Intrawest controls a number of resorts in North America. With its large portfolio, Intrawest has become the leader in experiential destination resorts in this region. The company started in 1976 as a residential and urban real estate firm and has evolved over the years include holiday resorts “where amazing experiences happen.”

Intrawest use Email Marketing tactics to stay in touch with clients during the off-season. According to Randy Cuff, Intrawest’s director of CRM and Email Marketing, their email marketing strategies “focus on promoting the resorts as four-season resorts.”

Intrawest is a good example of a brand that successfully integrates their Email Marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Below are a few of the things they focus on in order to create more value for clients through their email newsletters.

• Targeted newsletters are sent out to clients that are visiting any of the resorts within 14 days. The email focuses on reminding clients that they are almost on holiday and offers them links to activities in the resort that they can pre-book to make their stay more memorable.




• Email newsletters are personalised based on 750 different criteria. For instance, if a visitors lives in the area, they won’t need directions to the resort. In newsletters to local clients a link to the weather forecast is included to encourage them to plan a break-away weekend.




• Intrawest makes use of subtle cross-selling, for instance if a first-time visitor hasn’t booked a ski lesson yet they are encouraged to do so in their welcoming email and they have the option to rent their ski gear in advance.

Intrawest also found that when visitors only take one ski lesson they’re less likely to come back. Yet, if they participate in two lessons they’re more likely to become a skier for life. To encourage first-time skiers to come back for a second lesson, the ski instructor will take a photo of the skier during the first session and send it to the skier after the lesson with tips on how to improve as well as an invitation to book his / her next lesson.

Read the full Intrawest case study on ChiefMarketer.com.

As part of customer relationship management (CRM), Email Marketing is a notable yet delicate tool that should be used with great care. As a general rule, there are a few well-known email marketing mistakes to avoid including:

• Sending marketing emails and newsletters to individuals that have not opted to receive marketing communications from you
• Selling your subscribers’ details to third parties
• Making it difficult for your readers to unsubscribe or update their contact details
• Using long or irrelevant subject lines for your newsletters

With Email Marketing there is a fine line between building and strengthening relationships with your customers and annoying them with irrelevant, arbitrary and too-frequent emails or newsletters. What follows are four tips to ensure that your Email Marketing messages are on-point and don’t rub your subscribers the wrong way.

Mistake #1: Ambiguous sign-up process
Make it easy for individuals to subscribe to your newsletter. Have a sign-up form prominently available on your website and keep the amount of information they need to provide during the sign-up process to a minimum. Send them a confirmation email once they have signed up with a link to where they can manage their subscriber profile.

Mistake #2: Inadequate content
The aim of your newsletter is to build and maintain relationships with your customers, hence the copy of your newsletter is very important. Sending personalised emails based on your subscribers’ interests and preferences will not only increase ROI but also build customer loyalty. If writing is not your forte, consider outsourcing the creation of your newsletter content – it is worth the investment. If you are writing the content yourself, look it over a few times to check for mistakes and ask someone else to read through it too before you send it to your subscribers.

Mistake #3: Not linking properly
As part of a marketing strategy, your newsletter should show some sort of return on investment, whether that is growing your subscriber database and increasing brand awareness or increasing leads and sales through newsletter promotions. If you are talking about a specific product or service, link to that specific landing page on your website and not your home page. It is important to include calls to action in your newsletter, persuade your readers to perform a certain action.

Mistake #4: Not sending test emails
It is embarrassing to receive emails from subscribers telling you that the format of your newsletter content has been distorted. Check the appearance of the newsletter in various email clients and make sure all the links in the newsletter are working and linking to the correct pages before you send it. It is recommended that you use professional email marketing software to send newsletters as your newsletter’s appearance is a big part of your customers’ perception of your brand.

Lastly, it is important to track and measure the performance of your newsletter.   Most Email Marketing platforms include reporting interfaces which will give you data such as the number of newsletters that were opened, links that were clicked and the number of times the email was forwarded. Another way to track email responses using your Analytics platform is to uniquely tag the URLs in your newsletter so that you can accurately measure the activity from this source.

After your newsletter has been sent, check how many subscribers have opened it, which links they clicked on, how many readers unsubscribed and which email addresses bounced or are inactive. By keeping an updated database and paying attention to the statistics you are sure to see ROI from your Email Marketing efforts.

For an SEO campaign to be successful, there are many factors that have to be considered. It’s important to note that a successful SEO campaign needs constant attention, tweaking and nurturing and is definitely not a once-off process. As a digital marketing agency specialising in SEO, AlterSage has had a lot of experience planning, implementing and managing SEO campaigns for a variety of clients. Below we’ve identified three reasons why many SEO campaigns fail.

#1 The website’s target audience has not been clearly defined

Your website’s target audience plays an important role in an SEO strategy as it will determine, among other things, the tone of your website copy and form the basis of your keyword strategy. The aim is to attract qualified visitors to your website therefore you need to know how your target audience is going to be searching for you. Based on this you will create a comprehensive keyword strategy for your SEO campaign.

#2 Benchmarking is not properly implemented

Even though it can take a few months for an SEO campaign to mature and return tangible results it is important to analyse the website before implementing the campaign. Use the results from this analysis to benchmark the progress of the website on a monthly basis. This will give you a clear idea of the success of the campaign and help you to identify areas of the website where you can improve.

Visitor behaviour and engagement can be measured with analytics packages like Google Analytics, important benchmarks for a website could include:

• Keyword rankings on the search engine results pages
• The number of visits to the site
• The percentage of visits from various sources
• The percentage of new visitors to the site
• The number of leads and sales generated by the website

It is helpful to put a timeframe to these metrics. Set realistic goals and projections so that you know what you’re aiming for. Goals should be constantly measured and re-evaluated.

#3 Little or no content development

Search engines thrive on content therefore it is important to regularly include new, optimised content on your website, either through articles, page creations or blog posts. Optimised, informative articles with links back to your website work well to increase awareness for your brand and the ranking of your website. Additionally, other websites will link to your website if it offers informative content.

What other factors play a role in the success of an SEO campaign in your opinion?