In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson welcomes Damara McKoy, a key member of the digital marketing team at Norwegian Cruise Line. They discuss Norwegian's approach to email marketing, personalization, and the company's recent rebranding efforts.

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Best Moments:

(02:21) Damara's career path and journey to Norwegian

(04:49) Norwegian's welcome email series and personalization efforts

(06:35) Interactive email features and polling implementation

(09:26) Norwegian's rebranding from "Free at Sea" to "More to Sea"

(11:42) Norwegian's corporate culture and love for puns

(13:14) Jay's attempt at cruise-related puns

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Guest Bio:

Damara McKoy is the manager of the email marketing program on the domestic side at Norwegian Cruise Line. With a background in graphic design, she has worked in automotive and retail marketing before joining Norwegian. Damara is passionate about personalization and enhancing guest experiences through email marketing. Her expertise lies in creating custom experiences for customers and implementing innovative strategies to increase engagement and drive customer engagement.

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Foreign.

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that.

We are back for the do this, not that podcast, presented by Marigold. And I have an amazing guest. Today's going to feel like you're going on vacation, like you're going on a cruise. Why do I say that?

Because we have the amazing Damara McCoy here. Who's Damara? Damara is one of the leading team members on the digital marketing team over at Norwegian Cruise Lines. Ah, doesn't that sound relaxing?

We could just all feel like we're on a cruise and she's gonna be sharing with us a lot of the things going on over at Norwegian, some of the ways they are changing their brand around a little bit, some of the cool things they're doing with some of their marketing programs. So, Damara, welcome to do this, not that.

Thank you for having me, Jay.

So I appreciate you being here. I can't wait to dig into all of this. I have a question, though, before we get going.

And whenever I think of Norwegian Cruise Lines, I think that you all, and I could be wrong, have, like, the cool stuff. Like, you have, like, go karts and zip lines and the craziest water slides. Is that, like, what goes on every day at work?

Like, hey, I'm going to go and zipline during lunch. Is that what your everyday is like?

I wish it was, but let me tell you, it's fun in the office here. And if you search around out there somewhere, you'll definitely see our president and CEOs going down those slides.

And they have a lot of fun doing it. So whenever we can, we get a chance to hop on the. On the ships. We all definitely take advantage of it.

Oh, that's cool. Like, we just bring in, like, some free pizza once in a while. You were like, okay, let's go on this ship and go go karting, right? Oh, that's cool.

So before we dig into what we're going to talk about today, how did Damara become Damara? Like, what was your path to getting involved with Norwegian? I want to hear it all.

Yeah, sure. So I actually started out as a graphic designer. That's what my degree's in.

And I worked in the automotive industry, so I was really creating emails and designing emails.

But I think a lot of my passion always centered around how the design really influences guests and customer behavior and really wanted to delve into the marketing side.

So early on in my career, I was in automotive marketing for about five years, and then I shifted focus to retail marketing at another company, and that really expanded my current passions and my role right now. Right. So I got to dive in the marketing side.

How the numbers affect just our overall plans and how we create content and what that content is centered around. But really taking a hone into personalization. Right.

So using those numbers, using the creative and really creating a custom experience, experience for guests in or customers within their inbox. So then after my experience in retail, I actually, I had a son and I chose to come back home. Right.

So I moved back down to Miami and I applied at Norwegian, got the job, and then I was able to really do what I love most. Right. So really increase our personalization efforts, increase our guest experience within their inbox.

And now I am the manager of our email marketing program on the domestic side here at Norwegian Cruise Line.

That is amazing. I love that.

I love your passion for personalization because I think that that is the most important thing in driving engagement, especially with email. So let me ask you. Let's just jump right in that. I have a question about that. So you sign up for your cruise. Okay. And at that moment, you are.

That is the most exciting. I got my room. I can't wait. I'm gonna go to the show. I can't wait to do this.

