Open University - Email

Optimising digital communications had a measurable positive effect on course registrations

The Challenge
The Open University wanted to make more effective use of email as a communication channel to convert people who had part-booked a course or expressed an interest.
Secondary challenges included coordinating 10 unique creative executions and their respective regions and driving enquiries to the relevant course section of the Open University website.

The Solution
Email data was collated and split into 10 cells according to relevant to a specific region (Scotland England/Ireland/Wales)  and salutations created. Then, each of the 10 emails was personalised with a unique PI number (personal identification number)
HTML and text versions of each email were produced and thorough SPAM testing carried out to ensure maximum deliverability.

The Results
The digital optimisation strategy employed enabled 7 unique links within each email to be tracked, including two direct response email links for each of the 10 executions.

We examined response rates and produced detailed campaign analysis which will inform future OU email activity.
Just seven days after the campaign was broadcast, OU had received over 800 course registrations, outperforming ROI expectations for this new DM channel.