New newsletter subscribers with clever multichannel campaign

Via QR code or PURL, the recipients of the personalized postcard are taken to a landing page in responsive design.RCL Cruises Ltd (RCL) is the official sales and marketing representative of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (Miami, USA), the second largest cruise line in the world. RCL Cruises Ltd. markets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, among others, trips of the brands Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises. With a total of 21 ships, including the largest and most innovative cruise ships in the world, Royal Caribbean International calls at more than 270 destinations.Via postcard to landing pageWith its newsletter, RCL regularly draws its customers' attention to exclusive cruise offers. Together with the Swiss online specialist FO Cyberfactory and the creative and full-service agency rabbit eMarketing a special PURL campaign was developed to attract more newsletter subscribers by sending a personalized postcard to existing customers who had not yet opted in to email communications. It promoted the newsletter service with a curiosity-raising "don't miss this" speech and slogans such as "Don't miss your WOW!" or "Don't miss any more Modern Luxury moments" as well as a personalized URL. A sweepstake provided additional incentives to visit the campaign's landing page. To keep the media break between postcard and internet as small as possible, a personalized QR code was used.All landing pages were designed with "responsive design", so that a user-friendly and fast data entry was also possible via smartphones and tablets.Amazing response ratesThe results are impressive: Ten percent of recipients of a personalized postcard accessed their personal URL after receiving it; over half did so via a mobile device. 55 percent of visitors to the personalized landing pages took the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter. More than three-quarters of those who signed up for the newsletter subsequently confirmed their subscription by clicking the confirmation link in the DOI email. The online conversion rate (the ratio of website visitors to newsletter signups) was 43 percent. Overall, the campaign achieved a very convincing conversion rate of five percent. This means that five percent of the mailing list served in the campaign was transferred to the online channel. In the process, even months after the campaign was launched, pages were still being called up and newsletter subscribers were subsequently acquired. swRead more about multichannel campaigns in the cover story of the Print & Production: Promotion & Response dossier, which will be published on November 1. Not yet a subscriber to Marketing & Communication? You will find the subscription form here.