Falling in love with automated email marketing in travel Published June 9, 2017 Email marketing and dating have more similarities than you think. Catching someone’s eye, striking-up a conversation and then getting into a relationship – it’s basically virtual dating for brands and their customers. And for airline JetBlue the relationship was more than just a metaphor – they’re in it for the long haul, falling hard for new customers and wanting commitment from the first click. For some they may come on a bit strong but we like it – we’re flattered and their automations certainly gets our pulse racing (yep, we really are that geeky). We take a look at how JetBlue use automated email triggers using tools such as PureTargeting to get up close and personal with their customers. The awkward first date Their welcome email is designed to look like a personal ad generated from a dating site and it certainly attracted our attention for all the right reasons. It was a cheeky but comprehensive overview of the brand – introducing their services, credentials and even linking to their loyalty programme to show they were in the market for a long-term relationship. Most importantly, like any good first date, they’re actually interested in us – they ask questions to find out what we like by gathering subscribers’ preferences so they can deliver more relevant emails in the future. The one year anniversary Fast forward from the awkward first date and after a whole year together JetBlue send their recipients a little anniversary reminder. They reminisce over the past 365 days – the sales emails, the hilarious travel puns and those times when the customer booked. It all creates a beautiful celebration of our loyalty to each other. And we love the tone – it makes us chuckle and acts as a friendly prompt to browse another flight. Needing a bit of space It can be easy to stop making an effort in a relationship – to stop taking the time to talk or to notice each other. JetBlue’s take on this is a humorous re-engagement email which is targeted at dormant recipients who have failed to interact with their email marketing recently. They remove unengaged recipients from their database, rekindle old flames and slow things down with anyone who sees them as a little too keen with the frequency of the emails. They show they care by really listening to what the recipient wants and modifying their behaviour accordingly. And by removing inactive people from the database they increase their overall engagement levels which protects the deliverability of their email marketing in the future. All of these emails are great examples of automated emails that can be set-up and triggered by recipients’ actions and the time that lapses between interactions with the brand. We’d love to see a tad more personalisation in them but like all good relationships, they always need a bit of work. We’re big fans of JetBlue’s marketing – take a look at our last blog on how they used the U.S election to create a great viral video which raised their brand awareness. It’s great to see some of this creativity in their email marketing and they go to show that automations don’t mean churning out dry, information-heavy email alerts. By putting personality into their emails they put an irreverent spin on their customer communications which gets us interested, talking and committed to something more than just a one night stand.