to promote the Flavorstone story. We gave people the opportunity to either win a FlavorsTone pan or get a generous discount on the Family Collection. We pushed the scratchcard game using both paid social and email, two channels we knew our target market tends to respond to.

The results were impressive. During the 10 days the game was live, cost-per-acquisition for the FlavorStone Family Collection was lower than that achieved using PPC in the same period. But more than that, the scratchcard game also generated a large volume of sales. It just goes to show that sometimes, when you want people to buy, it pays to have some fun first.