Eurostar implemented a customer database using Alterian software to gain insights into customer behavior and improve marketing campaigns. The database integrated diverse customer data sources. It enabled Eurostar to segment customers and send targeted emails, increasing open rates by 100% and click-throughs by 50%. The success of initial campaigns established the database as a strategic business tool, allowing Eurostar to better understand customers and plan for service changes.

1. Alterian Case Study
Eurostar
Client
Campaign management tools significantly increase
customer intelligence for Eurostar
Eurostar is the high-speed passenger train service The second marketing goal, ahead of changes to the service
operating between the United Kingdom, France and in 2007 outlined above, was to profile its travellers to
Partner
Belgium, running from Waterloo and Ashford International understand the affects the changes would have on existing
to Paris, Lille, Brussels, Calais, and Disneyland Resort Paris. and future catchment areas. The output would help drive the
Eurostar has always been at the leading edge of innovation decision-making process not only in Marketing but also
in the rail industry, setting new standards for travel by train. within Eurostar’s Business Planning, Market Research,
It was one of the first rail operators to introduce business eCommerce, Customer Service and Customer Operations
lounges and a loyalty programme, and has won the title of divisions.
Company: ‘World’s Leading Rail Service’ for the last nine years at the
Eurostar World Travel Awards. One of the key challenges these objectives presented was to
overcome initial data quality issues and subsequent
In 2006, Eurostar carried a record 7.85 million travellers and
Website: integration of a variety of datasets held in different countries.
achieved record sales of £518 million. Over 70 million For example, marketing data from the last two years held in
www.eurostar.com
people have now travelled with Eurostar since services the UK, France and Belgium; inbound North American data
Headquarters: began in 1994, and the company is responsible for via partner Expedia; Management Information Systems data;
London, UK doubling the number of visitors from London to Paris and web data from www.eurostar.com; Frequent Travellers
Brussels. programme and customer contact, complaints and remarks
Industry:
On 14 November 2007, Eurostar will launch services from held in London and also data from the ticket booking
Travel, Business & Leisure
its new terminal at St Pancras International. The completion system.
Solution: of the high-speed line, High Speed 1, will create a link to
Date Discovery Visualization, the Continent from the heart of the city and further reduce It was vital that the marketing database could work
Campaign Manager, Engine, part Eurostar journey times, for example London to Paris will effectively cross-border between the three countries. The
now take only 2 hours and 15 minutes. Eurostar's customer database also needed to be accessible to Eurostar's external
of the Alterian Integrated
base will change dramatically - for both out-bound and in- partners such as advertising and media agencies.
Marketing Platform
bound French and Belgian services. Eurostar will also open
a new station, Ebbsfleet International, which will The Solution
Results: complement its existing Kent station at Ashford Eurostar decided to minimise the risk involved with the
Solution enabled seamless International. process of creating a new marketing database by securing
the consultancy and software services of Occam, an Alterian
integration between email and Before August 2005, Eurostar did not have an overall view partner.
web activity. Open rates of its customers and prospects. There was no real
increased by 100%, unique click understanding of the behaviour of individual travellers – The project commenced in January 2005 and an initial
throughs by 50% either leisure or business. The company enjoyed version of the new system went live in September 2005.
communication with only a small proportion of actual
customers. The solution is a combination of Occam’s core cleansing and
“With the implementation of the de-duplication components, an operational data store in
database, Eurostar has been able The Challenge SQL Server and Alterian applications Data Discovery and
to create targeted Eurostar’s overall objective was to increase customer Visualisation (DDV) and Campaign Manager – each
communications based on intelligence to improve relationship building and help leveraging Alterian’s core Engine technology, all part of the
traveller behaviour and profiles. strategically drive operations – particularly in light of the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform.
impending major UK station changes.
The results have been far beyond
expectations.” Occam created a new customer marketing database capable
Before the customer database project began, Eurostar held of managing the large volumes of Eurostar's raw data, which
Andrew Wythes
some operational data about ticket sales plus data from its grew from an initial 30,000 contacts to 18 million unique
Customer Database Manager
Frequent Traveller programme. Marketing was based on customer IDs. This significant increase in the amount of
limited analysis – direct marketing was a general ‘one-size- available data came from including all transactions within
fits-all’ operation, with the same communication being sent Eurostar's core markets over a four year period; plus the
to the entire database. An email Direct Mail (eDM), for original data sources.
example, about the new Ski Service to the French Alps
would be sent to a customer whether they had an interest in Occam's solution, based on Alterian, technology, allows
skiing or not. rapid and easy analysis and selection from the new
database. Immediately, Eurostar was able to begin
Eurostar’s initial goal was to create a single customer view segmenting the database, providing insight to drive
and associated database marketing tools to maximise the targeted, profitable email campaigns.
potential of its data in order to increase its understanding of,
and hence significantly improve, its relationship with • Business travellers’ behaviour (and previous journeys
customers. The new approach had to underpin Eurostar’s taken) is analysed to ensure targeted, relevant offers are
DM campaigns for which it predominantly used email due to sent
cost, speed, and measurement benefits.

