Customized Email Blasts ~ A few lessons to remember
So the other day, my friends at SmartUSA sent me a nice email about “Thank you for attending our Chicago event to test drive Smart ForTwo’s.” That was really nice of them I thought. But wait, I didn’t test drive any Smart ForTwo’s. In fact, I meant to attend that event, but didn’t have time that weekend to make it there at all.
Email marketing lesson #1: Don’t assume. It wouldn’t have taken very long to vet a list of people who DID attend and send them one email and send everyone else another, “Sorry, we missed you in Chicago. Maybe next time…” Although, I know what they were trying to do, it should have been more personalized/customized.
I also received an email from Kayak.com telling me about great summer vacation deals. Great I thought! Oh, cheap flights to SFO, Oakland, Miami, and Chicago? Wait, they knew my default airport is O’Hare. Why would they include Chicago in this email? Why not try and sell me on another destintation, NOT Chicago.
Email marketing lesson #2: You have the data - use it. Kayak knew well enough that my default airport was O’Hare, so it’s pretty safe to say that I live/work in Chicago or the surrounding area and probably do not need a travel deal to Chicago. Instead, they could have further customized the message to remove my home airport and replaced it with another sales message. I used to do this ALL the time at my previous employer. We used every little piece of information to customize email and print communications we sent out. Kayak should do the same.
Just a few handy tips to remember when implementing an email marketing campaign. There are tons more here:
Anything I forgot? Let me know in the comments.
4 Comments so far
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I would also suggest to check travel search engine Trabber to find the best airfares. Here is the address - http://www.trabber.com
I hope it´ll help
Hey Dan,
Although your comment is on the razors edge of comment spam, I still let it through because I really like the Trabber site. Very clean and simple. Thanks,
Jeff
Hey- try to remember that the whole world does not revolve around you. So you had to get an e-mail from smart USA and had to read one extra destination from a list of cities. That must have been really tough for you, my most sincere apologies.
Hey Eliza,
Unfortunately, like many customers, I DO think the world revolves around me, and because I understand the technology necessary to implement these emails, it is one small extra step to customize these emails according to the interactions I have had with the company. It’s not that I minded the extra email from the company, just that they were not as customized or, in Smart’s case, wrong.
It’s the equivalent of a company sending you a birthday card a month after your birthday. Or if a website sent you an email saying “Thank you for your purchase” when you haven’t purchased anything. These are incorrect touchpoints from a company and can be easily corrected with some diligence and a little extra work on the part of each participating company.
Thanks for your comment,
Jeff