Case Study: Hoseasons




Using FastStats for Segmentation and Campaign Management

Summary
The marketing team at leading self-catering holiday specialists Hoseasons has been using FastStats since 2003 to segment their database and drive regular direct marketing campaigns to customers and enquirers. Using FastStats they have gained significant cost savings by ensuring that communications are sent in a timely manner to well targeted recipients using digital marketing campaigns rather than postal mailings where possible.

Company Overview
Hoseasons is one of the UK’s leading self-catering specialists offering over 12,000 places to stay in coastal and countryside settings throughout Britain, Ireland and Europe. Hoseasons is an independent company with a strong culture of customer care and an emphasis on quality of service. Every year more than a million people book holidays with Hoseasons. Based in Suffolk, England, the business employs over 200 staff to handle its bookings, systems and marketing operations. In 2008 Hoseasons won Best Operator at the Globe Travel Awards.

Requirements
In 2003 the Hoseasons marketing team wanted to carry out more direct marketing activities to their customers and prospects. They needed a user friendly window into their database of over 2 million clients / enquirers and 1.8 million previous bookings. Up to this point the marketing team had been entirely reliant on the IT department to query and output data, but as their requirements increased they needed to find a quicker and simpler way to access their data which they could control and drive themselves. In particular Hoseasons wanted a solution that would help them to schedule their mailing activities and allow them to dedupe and specify hierarchies within and across campaigns.

FastStats Solution
After a recommendation Hoseasons assessed and chose FastStats WebLink, a marketing workbench application that can handle powerful selections on databases with millions of rows and thousands of variables. WebLink is delivered through a web browser and enables marketing teams to obtain quick and easy access to their data. In addition to the standard WebLink application, Hoseasons also licensed the Profiling, Campaign Management and Mapping modules. This gave them access to the full range of FastStats’ analysis capabilities.

Once WebLink was installed, the Marketing team were able to make selections on segments of their database, produce tables, create and plan ad-hoc and scheduled campaigns and export data for their direct marketing activities themselves.

Using FastStats
One of the most frequent activities that Hoseasons perform using FastStats is to select those people who haven’t yet booked their holiday for the coming year. This initial selection forms the basis for many of their campaigns. Once a holiday has been booked via the custom designed Tr@veller reservation system it is important that Hoseasons don’t keep sending the same offer to that contact.

Lisa Davis, Marketing Communications Executive at Hoseasons comments: “FastStats gives us the confidence to carry out campaigns in the knowledge that those people who have already responded to a campaign and booked a holiday with us won’t keep receiving the same offers and communications. This helps to keep our direct marketing costs down whilst also protecting us from any damage to our brand that can be associated with incorrectly timed mailings.”

FastStats Cascade allows Hoseasons to set up hierarchies of selections so that certain types of holidays can be promoted more heavily than others. For example, if Hoseasons need to sell more Parks and Lodges holidays rather than Country Cottage holidays in a particular month, then they can ensure that those people who are likely to be interested in both types of holidays only receive the Parks and Lodges communication.

They also use FastStats to achieve substantial cost savings on traditional mailings. By restricting traditional direct mail letters to only those prospects and customers that have not provided an email address, the print and postage costs are reduced. This approach also has obvious benefits for the environment.

Hoseasons now send out one digital marketing campaign each week and in total broadcast between 300,000 and 500,000 emails per month. Every year they still carry out a smaller number of larger traditional direct mail campaigns to around one million contacts.

Upgrade
In 2006 Hoseasons upgraded to the FastStats Discoverer application, again opting for the Profiling, Campaign Management and Mapping modules. They chose the Enterprise version of the software which holds the Hoseasons database centrally on a FastStats server. Each FastStats Discoverer user has a full drag and drop selection, analysis and campaign planning environment on their desktop with controlled access for marketing workgroups.

Training and Support
To ensure that Hoseasons got, and continue to get the most out of their FastStats installation they have attended a number of training courses for both WebLink and Discoverer applications. They have also had access to the FastStats support team who offer them advice on how to get the most out of their system, as well as solving technical problems arising during new system installations and upgrades.

Lisa Davis comments: “The support and training I have received has been comprehensive. I have been particularly impressed by the ability of Apteco staff to relate to the marketer and illustrate the power of the technology without getting too technical. The response I have received from the support team when required has always been prompt and helpful. It is because of this service that we continue to use FastStats to help drive our business forward.”

Future Plans
Hoseasons plan to learn more about the profiling functionality within FastStats so that they can build more detailed profiles of their clients and enquirers. These profiles can be used to build models and apply scores across their database to help guide targeting decisions.

Hoseasons also recently used an external analysis consultant to build a set of segmentation rules. These rules are based on the types of products purchased (e.g. parks or lodges), party composition (e.g. families or adult only groups) and postcode demographic information. FastStats Designer has been used to apply these rules to the FastStats database as segmentation variables to help with further analysis. Combining the segment variables with other elements of the database, such as transactional data, will help Hoseasons increase the sophistication of targeting that can be achieved.

One of Hoseasons’ sister companies is now looking to adopt FastStats technology as a result of the benefits and efficiencies they have witnessed for the Hoseasons marketing team.

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