Vodafone personalisation done well – almost

by Jonathan Kay on Wednesday, 19th May, 2010

I received a great piece of direct mail from Vodafone the other day.  I live in the countryside and my mobile phone signal varies from good to poor depending on which room I’m in, the weather and if it’s a Tuesday or Saturday night.

So here’s the perfect solution – Vodafone has a unique (at least in the UK I believe) solution where I can buy a box which plugs in to my modem and when I’m at home my mobile phone signal can piggyback my broadband connection rather than the weak Vodafone network.

They call it Vodafone Sure Signal. I guess they changed the original name from “Femtocell” which sounds too much like a female contraceptive.

Genius.  A great solution to a real problem and one I’d be happy to pay for.

Personalisation done well

The mailing was in the form of a flier / large postcard and was printed to a good quality.

The cover was personalised to include my house name and an image of my house and neighbourhood (presumably taken from Google Maps though there was no reference to the source).

This got my attention straight away.

The back of the flier had just enough space to maintain my interest with effective copy and the call to action was to go to the website for more information.

I suspect the creative treatment would have been improved with some more inspiring art direction / imagery, but so far a good effort by Vodafone.

What stopped me from buying there and then?

There was only one thing stopping me from going to www.vodafone.co.uk and buying one … and that was because I’d bought a Sure Signal approximately 6 months earlier!

Quite why Vodafone didn’t know this is down to sloppy data management because to make the Sure Signal function I had to go to their web site and register the box against my home address and my mobile phone number.

So, is it any good?

Yes, and I’d recommend it without hesitation provided you have stable broadband and flaky Vodaphone.  I believe it cost me £50.  www.vodafone.co.uk/homesignal