The majority of the brand's ticket sales were being conducted through a ticket aggregator. To reduce dependency on third-party platforms and establish a direct relationship with customers, the business aimed to promote their loyalty program and turned to Merkle to help devise a strategy to drive sign-ups by leveraging customer data and creating a targeted, multi-channel acquisition strategy.

We began by analysing the brand’s first-party customer data to gain valuable insights into the travel interests, motivations, and behaviours of their customers. Utilising this information, we segmented their audience into distinct groups, allowing us to create tailored strategies for each segment.

For every audience segment, Merkle developed detailed audience profiles, going beyond basic demographics to delve into preferences, needs, and pain points. This step enabled us to gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience. By identifying relevant engagement levers, such as factors that would drive customer engagement the most, we identified the key messaging that would resonate the most with each segment.

With the audience segmentation and profiling in place, we crafted a multi-channel acquisition strategy that encompassed paid, owned, and earned channels. Paid media initiatives involved targeted advertising to reach specific segments and new customers, while owned channels such as the onsite and email campaigns were utilised to engage existing customers.

Throughout the strategy implementation, the brand placed great emphasis on maintaining a consistent "Look and Feel" for their loyalty program across all channels. This involved updating creative elements to ensure a unified brand image and enhance recognition and recall. By integrating these various components, we created an integrated approach that combined data-driven insights, audience segmentation, targeted messaging, and a cohesive brand experience.

The results achieved through this approach were remarkable, with over 607,000 loyalty members acquired to date, of which 30% are new direct bookers. This case study highlights the power of data-driven audience segmentation and a tailored multi-channel acquisition strategy. By leveraging customer insights, we successfully promoted their loyalty program, and significantly increased sign-ups. The results underscore the importance of understanding customer preferences and engaging with them through targeted messaging across various channels. Through this successful initiative, the business not only expanded their loyalty program but also fostered direct relationships with customers, reducing dependency on third-party platform.