2. Alterian Case Study
Eurostar
• Outbound emails relating to the Ski Service to the French After just one campaign Eurostar were able to measure and Alterian
Alps have been reduced from 500,000 to 70,000 based demonstrate the following increases in campaign Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers
on new insight drawn from the newly available analysis effectiveness and response: marketers with an integrated marketing
• Potential users of the daily service to Disneyland Resort software platform combining database,
Paris were targeted by email, resulting in a 35% open- • Open-rates increased by 100% online and operational marketing
applications on a shared data
rate • Unique click-throughs increased by 50%
infrastructure. The Alterian Integrated
• Targeted micro sites have been created on the main • Average revenue increased by 400%
Marketing Platform makes it practical
Eurostar website to increase data capture and cost effective for marketers
This new ability to undertake strategic analysis has been to use actionable insight to execute an
Andrew Wythes, Eurostar Customer Database Manager, invaluable in providing insight into customer behaviour integrated marketing strategy across
comments, “With the implementation of the database, across Eurostar’s three core markets. Eurostar has been able online and offline channels.
Eurostar have been able to create targeted communications to accurately plan and assess the huge opportunities that will
It is the unique integration of
based on traveller behaviour and profiles. The results have arise and predict future sales volumes thereof. The database analytics, content and execution
been far beyond expectations.” has empowered Eurostar to model its current and future through Alterian’s industry leading
customer catchment areas, insight which will underpin all tools, such as the Alterian Messenger
As well as enabling Eurostar to apply analysis to its data to relationship marketing activity during 2007. email platform, and the award winning
gain customer insight, Occam also made it possible for Alterian Content Management
Eurostar to begin to address the challenge of understanding The Future solutions, which enables marketers to
customer journeys and translating this information into From such measurably successful foundations Eurostar plans drive a seamless,
targeted marketing campaigns. to create even deeper segmentations of its business and multi-channel customer experience.
leisure target audiences, embracing such areas as ‘high- Alterian’s analytically-led software
• Contacts that have registered via the website but not frequency, high-value travellers’; ‘dormant customers’ and is delivered to approximately 1,000
purchased can be emailed to 'boost' uptake ‘one-time travellers’. This deeper insight will drive future marketing departments, across 26
• Customers returning for the first time are contacted to campaigns, facilitating up-sell and cross-sell initiatives and countries, and an international
gain 'new traveller' customer feedback re-educating customers and prospects in the run-up to the network of more than 100 business
new station openings in 2007. partners, including marketing services
providers, agencies and systems
Eurostar is beginning to feed all this new customer
integrators. Its partners, such as
intelligence to its media agencies to assist and inform The new customer marketing database has helped propel
Accenture, Acxiom, Allant Group, Cap
campaign planning. The system is already a strong, strategic Eurostar’s understanding of its customers to a new level of
Gemini, Carlson Marketing, Experian,
business tool, used for significant analysis and profiling of sophistication within a short space of time, fast tracking both Epsilon, InfoUSA, LogicaCMG, Merkle,
customers within the existing catchment areas of Waterloo short-term marketing objectives and longer-term strategic Ogilvy One and Euro RSCG Worldwide,
International and Ashford International. business goals into realisation. deliver Alterian software alongside
their own domain and services
Occam hosts the marketing database solution on its network The marketing database implementation has already expertise to help market leaders such
of secure, state of the art servers, ensuring continual data resulted in many significant business wins for Eurostar. The as Princess Cruises, General Motors,
security and 24 hour data access. A continual process of data benefits resulting from the effective application of marketing Zurich, Astra Zeneca, HSBC, Limited
quality management, performance tuning and enhancement data analysis include: Too, AEGON, Avis, Worldwide
of the analysis and campaign management capabilities is in Wrestling Entertainment, Dell,
constant operation. Web access to all data, campaign • Complex data integration to create a single customer Amnesty International and Vodafone
integrate marketing processes and
contact history and facilities is provided for Eurostar users view of 18 million traveller records;
drive competitive advantage.
across three countries; access permission levels can be • Dramatically increased customer intelligence
applied on an individual basis to assure security across the • Creation of a highly targeted and effective dialogue with For more information about Alterian,
system and all data. customers products within the Alterian Integrated
• Successful cross-border and inter-departmental Marketing Platform or our Partner
Network, please visit www.alterian.com
Occam provided training in the new system for all Eurostar collaboration
database users, enabling them to execute extremely UK & European Headquarters
successful campaign selections in-house, for a range of Where previously, it had relied upon limited market research Alterian
scheduled, automated campaigns, as well as occasional projects, Eurostar now has a clearer picture of its customers; The Spectrum Building
campaigns run in support of a specific marketing objective. its catchment areas and how service changes will effect both Bond Street
For more complex campaigns and at peak times, Eurostar - not only in the UK, but for prospective passengers Bristol
relies on Occam's analysis and campaign selection expertise travelling from Brussels, Paris and Lille. BS1 3LG
to execute more complex data extractions from the UK
T +44 (0) 117 970 3200
database. Vital foundations have been laid to ensure that Eurostar may
F +44 (0) 117 970 3301
continue to increase the sophistication of its direct
In addition to increasingly targeted email campaigns, marketing, ahead of the challenges of the launch of services North American Headquarters
Eurostar is now able to measure and report upon the efficacy from St Pancras. Alterian Inc.
of its entire marketing activity, across all channels. The 35 East Wacker Drive
solution enables seamless integration between email and Suite 200
web activities, ensuring that Eurostar’s marketing activity will Chicago, IL 60601
be supported as new technologies and channels are USA
embraced. T +1 312 704 1700
F +1 312 704 1701
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