Case Study - Cingular Wireless

Cingular is the second largest wireless company in the U.S. and is dedicated to providing customers livesa wireless plan that "fits you best". Cingular's Prepaid division (KIC Prepaid) was looking for a way to re-connect with past customers who hadn't been contacted in up to a year. Cingular asked emailROI to create an email campaign which reminded past customers that they could refill their prepaid wireless minutes online. Cingular's primary focus was to drive a strong ROI for this campaign.

Program Objectives

• Drive incremental revenue online.
• Meet or beat Return on Investment (ROI) goal of 210%
• Clean list - remove bounce email address
• Grow list with qualified, targeted leads through "Tell A Friend" feature
• Cingular and KIC brand extended to re-connect w/ past customers
  

Target Audience

• Youth market - high school and college students
• Credit challenged, past Prepaid customers
  

Challenges

• Had not contacted past customers in up to 1 year
• No monetary incentive to refill minutes online
• 25% of U.S. experiences blackout 4pm EST on 8/14/03
  

Strategies
Cingular relied on emailROI to come up with email creative and copywriting that would make this email campaign perform best with a young audience of past Cingular Prepaid customers. The creative included a multi-cultural, back-to-school, fun theme. The email offered simple, clean creative with a strong call to action to refill prepaid minutes online.

The primary objective of this event was to drive email recipients to a landing page where they would log in and refill their minutes online for a one-time basis or setup automatic, monthly re-charge. The email also had a viral marketing impact to "Tell A Friend" about the offer.

Results

• Within 8 days, Cingular got a 431% Return on Investment.
• Within 1 year, Cingular will realize a significant cost savings through online sales.
• 14.6% of people who clicked through converted to customers.
• Fewer bounced emails and unsubscribes than anticipated.