Best marketing automation solution?

The annual conference brings together partners and users from around the globe of the Apteco Marketing Suite marketing automation software. With over 500 delegates present, we were even more delighted to be presented with the prestigious ‘Best Use of Apteco Marketing Suite’ award alongside our client, Protyre.

Purple have worked with Protyre, the UK’s fastest growing automotive repairer and tyre distributor, for over 6 years. With 160 branches and over 1.5 million customers interacting across digital and real-world channels, Protyre generates large volumes of data. Our job has been to help them turn that data into insight and real customer value. We’ve done all the basic stuff, like segmenting their customers, creating personas, building propensity models and creating “real time” one-to-one marketing communications, but to win this award took something more.The ‘Best Use of Apteco Marketing Suite’ award is hotly contested every year, with entrants having to demonstrate how they have used PeopleStage and FastStats software in innovative ways to conquer “real world” marketing challenges. The first round of judging is conducted behind closed doors by the Apteco development team, with shortlisted finalists being invited to present live at the conference itself. After all the finalists have presented, the audience get to vote. Their votes are then added to the scores given by Apteco to determine the outright winner. After a nail-biting wait, we were delighted to see our logos revealed on the screen, a great honour and recognition for the expertise of our data, marketing technology and CRM strategy teams. But how did we do it?

Protyre are one of the UK’s largest providers of MOT testing, operating over 80 centres nationally. The cost of equipping an MOT bay is significant and the key to operating profitably is ensuring every MOT bay earns its keep.

PeopleStage marketing automation software is incredibly powerful and flexible. It enables almost any data feed to be used to drive and trigger outbound communications across multiple channels. Importantly, every one of these communications can be unique in timing and content. Traditionally, the model is focused on customer communications. In this project we turned the model on its head, creating a demand-driven marketing model which automatically dialled up marketing activity around centres where there was excess MOT capacity, and dialled it down where MOT booking rates were high. This allowed us to increase both MOT bay utilisation rates and also the revenue yield per booking. In effect, the booking level at each individual centre directly controls the promotional price of the MOT and the level of marketing activity in the local area. It’s a bit like Easyjet, but in reverse!

So, if you’re looking for a partner who uses marketing technology a bit more creatively and can help you make your data work harder, we’re always on the lookout for our next award winning opportunity!

Andrew Woodger is Strategy Director at the Purple Agency, leading our data, CRM, strategy and media teams. He has over 15 years senior client-side marketing experience, including 8 years in the automotive industry. Prior to joining Purple, he headed Equifax Europe’s marketing data business.