And then you get that, that, that first email that welcome the whole thing. And I know you spent a lot of time and energy on kind of rethinking this, this welcome series. Like, what did you do? How do you think about that?

Yeah. So our welcome series actually starts with probably before you purchase that cruise. Right. You'll get that welcome to your email.

Once you come onto our site, let us know that, hey, you're interested in either speaking with one of our representatives or inputting your email address and saying, hey, I want to know what's up? And then our welcome series, I think, is phenomenal now.

It does a great job of introducing who we are as Norwegian Cruise Line, what we stand for, what you can expect to experience on one of our great cruises, and how we can get you. Right. So I think the work that we've done to really elevate our welcome series, we've seen the numbers increase. Right. With our engagement.

So, yeah, I. I can't Rave more about it.

So how do you, how do you handle though? I'm interested in, let's say, these activities. Somebody here, maybe it's their first time cruise, somebody's interested in these activities.

Is there some sort of dynamic element to your welcome series? Like how do you, how do you navigate. Navigate all of that?

Yeah.

So first thing first, we're gonna, in our first email, while we introduce who we are, we're gonna see what you're interested in, where you'd like to go and who you'd like to cruise with. We think those are two key points that'll help us kind of cater content that'll allow you to, to go ahead and book that, that vacation experience.

So we do have polling within our first email. Two questions. And we kind of use that content from that first, first email to drive content within the third touch point that we have.

But the second touch point is my favorite. It's with Live Clicker. They helped us build out this kinetic experience. Right. So within the email, it doesn't take you to another site. It doesn't.

Within your, your native platform, you can go ahead and you can click different parts of the ship to see what we're offering, whether it's staterooms, the casino, the bar bars, the entertainment, the dining.

We'll go ahead and we explain what all of that can mean for you on your cruise and then we'll go ahead and link you to more information on our site with those different areas.

That is so cool.

And I have to tell you, I think that's one of the best use cases I've heard about interactive emails by getting people to interact within the email rather than clicking, going to a website, trying to do different things. I think that people are not aware, marketers are not aware about the ability to do interactivity within your email.

So the polling feature that you're talking about, that sounds like that's like a game changer for you all. Is that like an essential element of where you're capturing that data?

Yeah, exactly. And we've implemented polling in different areas within our email ecosystem and within acquisition and even looking to implement it within.

We even implemented it within our loyalty program for guests who are booking on our loyalty cruise. Right. So every year we have a cruise that's catered to these guests that have expressed interest with us, cruise with us.

And as a way to really show them how much they mean to us, we have a cruise centered around everything that our loyalty members would love. So in kind of catering that content, we do ask our loyalty guests with this polling, like, what do they want to see? Right.

So I think we've been able to implement polling in a lot of different places and it's, it's definitely a game changer for us.

That is so cool. I love. I mean, in your business, personalization is everything. People are spending their hard earned money.

This is like the one week off they have for that year. And they want to feel like they're with a brand that really gets them, which.

So it's amazing that you prioritize this, but it's also kind of like we can't screw this up because this is like, this is really important.

Yeah. And they will let us know. They will let us know.

I bet. I bet. So, so let me ask you this.

I saw recently that you kind of Norwegian kind of rebranded a little bit, that you used to have this thing where you are free to see, free to sea, and now I see more of this, more to see sea. Was that like some sort of intentional thing? Like, what is that?

Yeah. So I think we were free at sea, right? Free Etsy. I think it kind of, it was more of like a promotional thing. Right. We. Everything isn't free.

And I think we realized that and really taking, listening to guest feedback and seeing how we can improve on that experience and that messaging to really capture what it is that we offer. And it's, it's really centering our, Our value, our. And it's within our company too, overall of delivering more and giving more to our guests.

So I think that pivot from free. Right. Which is very promotional, very salesy, to more, which is more value centered is. Has been paramount for us.

Yeah. And, and you know, I think it's really important because obviously everybody wants free stuff, but it's.

