Targeting with Relevance

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I receive emails and alerts from a major airline; in addition to my weekly newsletter, I receive information about different destinations and numerous partner offers. They send info about flights, including updates on gates and whether or not my pleas for an upgrade have gone through. They send 12 to 20 emails a week and occasionally leave a voicemail or send a text to my cell (usually it’s the same important message.) I have been trained by them to look at the subject line only, and I’m certain that I’m coded as a non-opener in their reports.

These multiple messages are typically a sign of an email program owned by many departments… this isn’t uncommon, but it can be remedied by targeting me with relevance, maybe these ideas could get them started:
1) Send a level-set message, something like… Sundeep, you are going to receive one email a week from us – this is going to include your updates for the week, you might get more, but only if there are important changes.
2) Create a confirmation strategy, a personal message the next time I touch one of their channels – speaking with a person at the airport, call center, direct mail or even inbound email.
3) Use very specific subject lines – something like, Information, offers, and confirmations for xxxxxx2162. Adding my frequent flyer number to important updates would get my attention.
4) The content in the email should be dynamic, and they should leverage different sections of the email – a newsletter approach with sections on upcoming trips, important city information, current point balance and partner offers (instead of separate emails.)
5) The newsletter sections should include landing pages that coax recipients into different sections; they have already gotten me to a portion of their site… why not keep me there with destination images/ information, special offers and/ or partner offers specific to the destination? Keeping these pages simple and clear would inspire additional time and click-through and could house their own ads.
6) All messages should encourage an account log-in.

These are just a few ideas that could transform the airline’s communication strategy – creating an interactive dialogue would be so much more effective than just throwing out a bunch of offers…