In 2021 we created the first issue of Collard Group’s monthly e‑newsletter, and more than 50 issues later it’s going stronger than ever.
Our blend of creativity and data-driven strategy means that we’re hitting new heights for open rates and click through rates, offering our client essential information on who is interested in which areas of their business, and allowing us to ensure we are serving their audience with the content they most want to see from Collard, at exactly the right time.
We have been embedded in Collard Group’s culture for four years now, so we know that every part of the business warrants a mention in the newsletter.
The business has a lot of moving parts: its B2C audience who are interested in skip hire, man and van services, and aggregate products must receive equal spotlight to its B2B audience of main contractors, property developers and local councils who see Collard as a trusted end-to-end contractor. And the two audiences must both sit under recognisable Collard branding and not conflict one another.
Our team works hard to collaborate with various Collard contacts, sourcing information from its contracting, waste management, and aggregates divisions to ensure we strike the right balance and bring the latest news from each department to readers.
And it’s not only about external stakeholders. We’ve also worked hard behind the scenes to create a thorough audience list of all Collard’s employees, ensuring that every single person receives the monthly issue, regardless of whether they’re based behind the wheel or a desk. By segmenting the audience list in this way, it has also allowed us to analyse the statistics in a more detailed and meaningful way and track more accurate open and click through rates for both the external and internal audiences.
A lot has changed in e-mail marketing since 2021, and that goes for the readers too, which is why we are always updating our processes for a smoother client experience.
We moved over to Campaign Monitor from Mailchimp which allowed us to be more flexible with the build each month, adding and removing stories as necessary. Because we understand that the business has multiple busy divisions, we adopted this approach in case stories need to be removed or added at the last minute.
The shift to Campaign Monitor was especially beneficial as the ‘Collard Racing’ section (featuring company’s founder and CEO, Robert Collard’s, motorsport season) could be added and removed depending on whether Team Collard was on or off the grid.
Like with any other marketing activity, consistency is key with e‑newsletters, and we stick to certain dates and times which have proved to have high open and click-through rates.
Keeping to a consistent schedule also makes reporting much more efficient, as it allows us to compare elements like the subject line, intro text and content against the data without questioning whether timings influenced the results. Having an efficient timing plan every month also allows the project to run smoothly, enabling better communication between each department and the client.
Our comprehensive newsletter report provides our client a deep dive into each issue’s performance – looking at opens, unsubscribes, top clicks and a month-on-month table for easy comparisons. And, all benchmarked towards construction industry averages.
Part of the analysis also includes information on the readers who have engaged the most with each issue, allowing Collard to chase up potential leads.
By using UTM links, we’re also able to track performance of the most-clicked elements, informing future issues about what topics to continue mentioning, and what the most important buttons are.
After managing the newsletter for more than 50 issues, we’re really proud to see its growth. Today, we’re seeing incredible month-on-month increases in the number of opens and open rates for both internal and external lists.
Recently we’ve also achieved our most successful issue yet – gaining a 43.07% unique open rate compared to an industry average of 21.70%.
Victoria Fullarton, Marketing Division at Collard Group said, “After more than 50 issues, we are still seeing a fantastic open and click rates from our newsletter, which is down to the improvements we have been able to implement based on Harris’ data. We’re lucky to have a very active audience, which is proof that our content is hitting the mark for our customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders too”