Right.

They get it. It's not free.

And am I wrong that Norwegian is also known for like, like when you say the word free, like you can go and have dinner whenever you want type of thing. Like, it was more of this, like free. Like free. And almost a different way. Like a liberating way.

Yeah. Freestyle, freestyle dining, freestyle cruising. Do it your way whenever you'd like.

If, if you want to have dinner at 7 o' clock at night or if you want to have dinner at 10 o' clock at night, you have the ability to do that. And Norwegian has always held that close to our core values for our guests.

See, that's the difference between me and you. We're both gonna eat dinner at different times because you're in Miami. Okay. And that's a Very cool place.

And I'm in Boca Raton a little about 45 minutes north. And in Boca, we dinner, like, 4 o' clock, because everybody here's incredibly, like, ready to, like, go to sleep. But you're in Miami and you're cool.

You probably dinner, like, 10 o' clock.

10 o' clock.

Like, it's dinner time for me right now. It's the morning, so there you go. I. That's why Norwegian is so close to my heart, because I can eat dinner whenever I want. That's amazing.

So I also understand that you all have an amazing kind of corporate culture. It feels that way. And is it. Is there any truth here that you all, like, do puns or something at work or where? Is that not true?

That is very true. Little fun fact about us, we love dad jokes. We. I think it kind of stems from our cmo. He's the master of dad jokes. We like how we recently had our.

Our more rebrand in. In his letter to all of us as he was on the Latitudes cruise. Right. He signed it off Chief marketing Officer. Puns are fun, and we love them.

Yeah.

It's kind of what makes working here fun. Right. I think we find the little things that can make us all smile and really hone in on it, and it just makes for a better work environment.

I think that's such a good lesson for everybody that, you know, if you can insert a little bit of humanity, a little bit of fun into the workday, it could actually change the vibe. Right? I'm sure. Is the vibe there just, like, really kind of positive? Because you have these little pieces of. Of your work data.

They're not so serious.

Yes. Yes. And we. We. We really lean in. Lean in on it. Halloween's coming up and tell you, Halloween's a big deal around here. It gets a little crazy.

You get a little competitive, but it's.

It's just part of having that fun and taking a step away from really, the business to make sure that we're all good, and then we can, in turn, support the business as best as we can.

I love that.

All right.

So knowing that you guys are into puns, I said, okay, I'm gonna try to come up with some cruise puns and Norwegian puns. Are you ready to tell me if they're good or bad? Are you ready?

Let's go. Let's do it.

Okay. Okay. This is so bad. This is so bad. All right, here we go. Norwegian. More like Norwinning.

Oh.

Oh, come on.

I love that. Wait a minute.

All right, here's another. This is so bad. How about don't wave goodbye to this deal, because a wave, you know, like a wave.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, there you go. That's another one. Okay. All right. This is the worst one. Here it comes on Norwegian. You'll have a hell of a good time.

Like, oh, I like that one.

Come on.

We might steal that for a subject line. Jay, don't. Don't get mad if you see it.

Yeah, I'll be so excited. That'd be amazing.

Wow.

Now I don't know if you're, like, just placating me or you're like, oh, no, that's really good. You might just be like, we really.

Might take that for a subject.

I feel like I could be part of the Norwegian cruise line team.

We take hulls very seriously. Our hull art is one of our key. Oh, it's one of our key differentiators. Right. We're known for our beautiful hull art.

We most recently, we have an amazing artist that just did our Norwegian Luna that we just announced. Yeah. But you'll see us on the seas and our ships will stand out.

I love that. Well, this has been amazing. You're wonderful. Everybody connect with Damara on LinkedIn. We're going to put all sorts of links in the show notes here.

She's wonderful. You're great, Damara. Thanks for being here.

Thanks so much for having me, Jay. This has been so good for me. I love it.

All right, we'll talk to you again soon. Take care.

Thank you. Bye.

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