Q: Did resorts give more discounts in 2011/2012 to combat low snowfall?

After publishing the list of subject line keywords and their impact on open rates, we couldn’t help but wonder how these numbers might fluctuate over time. Two weeks ago we looked at guest behavior during low-snow years, but what about marketers? Did they offer more prices at less than 100% because of snow that was less than 100%?

The Setup
To find an answer, were going to start with a list of 5 promotional words that are commonly used in email subject lines: offer, save, discount, free, and deal. We’ll first take a look at the total number of email campaigns that were created with these words and then see if the percentage of total emails sent changed as well.

The Goods
The first thing you’ll want to notice about each chart is that, yes, we’ve included the data for each keyword but also the totals/averages at the end so you can see, overall, how the years compared.

First, let’s take a look at the total campaigns that used these words in the subject line. They’re listed below as a percentage of all email campaigns created that season.

Right off the bat we see that a higher percentage of these emails used this discount-oriented language. To be a little more precise, the rate of these emails in 2011/2012 increased 34% compared to 2010/2011 and 55% compared to 2009/2010. Every word but “deal” was used more often.

That’s looking at number of emails created, but what about total sending volume? Did these promotional emails make up a bigger chunk of total emails sent than in years past?

Again, the answer is “yes” but not by much. In 2009/2010 2.82% of emails used these words. That number dropped slightly to 2.65% in 2010/1011 before coming back up to 2.93% in 2011/2012. In fact, the only words that were significantly higher were “save” and “discount”. Both “free” and “deal” were used less than both of the two previous years.

So…
So what does this mean? It tells us a couple things. First, marketers decided to put these words in significantly more email campaigns during 2011/2012 than years past. However, because the percentage of total recipients that received these emails didn’t change quite as much, it suggests that these emails were more focused on specific segments as well. Instead of shotgunning every list with discounts, they used guest data to make sure that when offers were sent, they were sent to the right people.

This isn’t ground breaking but an encouraging sign to see that the discount card is being played when there is a reason but is also being used wisely.

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