CTTM@il Case Study – Unity Trust Bank

Having sent its first campaign in March 2009, Unity Trust Bank is relatively new to the concept of CTTMail. But the organisation’s marketing team is delighted by the response to its e-newsletter so far... and excited about the possibilities ahead.

“We’re not a ‘faceless High Street bank’” says Nicky Howard, Marketing Officer at Unity’s Birmingham headquarters. “We use photos of our real staff – not models... and when we thank people for an enquiry, we send them an email with a picture of the people that they’ll be dealing with.”

In fact, Unity Trust Bank is a unique type of bank in the ever-more-corporate world of financial services. Although regulated by the FSA and providing all the services expected by any business banking customer, the organisation works as a specialist bank for social enterprises, charities and trades unions, priding itself on putting social change, social benefit and community involvement at the heart of everything it does.

That’s not to say that it’s not business-focused in its approach. “We’d been looking for an e-marketing solution for a year, as we’d been wanting to do more external communications,” explains Nicky. “But because of the nature of our business we needed something that matched our security requirements and that would stand up to auditing. We needed the price to be right, and we needed it to integrate with our existing systems. Finding something was trickier than you’d expect.”

CTTMail was eventually discovered via a recommendation. “We arranged a demo, and trialled it. We’d just finished a trial with an alternative provider, where the functionality was excellent but the price was just too much. But seeing the depth of CTTMail combined with the pricing structure – it was the one for us. It offered everything we needed,” she says. “In addition, we’re pleased to be working with CTT because it is a charity, which is a good fit with our business.”

The new customer e-newsletter offered the bank a chance to promote its products and services, and to feature advice and news for customers. “It brings us closer to the customers,” says Nicky. “We’ve wanted to do this for ages, so it’s a very exciting development for us.”

“Our ‘technical newsletters’ have now moved online – they were previously designed then printed, and sent out on a quarterly basis. So there’s been a huge cost saving there. We’ve also used CTTMail when there’s been a new product launch, to tell our customers ‘this change is coming.’ It’s been so good for us in the way it works.”

The analytical reporting side of CTTMail is immensely important to Nicky and her colleagues.

“It’s particularly valuable to see not only how the newsletter’s received, but what customers would like to learn more about,” she says. “From that, we can measure demand for a particular product. And then on the website, we can see what pages that they’re going through to – and potentially make changes to those pages to increase visitors’ time on the site.”

“The automatic unsubscribe feature is also very much appreciated – it keeps us compliant,” she continues.

On the occasions when the Bank has required support, Nicky reports a first-class response. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a big issue or a quick question. The response is always prompt. We deal with lots of suppliers, and CTT stands out a mile. They have great attention to detail, and they only close a query when they’re absolutely sure that we’re happy.”

“CTTMail has been such a step forwards for us,” Nicky concludes. “Our next step is to get even more familiar with the analytics, and sit down when we have a year’s data or more to look at it. The fact that you can compare reports is already very useful. We can look at things and ask ‘why did that work better?’ It’s all been really, really useful.”

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