Press Release

Holiday Extras Upgrades Email Marketing Capabilities with StrongMail

Integration of StrongMail into Existing Database Infrastructure Lets Holiday Extras Leverage Valuable Customer Behavioural Data into Email Marketing Campaigns for the First Time

LONDON, July 28, 2009 – Holiday Extras, the award-winning online provider of UK airport parking and airport hotel packages, has moved its entire marketing and transactional email platform to StrongMail. By integrating StrongMail into its existing database infrastructure, Holiday Extras is able to intelligently leverage valuable customer behavioural data in its email marketing campaigns for the first time. In addition, by bringing the email marketing function in-house, the company expects to save up to £30,000 annually by avoiding external email marketing agency fees.

Holiday Extras conducts more than 80 percent of its business online and serves over five million travellers annually. The company recently expanded its operations to include top-value breaks to a range of UK theme park attractions. Email is used heavily by Holiday Extras as a primary tool for all customer marketing and transaction-based services.

The decision to move to StrongMail was prompted by a growing need for the Holiday Extras marketing team to track email deliverability and customer behaviour within a single system.

Emma Bates, email marketing manager at Holiday Extra’s, explains the problem: “The previous external email marketing solution was unable to integrate with our existing customer database. This meant we could not leverage valuable customer behavioural data for our email marketing campaigns. This lack of integration meant we could not connect this data with our email communications, thereby missing a major revenue opportunity.”

After reviewing several options, Holiday Extras chose StrongMail because it offered the greatest level of integration into the company’s existing customer database.

Emma Bates said: “Email remains one of the lowest cost options to maintain and grow our business. By integrating StrongMail tightly into our customer database infrastructure, we now have a single location from which to send, track and analyse our customer data. It’s completely changed the way we manage our marketing and transactional emails and allows us to develop much better, more relevant and highly targeted content. We’re confident this investment will completely pay for itself within the next 18 months.”

Holiday Extras also took advantage of StrongMail’s strategic consulting services as it transitioned from using an external agency to manage emails to the new in-house StrongMail platform.

Following a six-month soft-launch to build a positive sender reputation with ISPs, Holiday Extras is now sending several million marketing and transactional emails a month.

Paul Bates, managing director of StrongMail UK, concludes: “When email is as critical to your business as it is to Holiday Extras, you need to remove all the limitations that can prevent you from leveraging its full potential, and that’s where StrongMail shines. The ability to easily integrate StrongMail into a company’s existing infrastructure is a key reason why so many companies are empowering themselves and bringing email marketing in-house where it belongs.”

About StrongMail Systems, Inc.
StrongMail Systems is the leading provider of commercial-grade solutions for marketing and transactional email. Offered in both on-premise and hosted models, StrongMail overcomes the limitations of traditional email service providers and custom-built solutions, enabling businesses to deliver more relevant, timely and cost-effective messages. Visit: www.strongmail.com.

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James Carter or Emily Gallagher
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Kickstart Consulting
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