Fenland clean up

Fenland District Council Leisure Services Department is responsible for the smooth running of three leisure centres in the Cambridgeshire Fenland region.

When they purchased Gladstone Health and Leisure's Plus2 software, they were looking to implement more than just day-to-day membership, bookings and point of sale management solution. Phil Hughes, Leisure Services Manager, was keen to use Gladstone's services to boost their marketing effort as well.

Well targeted and timely marketing to members and prospects is the best way to maximise membership retention and grow new business. However, in order to achieve optimum results, you need up-to-date membership information, accurate and complete contact details, historical and current attendance records, membership profiles; in short, a vast amount of clean data. Otherwise, your marketing communications aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Fenland District Council decided to enlist the support of their software supplier, Gladstone Health and Leisure. More than just a solutions provider, Gladstone makes its extensive resources and expertise available to all its clients.

In Fenland's case, Gladstone's have carried out the following activities:

1. Data cleaning All 35,000 existing records were verified. Gladstone removed deceased and "gone away" contacts by checking against national registers. Duplications were eliminated. Personal details were checked and Gladstone ensured that all data conformed to UK standards. The result was a database of the highest quality.

2. Data collection Gladstone then filled in the gaps by tracking down any missing information. This included email addresses, postcodes and mobile phone numbers. Legally, in order for a client to receive SMS messages from any company, they must choose to "opt-in" first. Gladstone solved the problem of how to manage this at Fenland by arranging for a "pop-up" message to appear on the screen when a member books in at the Leisure Centre. The receptionist is then prompted to ask the client for their mobile number and their permission to text them.

3. Report Generation using SQL server reporting Gladstone generated seven reports per month for Fenland DC, running against their live data via a VPN connection. The subject matter varied depending on which sector of their database Fenland wished to target. For example, one report identified members with children aged between four and ten, not currently signed up for swimming lessons. Armed with this information, Fenland knew exactly who to target in order to improve sales. Other reports concentrated on postcode mapping, average spend, low or high usage and other important trends.

4. Large scale direct marketing Once the data was cleaned and up to date, Gladstone then had the option of conducting email or SMS campaigns on behalf of Fenland. Fenland DC suppled the copy and Gladstone created the template, sent out the mail, followed it up and provided Fenland with the hottest leads money can buy. By analysing "click-throughs" from the original mailshot, Gladstone could also inform Fenland of any products particularly of interest to the customer.

Any customer communications sent out to a client is logged against their membership records. This ensures that members only receive information relevant to them and minimises over-targeting. There is nothing more annoying to a prospect than being repeatedly bombarded with marketing messages, even if they might once have been of interest.

Gladstone has already significantly assisted in reducing communication costs at Fenland DC by removing several thousand duplicate, deceased and gone away records from their system.

Plans still exist to use SMS text messaging to remind clients of forthcoming appointments and even to induce behaviour change. Imagine a gym user switching on their mobile once out of the sauna to find that there's a special offer on cool drinks in the café if they pop in today. And you thought "cold calling" was a thing of the past.

26 June 2008