Customer Life Cycle Campaign: Ocean Reef Resorts

Taking a comprehensive approach to customer life cycle email marketing results in building a strong, long-lasting client relationship and demonstrates that personal, relevant and well-timed messages produce amazing results. Consider the following metrics:

• $47,000 in revenue from an $800 campaign
• 73% unique open rate
• messages are opened 6 times on average
• 60% survey completion

Following is an overview of the customer life cycle, and how we use email to drive this comprehensive guest email marketing program.

Dream

A single focus email sent to all subscribers on March 5, 2010. The main focus was to drive spring bookings. The high click-through rate stood out the most, showing that a high percentage discount offer with no restrictions garnered lots of interest.

The dream campaign started with an email sent on March 5th, 2010 to their entire database of 19,788 and excluded the 3,260 subscribers that had already booked for the spring. The goal of the campaign was to offer a last-minute deal of 25% off all available properties for Spring 2010.

• Subject Line: Last Minute Discount on ALL Open Properties
• Sent: 19,788
• Total Opened: 9,730
• Unique Clicked: 2,780 – 14.1 %

Purchase

We used Google Analytics to track the campaign’s ROI based on online bookings only. Over 8 weeks, the campaign generated 29 transactions for over $47,000 in bookings.

Using Google Analytics eCommerce, we provided the ROI figures for the campaign based on online bookings only. The 8+ week life of the email stood out the most resulting in 29 transactions equaling over $47,000 in bookings.

• 29 Transactions
• $47,855.56 in Revenue
• $1,650.19 Average Value

Anticipate

A pre-arrival email is sent 7 to 12 days before the anticipated arrival date. The message helps guests plan the details of their upcoming vacation. This message has extremely high unique and multiple open rates.

Relevancy is everything! With some of the highest open-rates we’ve ever seen, we were excited. But what really stood out to us was the total number of opens, which average 6+ times per email. With the arriving guest anticipating their upcoming vacation, there couldn’t be anything more relevant in their inbox than a customized trip planner. The following numbers were generated from October 2009 to November 2010.

• Sent: 4,701
• Total Opened: 18,466
• Unique Opened: 3,512 – 75.3 %
• Unique Clicked: 1,539 – 33.0 %

Experience

A concierge email sent at 9am the day after the guest arrives provides a simple contact form they can use during their stay. Knowing that not everyone checks their email on vacation, it still produced a 40% open rate which shows it’s relevancy.

The concierge email is sent at 9am after the guest has arrived to ensure there were no problems during check-in. The main focus of the email is to provide an easy and convenient way to for the guest to be in contact during their stay.

• Unique Opened: 40.8%
• Unique Clicked: 15.1 %

Remember

A post-departure message is automatically triggered 3 days after the guest departs. While the guest’s experience is fresh, we attempt to capture both positive and negative feedback with an incentive-based survey. There’s also an incentive and call-to-action to book their next vacation.

The Remember message is a very important part of the cycle for a few reasons. It completes the relationship with a follow up message while the vacation experience is still fresh. It asks for feedback through a custom survey which allows the guest to offer valuable feedback on their trip. It also includes a call-to-action to book their next trip at a discounted rate, share their experience on Facebook, or subscribe to the “Member’s Club” email marketing program.

• Sent: 5,474
• Total Opened: 6,820
• Unique Opened: 3,717 – 68.2 %
• Unique Clicked: 2,535 – 46.5 %
• 60% survey completion