Heinz is well-known for its range of infant foods. However, strict legal restrictions make it difficult to talk to mothers about moving from milks to wet foods and on to solids. An online baby club, where users could opt in to receive product information, allowed Heinz to communicate with its target audience of new mums while adhering to the restrictions and developing a relationship with Heinz.

Heinz wanted to drive new mums online to sign up to its baby club, www.heinzbaby.co.uk, and to make the club the first choice for information about feeding and baby nutrition. The aim was to retain this audience as customers of Heinz Baby Foods during the first year of their baby's life.

Motherhood is a journey, so agency Haygarth took this metaphor and extended it to inventive direct mail packs designed to look like explorers' rucksacks. Each rucksack and its content reflected a pivotal phase of a new mum's journey and guided her through all her baby's feeding adventures. The rucksacks also contained offers, money-off vouchers and feeding guides. The CRM programme was rolled out through a series of on and offline communications.

Six months after launch, about 24,000 mums have registered with the UK Heinz Baby Club. Emails are being opened at a rate of 39% with an average click-through rate of 6.3%.

The detail and quality of the packs explains the campaign's success. CRM strategies demand a shift of focus, away from what many marketers want to talk about (product) to what the customer wants to talk about (babies). This long-term campaign involved costly and careful crafting but over time the relationship between marketers and customers will turn in a profit.