BARONS AUCTIONEERS MAILING LIST REBUILD

How we helped Barons Classic Car Auctioneers clean and rebuild their mailing list

B2B / B2C / SHARPSPRING

OVERVIEW

Complete mailing list rebuild to become GDPR compliant

CLIENT

Barons Classic Car Auctioneers, specialising in the sale of classic to trade and private buyers

CHALLENGE

With the introduction of GDPR in 2018, Barons' mailing list needed to be rebuilt from scratch to ensure all recipients were correctly opted-in

BACKGROUND

One of Barons key marketing channels is a weekly bulletin email featuring the car listings for their next auction. This was an extremely valuable tool and had exceptionally high levels of engagement, way above the sector average (52% opens/16% clicks). It was therefore hugely important that when GDPR was implemented in 2018 the mailing list was meeting the explicit consent requirement that became legal.

The challenge was compounded by a failure to capture consent as the list was being built, threatening Barons ability of Barons to communicate effectively with their audience.

THE BRIEF

The brief from Baron’s was two-fold

Rebuild the email mailing list from scratch to ensure GDPR compliance.
Whilst doing so enrich the data set and establish interest levels in classic cars.

Our Solution

THE IDEA

Because Baron’s weekly newsletter was so popular, we leveraged that demand to encourage an opt-in, exploiting the FOMO (fear of missing out) that would kick in if the newsletter was no longer received.
Months of A/B testing had established that the optimum broadcast time was Friday lunchtime, and we started the campaign in mid-April 2018, approx. 6 weeks ahead of GDPR.

THE PLATFORM

SharpSpring

THE PROCESS

Step 1 – Restrict Content
- Rather than the usual newsletter each Friday lunchtime we sent an email entitled “Hang on, where’s your weekly bulletin?”, the CTA focused on the need to opt back in if they wanted to continue receiving the bulletin.
Step 2 – Opt in
- We created a simple and slick “opt-in” landing page with a minimal form to make the opt in as easy as possible.
- All consents were captured in SharpSpring along with a date stamp to ensure GDPR compliance.
- The contacts were added to an “opt-in” list and tagged as GDPR compliant using custom fields to store date and consent status, whilst a Sharpspring workflow was created to auto-send the most recent weekly bulletin.
Step 3 – Questionnaire
- On completion of the form the contact was presented with an optional questionnaire probing interests such as car preferences, media used, social channel habits and buyer/seller status.
Step 4 – Contact profiling
- Questionnaire answers were captured to custom fields in SharpSpring and workflows were created that set the persona of the contact based on the answers.
- Using the enriched contact data we used dynamic lists in SharpSpring to:
  - Segment buyers, sellers, collectors, traders and media
  - Pinpoint prospective buyers for specific “star” cars in upcoming auctions e.g Buyers/collectors with an interest in 1960s Jaguars with a budget of £50k-£100k

barons-workflow

OUTCOME

Improved Email Metrics

The mailing list was rebuilt with stronger, more engaged prospects:

Pre-GDPR- 70% of the original list was recruited to the new list during the 6 week campaign.
Post-GDPR – mailing list recruitment continued strongly, and the list quickly surpassed the original number.

The pro-actively opted-in prospects clearly demonstrated much higher levels of engagement:

Average email open rates grew from 52% to 63%
Average email click-through rates grew from 16% to 22%

Increased sales

The enriched data and Sharpspring’s website tracking tool allowed us to create a list of potential buyers and target them directly with a digital brochure of “Star” cars in upcoming auctions.
Active intent from potential buyers was tracked via Sharpspring’s media centre when prospects clicked to the “star car” digital brochures.
This improved targeting and personalisation resulted in an increase in the sale of 'star' cars.

How we helped

The Social Change Agency

choose HubSpot

The Social Change Agency help groups and organisations build the structures, knowledge and networks they need to make change happen.

Their requirements for a platform included:

A way to manage grant applications and the distribution of funds
A central, single source of truth for all contacts and comms
Tools to manage marketing all in one place
Ticketing system to triage and resolve day-to-day enquiries

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