Leading UK Media Company Gets Strategic with Silverpop

The Company
British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB) is changing the face of entertainment. More than 17 million viewers in seven million households enjoy an unprecedented choice of movies, news, entertainment and sports channels and interactive services on Sky Digital, the UK's first and most popular digital television platform.

In addition to offering almost 400 channels, Sky Digital, which launched in October 1998, offers a range of innovative interactive services that allow viewers to send emails, shop on screen, play games, select their own camera angles, vote, place bets and manage their finances - all via their TV. BSkyB again demonstrated its flair for innovation with the introduction in 2001 of the next-generation integrated digital satellite set-top box and personal video recorder, Sky+.

BSkyB's own channels, such as Sky News and Sky Sports, are available in 5.4 million cable and digital terrestrial homes in the UK and Ireland.

The Challenge
BSkyB was enjoying a successful email program and was sending out millions of messages each month. The company was utilizing the potential of email to boost its marketing efforts and grow relationships with its customers. However, what was going well on the surface needed some work internally to turn BSkyB's email efforts into a well-managed program.

The immediate challenge facing the media giant was having multiple divisions within BSkyB simultaneously using email for marketing to customers. They were sending campaigns without coordinating efforts and were all collecting data in different ways. Some were asking for permission and some were not. The company's opt-outs were unsuccessfully managed (if a customer opted-out of the Sports newsletter, for example, he or she would still receive third party promotions), its delivery technologies were inconsistent and it had very little insight into overall response rates, delivery rates or frequency.

As BSkyB began to consider these issues, legislation also surfaced in the form of the Data Protection Act (DPA), a new, stringent privacy act in the UK. BSkyB needed to take action fast as it was faced with the question of:

How can a large enterprise manage email communications across multiple divisions and maintain compliance with privacy legislation?

The Solution
BSkyB partnered with Silverpop to identify and implement a global email strategy. To kick off the strategy project, Silverpop focused on data consolidation. Silverpop brought together a number of disparate data sources, all of which were in different formats. Once the data was consolidated, BSkyB was able to remove any questionable data and, in turn, immediately improve deliverability and lower complaint rates.

With BSkyB's data in order, Silverpop moved on to the process of policymaking. The company had dozens of divisions, none of which were using email under a cohesive enterprise-wide policy. Silverpop interviewed all key stakeholders, met with each business unit and audited all of BSkyB's current email practices. Armed with this data, Silverpop and BSkyB created a company-wide email channel policy that would enforce content consistency, list sharing and permission. Silverpop worked with BSkyB's legal and marketing departments to ensure that all divisions adopted and implemented the policy.

Once the policy was in place, Silverpop began working with each of the business units to maximize their email marketing campaigns. Silverpop engaged each business unit individually to understand their unique customer communication goals, and then designed and implemented an email marketing curriculum that would serve both the individual business unit, and the company as a whole.

With each division operating under the enterprise policy, it was time for Silverpop to provide the tools necessary to achieve the email marketing goals. All of the divisions needed to create, send and track email campaigns, but they all needed a different level of involvement from Silverpop. For example, some looked to Silverpop for everything from creative services to email execution to results analysis, and others simply wanted an ASP solution that was powerful, yet easy to use.

Silverpop was able to give BSkyB the assistance it needed by providing a variety of service options. This meant that each business unit had the freedom to make its own decisions, both from a cost and an operational perspective.

Results
Having a policy in place and taking a strategic view of its email programs has allowed BSkyB to shift its thinking from internal processes to customer-centric philosophies. BSkyB's efforts have already paid off. Here are some of the results:

• In the first half of 2004, the company's complaint count dropped from a few a day to a few over an entire six-month period.
• BSkyB was able to consolidate more than ten separate email databases accounting for more than 1 million email addresses.
• The company established a strategic steering committee to oversee management of best practices and channel governance.
• BSkyB's data collection processes have been improved for accuracy, consistency and compliance.
• Improved click-through rates regularly exceed 35 percent.

BSkyB
www.sky.com

Silverpop
www.silverpop.com