• by Dianna Dilworth , July 1, 2014

Increasing its email volume helped insurance company Aviva increase sales by driving awareness of its additional products. 

In a keynote at the Email Insider Summit in Montreux, Switzerland, called "The Benefits of an Increased Frequency Strategy," Zara Timms, digital marketing manager at Aviva, explained how the insurance company was able to drive deeper engagement by creating a year round sending strategy.

The company sends about about 4 million emails monthly. This includes: 49 monthly to prospect campaigns and 30 monthly customer campaigns, as well as 21 pre-purchase trigger emails and 27 on-boarding emails.

Their challenge was dealing with a massive database which has been created through acquisition and legacy systems. "Historically we had an absolute nightmare trying to create the golden fleece of email," said Timms. After they cleaned up their database, the company reduced duplicate records by 25 percent and increased their average open rate by 15 percent and increased click through rates by 18 percent.

In the past, they focused on a renewal strategy email program. However the program was limited to sending emails once a year around the time when the recipient's insurance was going to run out. The provider wanted to create an off-renewal strategy and communicate with customers throughout the year. "We wanted to make sure that we were driving consideration outside of that renewal window," said Timms.

The goal was to drive the "nudge effect" in order to remind customers and, in turn, create engagement through email. The company increased their mailing from around 3 emails a year to about 30 a year and was able to increase revenues.