• by Todd Wilson , January 12, 2015

I help companies create customer journeys – cross-channel communication strategies that (ideally) reach customers how and when they want to be reached with relevant, useful, and timely information. Email is one channel we spend a lot of time with in particular, because for many clients it’s the core of their customer journey. For many industries – like Retail, for example – these email journeys can be fairly straightforward. For Travel, however, the ideal email customer journeys are often far more complex. 

Why? Well, for one, because the purchase cadence is so different from most other industries. The vast majority of leisure travelers don’t purchase flights and hotels as often as they purchase shirts or tools or running shoes; their purchases are fewer and farther between, the consideration cycles are much longer, and the amount of research before purchase is often incredibly extensive. 

Despite the unique challenges Travel email marketers face with their customers, so many of them follow Retail-like cadences; purchase confirmations, surveys, and weekly sales are the standard campaigns you see, just like you might see with Amazon or Home Depot. Those that offer loyalty programs generally send monthly newsletters with point balances. And then there are the card emails – “50,000 points for choosing this credit card for the low fee of x.” If you’re like me, you get lots and lots of these (you may even be sending them to me!). 

The problem is that there’s so little that’s genuinely directed to me and how I travel. I get the same campaigns and offers from an airline I have premium status with as from an airline I fly maybe once every three years. The hotel chain I spent 24 nights in last year sends me last-minute deals for cities I never travel to, just like the hotel chain I only spent 3 nights in last year. And the card offers? I haven’t changed credit cards in 10 years, and I didn’t open the card offer the first 10 times it was sent to me. There are some very slight variations on occasion that might acknowledge a city or hotel I often visit, but these points of personalization are far outweighed by the other, non-personal blasts sent to me and (presumably) everyone else. 

There are so many opportunities to use email to deliver a stronger experience (and stronger ROI). Take airlines, for example. If I travel on a specific airline two to four times a month, the type and frequency of information I might find useful is going to be very different from what a once-a-year traveler might want. Tell me monthly about new features or flights or planes on routes I fly often, instead of sending me weekly last-minute deals to cities I don’t visit. If I prefer aisle seats, alert me when one becomes available on a flight I’ve already booked (via email and mobile, for that matter). Likewise, if I haven’t flown in a year but I’ve clicked on two offers for Orlando in two emails in a row, send me a specific Orlando offer as a follow up. There are innumerable personalization ideas for airlines alone; for accommodations and transportation and destinations, there are countless more. 

It’s easy to keep doing the same thing when it comes to email, but doing the same thing means that so much opportunity goes untapped. There’s real, proven ROI in personalizing customer email journeys – and many Travel companies are sitting on treasure troves of data they’ve only scratched the surface of. Personalizing your email customer journey creates a foundation from which you can build a cross-channel strategy that includes the mobile journey, the site experience, and much more – eventually combining them all into a single, unified, true 1:1 interaction. And the end result? A more genuine and personalized customer journey that drives more revenue per email that they’ll will be willing and eager to repeat.