March 12, 2015

Costa Coffee

Using Adestra’s MessageFocus platform, Costa Coffee created a fun and interactive newsletter with an impressive 44 per cent open rate

The Challenge

Strengthen the brand by showcasing quality through innovation and heritage. Make readers associate Costa with the ‘Voice of Coffee’ in a crowded marketplace, while delivering a personalised experience.

The Strategy

Create a newsletter for the over 1.6 million email subscribers from the Costa Coffee Club members database. Offer a fun and interactive way of informing members, while transmitting a brand message.

Standing out in a crowded marketplace is a challenge for many brands, and within the coffee shop market, the story is no different. With a tradition of knowledge and innovation, Costa Coffee has to convince their customers that true lovers of coffee would always choose their brand.

In order to do this, Karmarama looked at entertaining, educating and informing the database of loyal customers that had agreed to receive their emails. They decided a monthly newsletter would be one way of delivering on that and they started with a subject line that was on-brand and relevant to their audience: ‘Welcome to your monthly shot of Costa…’. This helps start the conversation and creates the brand association desired in the strategy. It also sets expectations in the reader’s mind that the content will be ‘strong’ and ‘short’.

Using Adestra’s reporting capabilities, it’s clear that the majority of customers opened Costa’s emails on a mobile platform so a responsive design was a must. However, the second largest email client type is webmail, so they had to make sure the design offers something to that category as well. To engage this category right from the start, Karmarama used an animated GIF showing fresh coffee. This strengthens brand associations, reminds the viewer about the product and entices them to purchase in a fun way.

By using personalised data such as card number, first name, points balance and offer based on those points, Karmarama made the newsletter unique for each Club member.

To further engage the viewer, Karmarama went back to Costa’s audience profile. Knowing that they are tech-savvy, the email started a social conversation that is both brand related and relevant to the audience around the #perfectcoffee. They also included a competition and a poll for what content should be included in future newsletters. Informational content covered the heritage of the brand and the sourcing of their ingredients. The email had clear calls-to-action highlighted through design and optimized for easy clicking on mobile.

These different types of content in a consistent theme were designed to create different touch points around coffee and build associations between Costa and the ‘Voice of Coffee’.

The Results

The Campaign Report revealed a 44 per cent open-rate which is substantially above the industry average. The subject line matched the nature of the content – short and clear.

Adestra’s heatmap report revealed the most clicked areas were two buttons: ‘Log in to your account’ and ‘Giveaways.’ Considering these were both towards the end of the email, readers were exposed to the majority of the message’s content.

The  click report also showed customers were most attracted to personalised content and conversations that involved them (i.e. voting for future content). Combining Adestra’s reporting capabilities, Costa’s knowledge of their audience and Karmarama’s guidance, Costa delivered their brand message to their loyal customers in an interactive, personalised and relevant way.