Brand: Hilton Hotels
Brief: To analyse email activity to improve future campaigns
Target audience: Prospects and current customers
Supplier: Alchemy Worx
Challenge
"We want a good return on investment with our email campaigns, but we also want to build a relationship with customers," says Hilton's senior international email marketing manager, Kirsty Montgomery. "We need to make sure information is highly targeted and extremely relevant to the recipient."
Execution
Hilton enlisted Alchemy Worx to examine data collected from previous email campaigns. Dela Quist, chief executive of Alchemy Worx, says: "Millions of records are produced from an email campaign, from whether it was opened, where the recipient clicked, to which subject lines got the best response."
The report found that a small percentage of Hilton's customer base was responsible for 20 per cent of its total booking revenues. "It's very easy to get side-tracked on the amount of emails you are sending out, rather than the quality of the content," says Montgomery.
Hilton found its most loyal customers were spending more time reading the content of emails before clicking through to its website from various offers. Other recipients were simply using the emails as a quick link to the website, and going straight to the booking service without taking in the campaign's content.
Results
Hilton developed a monthly e-newsletter with templates relevant to specific behavioural patterns. "We worked closely with the managers of Hilton websites abroad and built further content in response to what had proved popular within the emails," says Montgomery.
When it came to translating the email content into several languages, the web managers ensured translations were fluent and contained regional terms and phrases that would appeal more directly to the recipient and ensure the content was culturally appropriate.
"The time difference was a major factor that had to be taken into account," says Montgomery.
"In Japan, for example, a large number of people now have their emails redirected to their mobile phone. We needed to be aware of this and make sure a customer was not receiving an email to their phone in the middle of the night when it might wake them up."
Quist called the data analysis process "forensic". The detail involved has meant that Hilton e-newsletters are now targeted and its customer data segmented, paving the way for successful future campaigns and also the re-launch of its website in a few months' time.
POWER POINTS
- Hilton hired Alchemy Worx to analyse the response to its previous email campaigns
- The hotel chain used the analysis to tailor a monthly e-newsletter to specific groups and make content more relevant and timely for recipients living abroad.