Studentkortet on modernising their brand and increasing the conversion rate with Kivra

Arek Rutensparr has been working as Production Manager at Studentkortet since 2012, and he realized early on how smart it would be to collaborate with Sweden's student unions. Thanks to the unions' network of contacts, Studentkortet was able to reach 250,000 students each year with its student brochures. But sending so much physical mail each year was not very cost-effective.

We sent booklets, bills and catalogs via physical mail, says Arek. And while we were able to cut costs thanks to mass mailings, it required a large budget and a lot of time on our part.

In 2015, Studentkortet started to send its own mailings instead, without the unions' contact network. In this way, they got full control over statistics and they could use CSN's large database with information about the students. However, mail handling required a lot of time.

Our own mailings gave us control over who we sent to and what areas we could reach, but our mailing volumes were still very, very large. It was almost like we needed a part-time position to handle all the shipments that didn't arrive, says Arek.

During this time, many people began to lose their trust in the Postal service, experiencing increasingly poor delivery reliability. Therefore, they started looking for other digital solutions, and that's when Kivra came into the picture.

Kivra led to increased control and a higher conversion rate

Studentkortet quickly took the chance to start sending out via Kivra. At this point, the mailings consisted of PDFs with an information letter for new students that included offers and important student information. And at Studentkortet, they loved being able to share the positive statistics.

It feels like we became much more modern and that we got a better control overall when we started sending the information letters digitally, says Arek. For example, we were able to get data on the opening rate and conversion, and we were also able to communicate in a more modern way, which helped to strengthen our brand.

So what did the data show? It showed a stronger conversion rate and greater chance of converting students throughout the calendar year.

The conversion rate doubled in most cities when we started using Kivra's digital mailings, instead of physical mail, Arek says. Before, we were happy with 10% in conversion rate, and now we are usually closer to 20%. Plus our mailings live for longer. A physical letter is usually thrown away immediately if it is not interesting, but a message in the Kivra inbox can be opened a month later and converted.

The cooperation with the unions continued, where Studentkortet helped send out invoices through Kivra. Thanks to the clear data, Studentkortet was able to help the unions send targeted mailings and communicate more effectively with their members.

It became much clearer when we could share concrete numbers with the corps that we could all learn from. And we also saw that the invoices were paid faster when they were sent via Kivra compared to via physical mail.

A responsive design sets the Student Card apart from its competitors

In order to continue to develop and distinguish themself from the competition, Studentkortet wanted to modernise their mailings and make them more attractive. Kivra then introduced them for its smart, responsive design. With responsive design, Studentkortet was able to design its mailings via HTML and thus display offers and information directly in the message, rather than via an attached PDF.

We could do a lot of technical work with the PDFs to make them clear and nice, Arek said. But with responsive design, we were able to stand out and get more out of our existing design material. Plus the mailings became more user-friendly!

Studentkortet has had a conversion rate of 22-23% in its informational mailings, and with the responsive design, they continued to convert, while improving the recipient's experience of Studentkortet's brand.

It is of course important for the students that it is clear, but a success factor is also that it is attractive. With responsive design, our messages became much prettier and more enjoyable to read than before. We look forward to sharpening our mailings further and continuing to help the corps improve their communication in the same way.