01.04.13
A reason to change
Source: Public Sector Executive March/April 2013
Chiltern Railways recently won a CIM award for its ‘Mainline’ campaign. The train operator’s commercial director, Thomas Ableman, speaks to PSE.
Chiltern Railways’ ‘Mainline’ campaign has succeeded in securing extra market share on the key Birmingham to London route, and has just won a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Marketing Excellence Awards in the transport category.
PSE spoke to director Thomas Ableman about making the most of limited marketing resources and providing a clear reason for passengers to re-evaluate their current train operator.
He said: “The key thing is that it was all driven from a very clear customer proposition. This was a new product launched on the Birmingham to London route, competing with Virgin Trains.
“We were very clear on what we were trying to achieve; to enable people to make better use of their time and that was partly through making the trains faster so people get where they were going quicker.”
Ableman described investment in new trains, with tables and plug points to make it easier for people to work whilst travelling on the route. Free wi-fi is also available to improve the customer experience.
Target market
The most important thing about the Mainline campaign was reaching the maximum number of potential passengers with a constrained budget, he explained. Chiltern achieved this aim by focusing on a key target market and a small number of public spaces and stations that they frequent.
“We used a lot of different media, but it was very focused; we do not have a large marketing budget at all. We were very clear on the target markets we were trying to go for.”
The campaign covered personalised direct mail, a digital push and posters at “very specific supermarkets” where specific passengers were most likely to see them. Ableman said: “We didn’t buy a whole series of posters throughout the West Midlands, but they were at exactly the places where the people we were writing to would be shopping.”
Chiltern also covered stations where passengers were travelling with competing train operators, as they were clearly potential customers.
Raising revenue
The campaign has definitely paid off, with passenger revenue increasing by more than 26% and Chiltern’s market share rising by 33% in the past year. Brand awareness has also risen, from around 30% to 60%.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of people using us, which is testament to the success of the campaign and testament to the success of the product.
“You can communicate and get people to try you the first time, but the typical business traveller from the West Midlands will travel once every two weeks; they need to buy into the proposition and the proposition needs to meet their needs.”
Ableman said the campaign would continue to be refreshed, targeting different geographical areas, talking “intensively” to a small group of people in very discrete demographic segments.
“It’s all about passenger numbers, to get people filling trains. We need people to switch from our competitors and they’ll only do that if they’ve heard of us.”
Breaking the ritual
Despite a minimal budget, Ableman highlighted good communications as “absolutely fundamental”.
He said that for many people, travel was a ritual, with many simply doing tomorrow what they did yesterday.
“People in the Birmingham to London market have a lot of travel options. Even if a much better option does emerge – and we believe the proposition developed provides much better travel between Birmingham and London – if you have a way of making that journey you will always make it.
“There’s never any kind of challenge or disruption that stops you from doing it, so you’ll do it forever. You need to give people a reason to re-evaluate and discover there is an alternative, because they won’t do it of their own accord.”
In terms of digital marketing, Ableman said: “We use social media very intensively. We tend to use it to engage very directly with passengers.
“We don’t use it for explicit marketing communications, because we don’t believe that’s what people want to hear on Twitter.
“We use it to assist customers, to drop into their conversations where we can say something relevant to them or help them with a problem. Generally that builds a very positive atmosphere.”