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MASTERCLASS PANEL

Nick Christie is UK country manager for Epsilon International and responsible for managing Epsilon's UK email marketing customer base. Christie worked at DoubleClick as sales director before it was acquired by Epsilon in 2006.

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."