Answering the question ‘what do travelers want today is a challenge, even when a global pandemic isn’t upending priorities and preferences. Yet that’s exactly what travel marketing needs to do on an individual basis. A marketing strategy that doesn’t speak to a traveler’s wants and needs — in terms of destination, value, and options — won’t resonate.

Too often, travel rewards programs settle for subpar marketing support. They employ one-size-fits-all or least-common-denominator communications, failing to use what they know about their members’ tendencies and histories to tailor their offers and messaging. And that’s a missed opportunity.

Eliminating Spray and Pray

We don’t want our clients to miss any revenue opportunities, so we used the relatively fallow period of the pandemic to re-evaluate our in-house marketing services to find a better way to reach our client’s clients. Namely, we put an end to the “spray & pray” method of email marketing and turned to a modern approach that combines automation, personalization, and multi-channel communication.

This allowed us to cut down the monthly emails we send to our user base by 62.5 percent. Instead of sending out millions of blanket emails per week, we created over 1,000 unique email campaigns that run simultaneously and are delivered to members based on their specific shopping preferences, past booking behaviors, and recent searches resulting in better quality and a higher volume of inbound sales calls and website visits.  

Reaching Customers Where They Are

Not only did we implement this tactic of automated yet highly personalized emails to promote different travel products, but we also created email campaigns that educate customers about their available benefits and rewards based on where they are in their lifecycle. This allows our clients to boost member engagement with their loyalty platforms, as consumers are prompted to redeem incremental rewards or check their status. Lastly, we started better “listening” to our members by creating geo-targeted campaigns.

Now customers who search for Alaskan cruises get a personalized email with rich content featuring Alaska’s jaw-dropping ports of call and tour opportunities. These marketing emails helped to encourage travel in a difficult market: e-mail open rates increased from an average of 14 percent up to 60 percent, while click-through rates jumped from 7 percent to nearly 35 percent. More importantly, it allows our clients to present high-value options to their members with increased conversion potential, helping them get the most out of their loyalty and travel rewards programs.

We also upgraded how we speak to members, using many of the same automation tactics that we employ in our personalized email marketing program. Through their specific travel loyalty platform, members can communicate with us directly through our embedded chat functionality. We can also reach customers via SMS text messaging again with highly personalized content that speaks to their concerns and desires.

Personalization Creates Possibilities

When it comes to automation and personalization, there’s really no end to what we can communicate and how nimble we can be. For instance, we can provide geo-targeted education campaigns about different COVID protocols at destinations for travelers in real-time, so they don’t have to search for the information themselves. That not only can help alleviate fears around travel but, also helps create a positive experience.    

Personalized marketing may be commonplace in other consumer-facing sectors, but by embedding these services into the platform, it allows organizations with travel rewards programs to create segmented, tailored marketing campaigns that drive sales, revenue, and member engagement. As more travel rewards and loyalty programs adopt this approach to member marketing, travelers will see more options that they’re interested in, and convert more often on the offers they’re presented with. The answer to “what do travelers want today’ may still be elusive, but with more personalized marketing approaches, companies can start listening for a response.

Jeff Zotara is the Chief Marketing Officer of arrivia, a travel technology company that provides travel loyalty, booking, and marketing solutions to consumer-facing companies.