CTTM@il Case Study – ZSL, The Zoological Society of London

Probably best known as the organisation behind London and Whipsnade Zoos, ZSL is a long-established and hugely influential charity in the worldwide area of animal conservation. ZSL’s e-news now goes to around 30,000 people monthly – a mix of news, offers, features and appeals. The newsletter’s popularity has soared in the past year, as the organisation has truly embraced email marketing.

ZSL’s association with CTTMail began about a year ago, as Colin Westhead, Business Systems Support Analyst at the charity explains. “We were actually approached by a commercial e-marketing company, to see if we wanted to do more with our email,” he recalls. “And this kick-started a tender process – going to companies to say ‘what can you do, and for how much?’”

Although ZSL was sympathetic to CTTMail’s charitable objectives, appointing the email provider was a hard-nosed business decision. “Cost was a big factor,” says Colin, “but actually CTTMail provided us with a product that was very comparable to the top-end providers who were asking for much more than CTT. It did exactly what we wanted it to do.”

Having made themselves comfortable with CTTMail’s user interface, Colin and his colleagues set about their first ‘toe in the water’ campaign – sent to a small number of people to gauge interest for a Christmas function.

The results were mixed. “The software itself worked brilliantly,” says Colin. “But we didn’t get a great response – our own data wasn’t particularly up to scratch.” The charity had quickly learned one of the first rules of email marketing: you’re only as good as the mailing list you have!

Since then, ZSL has made a big effort on this side of things, and the e-newsletter is a core part of its marketing. “We also do direct mail to members, and direct, focused offers,” says Colin. “Part of the past year has involved refining people’s attitudes here to email marketing, to get them used to the concept and to what the software can do. Our communications have got a lot more slick as a result.”

‘What the software can do’ is a huge topic in its own right – and Colin is very enthusiastic about CTTMail’s capabilities. “The reporting aspect was great to discover – to see what everybody was up to, especially the detailed click-through rates,” he says. “And I am still discovering parts of the recent upgrade that are really good.”

Specifically, Colin cites the ability for a central administrator to lock aspects of email templates before passing them to a colleague to provide content. This feature helps larger organisations to keep control when a number of people might be working on a mailing – to protect the visual design from being accidentally changed. Or, as Colin puts it wryly: “people do like to press buttons, and... kerboom!!!”

The support from CTT also gets the thumbs-up. “The people have been brilliant from day one,” Colin reflects. “The support has been fantastic – in many ways it’s been better than some support for other products that we have to pay for. They gave us free training initially, and have offered us some more.”

“Overall, they couldn’t do more for us,” concludes Colin. “It’s all been very good value for money.”

Read more case studies >>