Delta Airlines Email Marketing Had Me and Lost Me

March 24th, 2010 | Posted by Jeff Sauer

I fly several times a month for business and personal travel, and nearly all of my flights are with Delta Airlines (previously Northwest Airlines). With miles accrued via flights, credit cards, special offers, hotels, dining, etc. I had hundreds of thousands of miles that were burning a hole in my pocket.

I decided to use these miles this January to secure two round trip tickets to Santiago, Chile (one for me and one for my dad). My trip to Chile and Argentina was epic in scope and ambition (2400 miles in 7 days, crossed the Andes twice, took hundreds of pictures and even managed to catch the Minnesota Vikings playoff game en Español). It was also an epic drain on my miles balance; to the tune of draining my mileage balance down towards 0 miles.

I knew it would take at least a year of earning more miles to ever reach the epic levels that I would need to pay for another international flight (not to mention earning more vacation days), so I had pretty much ruled out the subject of international travel until at least 2011. That is, until I received an email from Delta with a brilliant subject line:

“Recharge with this Delta Sky Club special offer”

I opened immediately, thinking to myself “wow, this is some great triggered marketing!” They knew I drained my balance of miles, and now they are giving me ways to earn them back.

I was quickly disappointed when I found that the offer was actually just their same old overpriced Sky Club offer that they have peppered me with 200 times in the past. No, Delta, I don’t want to pay $90 for a 30 day pass… I don’t want it for the same reasons that I didn’t want to purchase it the other 199 times.

Delta: You had me and lost me.

Post Category: Database Marketing,Email Marketing — Post Tags: Behavior Targeting, Delta Airlines, Email Marketing, Triggered Emails —

2 responses so far ↓

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by threedeep and darrenselberg, Diane Kulseth. Diane Kulseth said: RT @jeffsauer: Just wrote a quick new blog post RT @threedeep: Delta Airlines Email Marketing Had Me and Lost Me http://bit.ly/c14eGr [...]

Tweets that mention Delta Airlines Email Marketing Had Me and Lost Me | Three Deep Marketing - St. Paul, MN -- Topsy.com | Mar 24, 2010 at 12:03 pm
My wife and I have felt the same frustration with Macy’s. We had registered there before our wedding. We tied the knot in 2008 and ever since have received way too many “offers” that always appear along the lines of “20% off everything in our store please come in”. Their marketing to us is a combination of two emails per month and a direct mail item but overall we just feel they are too desperate. Now we have trouble looking at the retail price. We still go in from time to time and end up thinking to ourselves should we just wait a couple days until our next 20% off coupon?. Sure the email and direct mail campaigns may have a low price to a multimillion dollar company but at what cost to the brand?

Here is a transaction experience to illustrate: We recently purchased a spring jacket for a trip to California from Macy’s. My wife was willing to pay over $100 on the price tag ( because she was leaving the next day), and with discounts at the register it was only $35. So after all that work getting us into the store in the first place we didn’t even need a coupon to save 65%! We find this so damaging to the brand because how are they going to convince us their products are actually worth sticker price if I never have to pay it?

I find that deals work best when the customer has to DO SOMETHING to get it. So in your Delta example I would suggest that if the customer made one phone call, and drove to the airport I would let them tour and EXPERIENCE the club for free for a day. Then maybe you can start talking about a discount to $90. Until then there is nothing to build the value with. The value of our $100 spring jacket was that it was the only one left that fit, looked good, and had features we wanted in a jacket. We only knew this by comparing it to 35 other jackets in the store. That is why we would have paid $100 for it. Delta though has shown you nothing but crowded terminals and delayed flights. If I’m going to wait for a flight in luxury I’m going to need more reason to get out my wallet than “thank you so much for thinking about me enough to send me an email”. Next time you show up for a 6AM international flight a Delta employee should walk you to a recliner and offer to wake you up in time for your flight and when the Delta employee gently nudges you awake for boarding put out his hand and say “That will be $90 please?”

Justin Dux | Apr 4, 2010 at 5:00 pm