Best Western International, Inc. is the world's largest hotel brand with more than 4,000 hotels in 80 countries and 60 years of experience. “Our goal was to realize a 60% return from this email campaign. What a nice surprise to surpass that goal by such a significant margin! It’s been two weeks since the email went out, and we continue to earn revenue from it.” Jamie Hansen, CHA eCommerce Project Manager

Campaign Highlights Best Western's kickoff email was sent to their house list of opt-in subscribers—all existing customers. A new profile page strategy was created to facilitate finely targeted messaging based on customer-stated information and preferences. To kick-start Best Western's new data collection strategy, a promotional giveaway incentivized recipients to update their profile by clicking a link in the email. To ensure content relevance, BlueHornet's dynamic segmentation tools were used to exclude subscribers who had recently received a transactional email from Best Western.

Problem:
Like many in the hospitality and travel industries, Best Western noticed increased revenue driven by website reservations. This growth encouraged them to dedicate additional resources to their online marketing channel. The world's largest hotel chain had been collecting email addresses from existing customers. However, with the exception of transactional emails to loyalty club members, they hadn't yet leveraged email for direct marketing outreach or as an acquisition tool.

Need:
Best Western required a robust eMarketing application that could do more than handle high-volume sends. They also needed a tool to manage large amounts of customer data and allow for dynamic segmentation capabilities. Plus, it was important for Best Western to form a strategic partnership with an email service provider who could provide guidance and best practice information to ensure they maximized the full range of available technology.

Solution:
BlueHornet's eMarketing Suite version 3.0 (eMS 3.0) delivered the advanced functionality, data collection capabilities, and ease of use Best Western required to make the most of their first email campaign and begin their long-term eMarketing efforts on strong footing. Their email template incorporated best practices for acquisition, retention, and conversion marketing, including viral components, database building strategies, a multi-channel loyalty initiative, co-marketing promotions, and optimized online booking.

Results:
Best Western's implementation of best practices for permission email marketing showed impressive results for the hotel chain's kickoff launch. They achieved healthy email open and clickthroughs rates, and they acquired valuable new data on their existing customers to optimize future targeting efforts and hone message relevance.