Posted on November 15, 2017 by Patty Odell on Chiefmarketer.com

Yes, it’s winter. And if you’re a cruise line working to book customers for a warm weather getaway, there’s no better way to get them thinking about traveling than to include the name of their icy-cold hometown in a promotional email.

That’s exactly what Celebrity Cruises did in a new email campaign to drive bookings during a peak time frame, January and February.

Working with email platform Liveclicker, a highly personalized campaign targeted loyalty members. Loyalty members are the first line of defense for any brand. They are regular customers, and in this instance, share the joy and excitement of cruising with their friends, family and on their social networks. They share details, photos and videos acting as indisputable brand advocates for Celebrity.

The emails included a history of the customers’ relationships with Celebrity—all the cruises they participated in. The emails were personalized from top to bottom, beginning with the person’s name, which was stylized in a large font size, the number of cruise nights, as well as that wintery hometown name.

“Including the subscriber’s hometown was another good way to demonstrate that we are close to our customer while evoking emotion around that ‘wanna get away’ feeling. It was also a great way to sign off the email with a personal touch,” Hannah Jag-Nathan, email marketing executive, UK & Ireland, Celebrity Cruises, told EmailMarketingDaily.

The campaign tripled email revenue when compared to standard emails.

Michael Barber, Founder, Barber & Hewitt, recently outlined 10 basics to keep in mind for creating a winning email strategies. For example, as Celebrity did it its email campaign, it’s more important than ever to market “human,” and to have fun.

“Don’t write copy for sales prospects. Treat your readers like they are living, breathing human beings—because they are living, breathing human beings,” he says. “Include a little something extra in your emails to emphasize that there are indeed real people behind your messages.