In January 2004, Royal Mail, a provider of postal solutions and services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom, launched SmartStamp™. SmartStamp is an online system that enables Royal Mail’s small business customers to include their logos, photos, or slogans alongside the postage impression. Businesses can then print them off on their own printers and mail them out, reaching their customers with a truly personal touch. By personalizing their mail, businesses differentiate themselves from competitors and present a professional brand appearance from the very first impression.
The SmartStamp solution resulted from Royal Mail’s established relationship with Lockheed Martin, a worldwide provider of advanced technology systems and products. Royal Mail contracted with Lockheed Martin several years ago to build an Address Interpretation (Al) platform. This electronic sorting platform now automatically sorts up to 60 million mail items per night. The Al platform enabled a number of new services for Royal Mail, Including SmartStamp.
SmartStamp allows customers to pay for postage at the time of use, which gives them clear visibility into their postage costs. In addition, it works effectively with a number of Royal Mail’s core services that are designed to help businesses reach out to their customers in a professional, noticeable manner.
Customers set up a pre-paid user account with a credit or debit card and pay for their stamps via the Internet. The software is free, but the service comes with a monthly subscription fee of £4.99 a month, or £49.99 a year.
The selling proposition forSmartStamp includes:
More than 13,500 small businesses are now using the service and the 11 millionth SmartStamp mailing recently took place.
Royal Mail earned the Best Use of Technology Award for SmartStamp at the National Business Awards, which recognize business excellence and innovation.
Before SmartStamp was officially launched, Royal Mail wanted to understand what the demand for such a service might be and predict the potential adoption rate. To that end, Royal Mail decided to test the service among financial advisors, accountants, doctors, veterinarians, lawyers, and estate agents—those professionals who would typically rely on the postal service. While the initial test results were favorable, Royal Mail needed to determine the value proposition across the U.K. market as a whole. This would then help determine how, why, and when SmartStamp was marketed.
To help Royal Mail build demand for SmartStamp, Lockheed Martin purchased PASW Statistics and attended SPSS lnc.-sponsored training courses so that they could provide analytical support to Royal Mail.
Using the SPSS Inc. predictive analytics software, the two organizations worked together to develop customer segmentation analyses and profiles to facilitate highly targeted marketing campaigns. To accomplish this, time-series analysis and cluster and frequency analyses were applied to available market data and the information gained from the initial launch research.
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Based on this analysis work, Royal Mail determined that demand for the new digital stamp was likely to be highest among small businesses with between one and five employees. The organization applied the insight gained from its use of PASW Statistics to its marketing efforts, and focused on targeting primarily small- to medium-sized enterprises, with great success.
Andy Callaghan, European marketing manager at Lockheed Martin, said, “I had used PASW Statistics previously and knew that it was the right solution for the task at hand. We selected PASW Statistics because it enables users without computer programming knowledge to develop very powerful analytical solutions.”
Commented Cohn Shearer, senior vice-president of strategic analytics at SPSS Inc., “This is a clear example of how predictive analytics can be used to establish where demand is coming from, and to anticipate how to effectively market to meet that demand.”
Tim Rivett, head of small business at Royal Mail, said, “SmartStamp was launched to help small businesses make their mailings more effective, while saving them time. We are delighted with the interest from small businesses across the U.K.”
I had used PASW Statistics previously and knew that it was the right solution for the task at hand. We selected PASW Statistics because it enables users without computer programming knowledge to develop very powerful analytical solutions.
Allan Callaghan
European Marketing Manager
Lockheed Martin
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