Case Study: Redesigning Derby Hotels Collection's Email Marketing Strategy

SUCCESS CASE

• CLIENT: DERBY HOTELS COLLECTION
• AGENCY: Digital Response (email marketing agency)
• CASE: Redesigning the email marketing strategy

 
BACKGROUND            
Founded in 1968, with the opening of the Derby Hotel, Derby Hotels Collection is one of the most prestigious hotel companies in Spain. Derby Hotels Collection currently has 12 hotels and 2 luxury flats in operation in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and London.
In September 2014, Derby Hotels Collection contacted Digital Response, an agency specialising in email marketing, with the aim of improving the results obtained through this channel. The following case study presents the phases of the project and the results obtained.
 
PHASE I. Standardisation of the database
The first thing that was decided was to standardise the database. The database contained fields from which segmentation was carried out, but in many cases the same attribute had different values. Thus, for example, the values identifying the country could have values as disparate as Espana, España, Spain, Spain or Madrid for Spain, or America, USA, EUA or New York for the United States. This situation was repeated in other identifying fields of other properties in the registry. Thus, standardisation began with the definition of the "correct" values for each variable and the conversion of inappropriate values into appropriate ones.
It should be noted that, for various reasons, the possibility of "forcing" the entry of the correct data at the time of capture was ruled out, so that the only alternative was an "ex-post" normalisation.

 
PHASE II. Emailing redesign and mobile adaptation
The second phase of the project consisted of redesigning the templates to be used for the promotional mailings and the newsletter. The basic axes on which we worked were:

• Orient the design by giving more specific weight to usability and call to action.
• Highlight the hotels being promoted with quality images.
• Adapt the design to mobile reading environments by making it responsive.

 
  
PHASE III. Segmentation of the database and adaptation of the from email to each segment.
One of the peculiarities of Derby Hotels Collection is that its users recognise the name of the hotel where they have stayed (Hotel Urban in Madrid, Hotel Bagués in Barcelona, The Caesar in London...) but not the brand of the chain (or at least not so easily). This situation was known by the marketing department of the chain, however, the emails were being sent with the sender "Derby Hotels Collection". Therefore, it was decided to send the emails with the sender "Derby Hotels Collection". from name of the hotel where the user had last stayed. Thus, if a user had stayed at the Hotel Urban in Madrid, he/she would receive an email from "Hotel Urban", while if another user had last stayed at the Hotel Claris, he/she would receive an email from "Hotel Claris".
The reasoning behind this action is that the user will be more likely to interact with the email if they "recognise" the sender and if their previous experience with the sender (in this case a stay) has been positive.

 
PHASE IV. A/B test of the offer
Derby Hotels had been practising an offer presentation based on "book from n €". However, the intuition was that a more commercial offer might generate better results. So, we proceeded to test which type of message generated the most responses, applying the variations in both the subject line and the body of the message.
 
RESULTS
During the months of September, October and November 2014, the analysis of the metrics of openers, click to open and conversions showed the success of the new approach. Some of the most relevant results obtained were:
- The rate of openers was increased by 36%.
- Email-generated production increased by 69% compared to the same period last year.
- In addition to these results, a number of other insights regarding the behaviour of the database when impacted with different messages, offers and calls to action.