Plan B™
The Agency Alternative
SPRINT
Challenge
iPCS is Sprint’s largest affiliate, with retail locations from Iowa to New York. In 2005, they found themselves in a tenuous position: a large volume of valuable customers were coming off-contract and becoming “free-agents” in the mobile phone marketplace.
In an effort to retain these top-tier customers, iPCS turned to Plan B to develop a data-driven direct marketing campaign that would help limit churn and reward customers for re-subscribing.
Insight
After segmenting Sprint iPCS’s customer file, Plan B captured transactional data for those customers whose contracts were expiring over a 10 month period between January 2005 and November 2006. We developed a formula to value-score these subscribers, and used it to create a segmented file known as “High Risk - High Value.”
Knowing that optimized data could reveal key insights for future new subscriber acquisition campaigns, Plan B chose to optimize HR-HV, first using Claritas’ Prizm segmenting tool, and then by geo-coding the file to show the distance each customer traveled to the closest Sprint retail store.
When overlayed with Prizm clusters, the customer transactional data revealed lifestyle characteristics of the high value customers. Geocoding allowed us to understand how far customers might travel to take an offer. The combination of this information formed the foundation for our campaign.
Solution
To demonstrate appreciation to these high-value subscribers, Plan B chose to create a unique mailing format that incorporated a highly personalized “gift card” offering a premium free phone offer. The back of the card included a map to the customer’s closest Sprint retail store.
The gift card added a much higher “perceived value” to the offer and presented the “coupon” in a convenient, portable format that could be slipped into wallet or purse.
The high-value customer mailing included multiple drops and was supported by SMS text messages. Lower value customers received fewer drops and reduced incentives, helping to measure the effectiveness of different levels of incentive.
ROI metrics were built into the campaign from its inception. The data file was augmented to allow a barcode on the back of the “gift card” to be scanned at the Sprint POS. Immediate response rates could be captured as the data file was instantly updated.
Results
The campaign dropped during the last week of June, 2006. Response showed a 200% increase in subscriber retention over the month prior.
Using the same methodology, Sprint iPCS planned additional acquisition campaigns, with the goal being to continually refine the target, message and offer, to increase their overall market share across all regions.