Ep. 217- GUEST: 🛳️ Norwegian Cruise Line EMAIL PERSONALIZATION and WELCOME SERIES TIPS with Damara McKoy FROM NCL!

0:08Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately. You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. We'll also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwetelson. Let's do this, not that.

0:40we are back for the do this not that podcast presented by marigold and i have an amazing guest today's going to feel like you're going on vacation like you're going on a cruise why do i say that because we have the amazing damara mccoy here who's damara damara is one of the leading team members on the digital marketing team over at norwegian cruise lines ah doesn't that sound relaxing. We could just all feel like we're on a cruise. And she's going to be sharing with us a lot of the things going on over at Norwegian, some of the ways they are changing their brand around a little bit, some of the cool things they're doing with some of their marketing programs.

1:14So Damara, welcome to Do This Not That. Thank you for having me, Jay. So I appreciate you being here. I can't wait to dig into all of this. I have a question before we get going and everything. Whenever I think of Norwegian cruise lines, I think that you all, and I could be wrong, have like the cool stuff. Like you have like go-karts and zip lines and the craziest water slides. Is that like what goes on every day at work? Like, hey, I'm going to go and zip line during lunch. Is that what your every day is like? I wish it was, but let me tell you, it's fun in the office here. And if you search around out there somewhere, you'll definitely see our president and CEOs going down those slides and they have a lot of fun doing it.

1:56So whenever we can, we get a chance to hop on the ships We all definitely take advantage of it. Oh, that's cool. Like we just bring in like some free pizza once in a while. You're like, okay, let's go on the ship and go go-karting. Right? That's cool. So before we dig into what we're going to talk about today, how did Damara become Damara? Like what was your path to getting involved with Norwegian? I want to hear it all. Yeah, sure. So I actually started out as a graphic designer. That's what my degree is in. And I worked in the automotive industry, so I was really creating emails and designing emails.

2:36But I think a lot of my passion always centered around how the design really influences guests and customer behavior and really wanted to delve into the marketing side. So early on in my career, I was in automotive marketing for about five years. And then I shifted focus to retail marketing at another company. And that really expanded my current passion and my role right now. So I got to dive in the marketing side, how the numbers affect just our overall plans and how we create content and what that content is centered around. but really taking a hone into personalization, right? So using those numbers, using the creative and really creating a custom experience for guests or customers within their inbox.

3:36So then after my experience in retail, I actually, I had a son and I chose to come back home, right? So I moved back down to Miami and I applied at Norwegian, got the job, and then I was able to really do what I love most, right? So really increase our personalization efforts, increase our guest experience within their inbox. And now I am the manager of our email marketing program on the domestic side here at Norwegian Cruise Line. That is amazing. I love that. I love your passion for personalization because I think that that is the most important thing in driving engagement, especially with email.

4:19So let me ask you, let's just jump right into that. I have a question about that. So you sign up for your cruise. OK, and at that moment, you are that is the most exciting. I got my room. I can't wait. I'm going to go to the show. I can't wait to do this. And then you get that first email, that welcome, the whole thing. And I know you spent a lot of time and energy on kind of rethinking this welcome series. Like, what did you do? How do you think about that? Yeah, so our welcome series actually starts probably before you purchased that cruise, right? You'll get that welcome series email once you come onto our site.

4:59Let us know that, hey, you're interested in either speaking with one of our representatives or inputting your email address and saying, hey, I want to know what's up. And then our welcome series, I think, is phenomenal now. It does a great job of introducing who we are as Norwegian Cruise Line, what we stand for, what you can expect to experience on one of our great cruises and how we can get you booked. So I think the work that we've done to really elevate our welcome series, we've seen the numbers increase with our engagement. So, yeah, I can't rave more about it. So how do you handle, though, I'm interested in, let's say, these activities.

5:45Somebody here, maybe it's their first time cruise. Somebody's interested in these activities. Is there some sort of dynamic element to your welcome series? Like, how do you navigate all of that? Yeah. So first thing first, we're going to, in our first email, while we introduce who we are, we're going to see what you're interested in, where you'd like to go and who you'd like to cruise with. We think those are two key points that will help us kind of cater content that will allow you to go ahead and book that vacation experience. So we do have polling within our first email. two questions and we kind of use that content from that first email to drive content within the third touch point that we have.

6:30But the second touch point is my favorite. It's with LiveClicker. They helped us build out this kinetic experience, right? So within the email, it doesn't take you to another site. It doesn't, within your native platform, you can go ahead and you can click different parts of the ship to see what we're offering, whether it's staterooms, the casino, the bars, the entertainment, the dining. We'll go ahead and we explain what all of that can mean for you on your cruise. And then we'll go ahead and link you to more information on our site with those different areas. That is so cool. And I have to tell you, I think that's one of the best use cases I've heard about interactive emails, like getting people to interact in the email and clicking, going to a website, trying to do different things.

