Andrew Potter

Said the following about CrossCountry Marketing Team:

“I am nominating the CrossCountry Marketing team to recognise their achievements over the past year. As CrossCountry do not own or manage any stations, the opportunity to convey their marketing messages is limited in comparison with other TOCs.

A solution to this is digital marketing initiatives, which recognise changing consumer trends and digitisation. As part of this, CrossCountry’s digital ticketing is a key part of the success story. As CrossCountry’s only ‘shop window’, web and app sales are a very important revenue stream. The team has been at the forefront of the Rail Delivery Group’s Smart Ticketing plans, and have enabled and promoted barcode ticketing across the country, with 98% of CrossCountry priced flows now offering a mobile-based barcode ticketing solution. This has been closely aligned with other department’s developments, including the roll-out of barcode and Smartcard reading apps to on-board staff. Allowing tickets to be displayed on mobile phones has removed the barrier of queuing up before travel to collect paper tickets – this is in addition to the environmental benefits of less paper tickets being printed.

The team has a diverse range of responsibilities, and further innovative campaigns have increased the profile of CrossCountry’s Marketing team over the past year. This has included sponsorship of MTV Crashes Plymouth, a 2-day live music event which takes place on Plymouth Hoe, and which is targeted to a student and youth audience. Again, inter-departmental liaison occurred with special additional CrossCountry train services being organised to get the music fans home after the event which finished after the last timetabled CrossCountry service had departed Plymouth. As this event has a large social media following, it allowed the team to reach out to key customers via social channels, in particular Facebook, Instagram and Spotify – a channel which was used for the first time in a CrossCountry Marketing campaign and popular amongst the target audience.

As part of the CrossCountry Summer campaign, the team produced 3 short videos which were played on the ITV hub (catch up TV) as a means of encouraging and inspiring mums to take their children on day trips to have a ‘real experience’ throughout Summer. The videos were played before programmes popular amongst parents as a way of engaging with this audience through a media channel they actively engage in; again driving further conversation to the CrossCountry website.

To further support the Summer campaign, the team also developed 8 Out of Home digital ads which promoted days out with the family by train to locations on the CrossCountry network. The adverts utilised real-time data by displaying the current temperature in the location which is being promoted, to allow for the promotion of an outdoor activity if the weather was warm and an indoor activity if the weather was much cooler. The adverts were live on The Loop - 23 digital display screens located around the heart of the CrossCountry network, Birmingham City Centre. You may have seen one if you’ve been wandering around Birmingham recently!

There have been many more innovative projects over the past year that the team have implemented. These include the ‘Last Minute Hub’, a tool that allows customers to search for the best ‘last minute’ Advance train fares up to seven days’ before travel. This allows customers to find the best available fare without spending hours searching. Development of CRM systems has also allowed the team to contact opted-in customers who may be inspired to take a spontaneous day out if there’s a good value fare available. Another customer-focussed initiative has been the launch of the ‘No Admin Fee’ service; CrossCountry being the only train operating company to allow customers with Advance tickets purchased online to change the date and time of their journey without being changed an admin fee.

For a small team, they have achieved a lot in the past year, and really worked hard to ensure CrossCountry provides its customers with not only the best value tickets, but also the most convenient ways to buy, collect and change train tickets.“