Challenge

• The Coral marketing team were challenged with building a data and value-driven welcome journey for newly acquired customers.

• In a hugely competitive industry, the importance of building relationships and brand loyalty with high value customers - from the first day they are onboarded - cannot be overstated.

• The primary goals were to determine and identify high value customers as quickly as possible and reduce churn from month one to month two for newly acquired customers by 7.5%.

Task

• We were tasked with creating the revamped welcome journey strategy for newly acquired customers.

• Creating a machine learning customer lifetime value model to forecast high value customers.

• Tailoring the welcome journey according to customer value.

• A/B testing different touchpoints within the customer journey to optimise customer interaction and turnover.

Approach

• Defining success: the key KPIs chosen to measure success were month one to month two churn rate for newly acquired customers, first three-month average turnover of newly acquired customers, and conversion rate of registered & not deposited customers to deposit.

• Creating lifetime value model: we used an AI-powered machine learning model to forecast lifetime value of customers using statistically significant data, including key demographic data and the acquisition channel.

• Creating a value driven strategy: we planned two initial welcome journeys for customers – one for customers who had registered & deposited and one for customers who had registered & not deposited. From here, we split customers into different journeys based on their projected lifetime value and their spending patterns following each communication.

• Creating DTC campaigns: we worked with the Coral marketing team to create automated campaigns at different points within the first 6 weeks of a customer joining.

• Tailoring communication for high value customers: the lifetime value model enabled the early identifying of potentially high value customers – a bespoke journey with account managers were designed for these customers.

• Testing to optimise journeys: every campaign (email, sms and push) was A/B tested to ensure efficient and effective customer communication.

Results

• The lifetime value model was used by the entire marketing team to help strategise and optimise both acquisition and CRM spend.

• The average month one to month two churn rate decreased from 37% to 24% which was a huge success.

• The average first 3-month turnover of newly acquired customers increased by over 15%.

• The bespoke journey for customers who had registered & not deposited resulted in a significant uplift in deposits/conversions – the conversion rate increased by over 30% on average each month.