7:22I think that people are not aware, marketers are not aware about the ability to do interactivity within your email. So the polling feature that you're talking about, that sounds like that's like a game changer for you all. Is that like an essential element of where you're capturing that data? Yeah, exactly. And we've implemented polling in different areas within our email ecosystem and within acquisition and even looking to implement it within, we even implemented it within our loyalty program for guests who are booking on our loyalty cruise, right? So every year we have a cruise that's catered to these guests that have expressed interest with us, cruised with us, and as a way to really show them how much they mean to us.

8:13We have a cruise centered around everything that our loyalty members would love. So in kind of catering that content, we do ask our loyalty guests with this polling, like, what do they want to see, right? So I think we've been able to implement polling in a lot of different places. And it's definitely a game changer for us. That is so cool. I love, I mean, in your business, personalization is everything. People are spending their hard-earned money. This is like the one week off they have for that year. And they want to feel like they're with a brand that really gets them. So it's amazing that you prioritize this.

8:52but it's also kind of like we can't screw this up because this is like this is really important yeah and they will let us know they will let us know i bet i bet so so let me ask you this i saw recently that you kind of norwegian kind of rebranded a little bit that you used to have this thing where you are free to see free to sea and now i see more of this more to see sea is was that like some sort of intentional thing like what is that yeah so i think um we were free at sea right um free at sea i think it kind of it wasn't it was more of like a promotional thing right we everything isn't free um and i think we realized that and really taking uh listening to guests feedback and seeing how we can improve on that experience and that messaging to really capture what it is that we offer.

9:50And it's really centering our value, and it's within our company too overall, of delivering more and giving more to our guests. So I think that pivot from free, right, which is very promotional, very salesy, to more, which is more value-centered, has been paramount for us. Yeah. And I think it's really important because obviously everybody wants free stuff but it's right they get it it's not free and am i wrong that norwegian is also known for like like when you say the word free like you can go and have dinner whenever you want type of thing like it was more of this like free like free in almost a different way like a liberating way yeah freestyle freestyle dining freestyle cruising um do it your way whenever you'd like if if you want to have dinner at seven o 'clock at night or if you want to have dinner at 10 o 'clock at night, you have the ability to do that.

10:46And Norwegian has always held that close to our core values for our guests. See, that's the difference between me and you. We're both going to eat dinner at different times because you're in Miami. Okay. And that's a very cool place. And I'm in Bokertone, a little about 45 minutes north. And in Bokertone, we eat dinner like four o 'clock because everybody here is incredibly like ready to go to sleep. But you're in Miami and you're cool. You probably dinner at like 10 o 'clock, 10 o 'clock. Like it's dinner time for me right now. So there you go. I, that's why Norwegian is so close to my heart because I can eat dinner whenever I want.

11:25That's amazing. So I also understand that you all have an amazing kind of corporate culture. It feels that way. And is it, is there a truth here that you all like do puns or something at work or where is that not true that is very true a little fun fact about us we love dad jokes we um i think it's kind of stems from our cmo he's the master of dad jokes um we like how we recently had our our more um rebrand um in in his letter to all of us as he He was on the Latitudes Cruise, right? He signed it off, chief marketing officer. So puns are fun and we love them. Yeah, it's kind of what makes working here fun, right?

12:15I think we find the little things that can make us all smile and really hone in on it. And it just makes for a better work environment. I think that's such a good lesson for everybody that, you know, if you can insert a little bit of humanity, a little bit of fun into the workday, it can actually change the vibe, right? I'm sure there's the vibe there just like really kind of positive because you have these little pieces of your work data. They're not so serious. Yes, yes. And we really lean in on it. Halloween's coming up. And I tell you, Halloween's a big deal around here. It gets a little crazy.

12:50We get a little competitive. But it's just part of having that fun and taking a step away from really the business to make sure that we're all good and that we can in turn support the business as best as we can. i love that all right so knowing that you guys are into puns i said okay i'm gonna try to come up with some cruise puns and norwegian puns are you ready to tell me if they're good or bad are you ready let's go let's do it okay okay this is so bad this is so bad all right here we go norwegian more like norwinen oh oh come on i love that all right here's another this is so bad how about uh don't wave goodbye to this deal there's a wave you know like a wave oh okay yeah that's another one okay um all right this is the worst one here it comes on norwegian you'll have a hull of a good time like oh i like that one come on we might still that for a subject line jay don't don't get mad if you see it yeah i'll be so excited that'd be amazing wow now i don't know if you're like just placating me or you're like oh no that's really good you might just be like well we really we really might take that for a subject line i feel like i could be part of the norwegian cruise line team uh we take hulls very seriously Our hull art is one of our key differentiators, right?

14:21We're known for our beautiful hull art. Most recently, we have an amazing artist that just did our Norwegian Luna that we just announced. Yeah, but you'll see us on the seas and our ships will stand out. I love that. Well, this has been amazing. You're wonderful. Everybody, connect with Damara on LinkedIn. We're going to put all sorts of links in the show notes here. She's wonderful. You're great. Damara, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me, Jay. This has been so good for me. I love it. Amazing. All right. We'll talk to you again soon. Take care. Thank you. Bye. You did it. You made it to the end.

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