In my previous post, I mentioned that I had planned to cruise on Celebrity Cruise Lines. At
some point, when booking excursions, I must have opted in for marketing
communications. I know this because, in addition to communications regarding
the cruise, I received emails with limited-time deals for upcoming cruises.
Many, many emails. In the month after the last day of my cruise, I received 37
emails from Celebrity. (That was yesterday.
As I post this blog, the count it now 39.) That’s more than an email per day with a
marketing offer to make the major travel purchase of a cruise.
In digging
through these emails, however, I did receive two that addressed my recent
cruise. One was a polite thanks for our sailing. It arrived five days after we
disembarked. That’s timely.
The next relevant
email arrived two days later with the subject line of, “Marc, Thank you for
sailing with us.” As a quick proofreading note: I would
not have capitalized “Thank you” when preceded by a comma, but at least the
messaging was relevant to my experience – with a timely call to action to book
another cruise. Disney is effective using similar techniques when reaching out
to their customers after a trip to The Magic Kingdom.
What Disney may
not do is spam the crap out of their customers. I have too many emails to
display here, with subject lines like, “Last Day – Do NOT miss these low fares
to Alaska.” (March 26); “Now ending: Savings for all, plus TWO free perks”
(April 2); “Exciting Deals is coming to an end. Last day tomorrow.” (April 8)
“Just arrived! Just arrived! New offer to Alaska gets 50% off.”
(April 9). I received two emails on the same day: “Marc, it’s Funday Sunday,
perfect for booking an Exciting Deals getaway.” (April 22, 10:15 am) and
“Traveler, it’s Funday Sunday, perfect for booking an Exciting Deals getaway.
(April 22, 10:27 am).
It appears to me
that Celebrity’s Marketing Department uses the criteria to send promotional
emails only on days ending in “y” – and that’s a Fail for Timing for sending
too many emails too often. They become meaningless in the continued clutter of
communications. It may also be that there are several marketing lists floating
inside the Celebrity organization and they don’t relate them to the customer
experience. If that is the case, and they are using a Spray and Pray method of
marketing, that’s a Fail for List.
Lesson:
Know your
customers. Communicate to them sparingly and with relevance – addressing them
in the context of your customer relationship.