A British Airways mobile email campaign promoting the airline?s mobile application garnered a 50 percent open rate and 70,000 click-throughs, which resulted in approximately 250,000 downloads of the app.

The airline wanted to promote its Executive Club mobile application to its loyalty club. The new application allows club members to manage their account and reservations, check-in, and access real-time flight information via their mobile device, with versions developed for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android devices.

British Airways partnered with Agency.com, OgilvyOne and e-Dialog for the campaign.

The campaign targeted British Airways? Executive Club members to drive application downloads based on the user?s specific smartphone. It combined an understanding of historical user data of email on mobile devices, to make sure that members received the news of the application in the format best suited for the device they most commonly use to check their email.

As a result of this successful campaign, British Airways is planning a multilingual campaign to be targeted to mobile users across Europe, as well as a new text-to-email initiative to allow sign-ups to the Executive Club while in the departure lounge.

Mobile Marketer interviewed Corrina Murphy, account director at e-Dialog International, London. Here is what she said. 
 
What exactly is a mobile email campaign? How are the emails optimized for the mobile device?
A ?mobile email? campaign is one that tailors an email message to the actual smartphone device it will be viewed on.

The campaign delivers emails to subscribers in the best fashion for their email viewing habits.

In this campaign, the email promotes application downloads specifically for the device the member uses.
 
Optimizing emails for mobile devices starts with an analysis of historical customer data which tells us which customers open emails on which device.

From there we develop a custom template for each device that allows the email creative to be rendered optimally on each device.

This means that the template is designed to be easily navigated, easy to read, and includes a clear call-to-action.

It needs to be targeted, but still versatile enough to display properly on another screen if users don?t check it on their usual device.

The proper email template ensures the user has a more streamlined view, with all content easily visible and accessible.
 
What was the purpose of the campaign?
The purpose of the campaign was drive downloads of a new Executive Club application, which enables those club members to manage their account and reservations, check-in and access real-time flight information via their mobile devices.

To ensure that the application launched successfully the team needed to carefully target the campaign to the smartphones that customers would use to download their apps.
 
Why was mobile the ideal channel for this particular initiative?
Mobile was the ideal channel for this initiative because we were launching a mobile application for British Airways? Executive Club members who use iPhones, Android phones and BlackBerrys, as well as desktop PCs.

Further, with travel emails being among the most popular for email subscribers in general, the convenience of mobile email allows them to access their inboxes while they are on the move.

Thus, the need to optimize relevant email messages for the small screen based on consumer data is particularly important.
 
How do the results of this campaign compare to other channels that British Airways is using to communicate to its loyalty club?
The campaign was extremely effective, radically exceeding BA?s KPIs and expectations.

Open rates for the emails targeted to mobile devices far exceeded opens for desktop versions, and were in excess of 50 percent for iPhone and Android users.

The content was highly targeted and designed to render appropriately on each of the different devices, as evidenced by a click-through rate of 25 percent for those who accessed the email on their iPhone and in excess of 30 percent for BlackBerry users.

The campaign generated more than double the targeted number of downloads - over 250,000 - and more than 70,000 clicks to BA.com/apps, where customers could get more information about the BA app on their device.

Creative
Here is a screen grab of the mobile email