Summer Sales: Enhance Promotions with Personalization

Time for the Summer Sales-a-Lot

Sunny days don’t just get customers heading to the beaches—it actually puts them in the mood to spend with their favorite brands. But that doesn’t mean marketers should solely rely on deep price cuts to drive purchases. Instead, now is the time to perfect your promotions by prioritizing relevance and personalization. That way, customers will come for the sales but stay for the one-of-a-kind brand experience.

Need a roadmap to get you started? We’ve collected five different tactics to enhance your promotional strategy, all inspired by some of the best brands in the industry.

Click It to Win It

Click-through rates are one of the most accessible indicators of campaigns that are truly clicking with customers. And to get customers engaging with your emails, a gamified twist is often all you need. No additional data collection needed—just an automated solution that kicks your creatives up a notch.

That’s exactly what Best Western did to enhance their Summer Bonus Points Offer campaign. They created two versions, one for members and one for non-members, where guests could receive 3K or 5K bonus points for booking their next stay. This personalized promotion not only boosted clicks, but drove a 60% lift in monthly revenue.

Scoop Up Data

Gamification not only adds fun flair to campaigns—it can also set you up for future success by helping you gauge customer intent. Knowing which summer products are really resonating with customers can inform broader strategic decisions, from inventory planning to promotional strategies.

One of the best—and easiest—ways to do that is through progressive polling, as Culver’s demonstrates here. In their Flavor Forecast email, they created an interactive in-email poll where customers could vote for their favorite ice cream flavor. It not only collected valuable preference data, it also subtly reinforced Culver’s product variety and customization options. And for customers who didn’t engage, a fallback image without the live percentage results was shown. 

On the Pulse of Customer Preferences

A new season brings new products for most brands. But with fresh product lines launching everywhere, marketers will need to get a little more creative when it comes to highlighting their newest items.

One sure-fire way to do that is by stealing attention at the very top of the email through an eye-cataching banner. While banners are often used to showcase upcoming promotions, using personalization powered by behavioral data can help marketers maximize that prime real estate.

To do that, Journeys created an automated, testable behavioral banner that used waterfall logic. Based on the customer’s recent actions, the banner would either show an abandoned cart or browse notification; however, if the customer hadn’t been on the site recently, a fallback message showcasing best sellers would display instead. Adding the banner was a win for the Journeys team, as this updated version of the email drove a 57% lift in revenue compared to the iteration without a banner.

Put Promotions to the Test

Clearly, testing can go a long way—not just in proving the effectiveness of your methods, but understanding what content resonates with customers. From banners to buttons, sometimes a small tweak is all it takes to boost a campaign’s success.

‍DSW saw exactly that during their Peak Summer Sale when they rolled out behaviorally-targeted CTA buttons that adjusted to each customer’s browsing habits. The buttons dynamically adapted to show relevant categories, enticing more customers to click. That single add-on saw a 16% boost in click-through rate and a 6.4% lift in revenue.

Vacation Mode

Nothing says summer like a sunny vacation, making it the perfect time for Hawaiian Airlines to launch a winning campaign. But with economic fluctuations, booking those summer travels can get a little more challenging. 

The solution lies in dynamic, real-time modules that update as quickly as your website. That’s exactly what Hawaiian Airlines did to ensure that their pricing was always accurate and up-to-date.

For customers who abandoned their booking before completing a purchase, Hawaiian Airlines delivered a curated message with real-time pricing tailored to the exact route the customer had considered but not finalized. By turning abandoned bookings into confirmed reservations, the airline saw a 6% lift in revenue.

Drive Seasonal Sales with Ease

By using Movable Ink’s automated personalization capabilities, these brands were able to drive lift across key metrics for their summer promotions.

It’s not too late to make the most of your summer sales—book a call with us today to explore how Movable Ink could enhance your campaigns, or explore the related resources below.