Visa: Launching an Aggressive, Integrated Marketing Campaign

Background

Visa Inc. is a multinational financial services company. Visa provides banks with credit and debit cards to issue to customers as well as prepaid cards for purchase at certain retailers.

Visa launched a new card product and wanted to increase the number of new card activations, cardholder spending, and the number of transactions. Since only 25 percent of consumer spending is done using major credit cards, Visa wanted to target the 75 percent of spending conducted using cash or checks. Visa partnered with QualPro to evaluate a large number of ideas and analyze their impact on the overall goals. Together, Visa and QualPro strategically planned a successful product launch with an aggressive integrated marketing campaign directed at existing card users.

Approach

After analyzing historical data, QualPro consultants helped Visa assemble a project team consisting of Visa’s marketing personnel. Together, the team brainstormed a list of over 200 potential ideas designed to encourage activation, spending, and number of transactions. Our consultants helped the team narrow the list to 17 ideas. Some of the ideas included using different follow-up methods, using graphics on the envelopes, and offering rewards.

Our consultants designed experiments for Visa’s personnel to test the 17 ideas. After initial testing, refining experiments helped identify which combinations of ideas were the most useful. The refining experiment revealed that six of the ideas were effective. Some of these included using graphics on the envelopes, offering double points for gas purchases, and conducting a second follow-up.

Based on these results, QualPro recommended specific actions for Visa to execute. Our consultants worked closely with Visa to guide process changes and motivate project team members to exceed goals.

Results

After implementing QualPro’s recommendations, activation rate increased by 30 percent, cardholder spending increased by 25 percent, and the number of transactions increased by 150 percent.


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