When marketing works for the operator, not against: Kcell implements Eastwind Mobile Marketing Platform
19 october 2017
The integrated software solution by Eastwind allows the largest Kazakhstan operator to analyze Big Data, build extended subscriber profiles and run targeted marketing campaigns.
TIME TO GROW
Kcell leads the Kazakh telecom market not only in sheer scale, but also in innovation. As it realized the need for an increasingly personalized approach to subscribers, the operator was looking for a platform to enable intelligent marketing.
The operator held an open tender won by Eastwind, which supplied the required solution. Kcell chose EW MMP platform appreciating the powerful analytical and practical capabilities of the system. The introduced solution allowed the operator to build up its client-focused approach in subscriber relations, to free employees from routine tasks, and to reduce financial risks from inefficient advertising which sometimes was actually harmful for the company.
“In nowadays' market conditions, irrelevant advertising of your own or partner services can be fatal for a content provider that every telecom operator is today,” says Anton Khohrin, head of mobile advertising group at Eastwind. “The more customer data you can analyze, the more precise your offers will be, and the more response you will elicit, with less effort.”
ANALYTICS AS THE KEY TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
Mobile Marketing Platform is a comprehensive solution based on many integrated components. The core is Eastwind Social Analytics – the module that carries out intelligent Big Data analysis. After the initial data treatment made by Mediation, the system unloads the data into Hadoop cluster, where EW Social Analytics generates criteria used to identify subscribers. The system's capabilities allow us to segment the subscriber base by 200+ parameters. The platform analyzes social connections, calling and Internet activity, service prices, and much more. The analysis serves as the basis to build the extended profile of each subscriber. Then, self-learning machine algorithms take over to ensure accuracy of calculations and timely updates of the data.
Eastwind MMP helps verify demographic data based on real user actions, generate relevant content, and promptly find out which subscribers are potentially interested in new services and partner offers. The latter opens unlimited possibilities for data monetization.
TARGET MARKETING AUTOMATION
The advantage of Mobile Marketing Platform is that it is a turnkey solution to solve your marketing tasks. The platform offers a wide range of tools to export data to external systems. E.g., operator can generate subscriber lists by analyzing their activity and interests. This information is highly appreciated by third-party advertisers implementing the targeted marketing strategy.
EW MMP can automatically download subscriber base samples into the integrated campaign manager. This module’s job is to run campaigns of the operator now – and partners’ campaigns in future. The module automates the planning, creation and launch of marketing broadcasts. The service provides support for several dozen delivery channels of promo content, such as SMS/USSD push, balance query, MCN, RBT, Low Balance, Top-Up and others.
Kcell can now quickly test and run many campaigns simultaneously. Process automation frees time for marketing experiments and allows you to find the most effective paths to your subscribers’ hearts in minimum time.
WHY EASTWIND’S SOLUTION
What distinguishes MMP from counterparts is that you can allow external companies the access to the Eastwind platform’ campaign manager. The Partner UI gives you the full functionality to configure personalized broadcasts while at the same time depersonalizing subscriber data and protecting the telecom provider’s confidential information.
The preconfigured interfaces of the Big Data system do not require the involvement of highly qualified analysts. This allows you to quickly automate the process without losing efficiency, and start getting results right after the system deployment. Thanks to a personalized approach based on customer experience and 360° customer analysis, the operator can promote more products with fewer contacts. The high conversion of proposals helps reduce advertising costs, reduces the risk subscriber churn risk and increases their loyalty. As we see, Mobile Marketing Platform offers you a toolbox to reinvent your marketing and brings your customer interactions to a new level.
DEPLOYMENT AND FIRST RESULTS
Under the terms of the tender, the platform implementation went in two phases. Firstly, a pilot project, where Eastwind demonstrated the system capabilities to the operator. Kcell provided data for the platform to calculate the exact parameters of extended subscriber profiles, which then were used by developers to build analytical cases. Socio-demographic characteristics were identified with an average accuracy of at least 70%. The analysis results were used to generate target samples. System functionality tests were run immediately, evaluating the effectiveness of promo campaigns aimed at selected subscriber groups. For example, the campaign to promote the "Year of Internet" option scored a response from 24% of the sample, which was 2.5 times higher than in the control group.
"It was a technically challenging pilot: both in terms of the scope of tasks and the operator's requirements for systems," says Alexander Pavlov, product manager at Eastwind. – “Our experts have showed strong competencies in predictive analytics and the ability to use its results. We have met the pilot's targets.”
In the second phase, Eastwind embarked on the commercial rollout of Mobile Marketing Platform.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
To date, the operator already uses the functionality of the system, implemented within the pilot project. Based on the extended analysis of the subscriber base, Kcell segments the audience and can conduct up to 100 targeted marketing campaigns simultaneously. This is not the limit of the technical capabilities of the platform - the volume of mailings can be infinitely scaled in accordance with marketing goals. At the same time, the campaign manager constantly updates the database and takes into account all new subscribers during the campaigns, even if they have not yet been billed to the operator.
By the end of 2017, Kcell will deploy all the features of the basic version of the Mobile Marketing Platform. In particular, the analytics part will receive churn forecast, and the dedicated B2B interface will be complemented by a campaign manager to run broadcasts for external advertisers. Later, the operator is going to build on the basic version of the platform to expand the functionality. For example, Kcell plans to introduce a scoring model, support of chat bots as an advertising channel, and implement thermal maps showing geographical concentration of different groups of subscribers at certain times of the day.
As Kcell representative told us, Eastwind MMP is a wonderful lab to make your promo communications more “humane”, your services intelligent, your offers more relevant, and your products higher quality. In the global perspective, the platform's capabilities can shift the paradigm of customer and partner relations of the operator.