The Wedgewood Hotel & Spa is an independently-owned luxury hotel located in the heart of Downtown Vancouver. A boutique gem among hospitality giants such as the Rosewood, Trump, and Fairmont, the property prides itself in its classic European ambiance and warm, personable service.
Problem
Having served visitors to Vancouver for over three decades, Wedgewood has accumulated tens of thousands of customer profiles within several email marketing databases. However, messy and incomplete data has hindered efforts to effectively segment guests into relevant mailing lists. As a result, campaign targeting was not optimized, leading to low engagement rates.
Solution
While leading the implementation of our property’s new TravelClick Guest Management System, I ensured that the import of customer data was preceded by thorough cleaning. By doing so, low-value profiles could be identified, and effective segmentation of guests by location, behavior, interests, and more could take place.
Then, when designing campaigns, I ensured relevance by conducting A/B testing of various email marketing best practices, testing at a 95% confidence standard, and implementing successful tests. Variables included copy, images, subject lines, and send times. By keeping comprehensive records of engagement results, I could identify trends, patterns, and opportunities.
Results
Over 18 months, I improved our email marketing strategy by restructuring our contact database, creating relevant content, and optimizing send factors. Throughout the 49 campaigns and hundreds of life-cycle emails deployed, the following results were achieved:
- 109% increase in click-through-rate (CTR)
- 33% increase in recipients per email campaign
- Over $90,000 in attributed email marketing revenue