What are some of the particular challenges you face in designing emails for the security/biometrics space?
One major challenge is explaining what CLEAR is and how our service works, as biometric security is still a relatively new concept for consumers. There’s always a layer of demystifying biometrics, since that word alone can be intimidating. So we soften language and speak more to the CLEAR experience.
There’s also the challenge of striking a balance between portraying ourselves as a secure biometric company and creating a fun, light-hearted email experience that’s compelling to our audiences. To find that equilibrium, we hold our emails to a very high standard with multiple cross-team review and steps in place, including input from our legal team.
One example of finding that harmony was in our recent “your photo ID doesn’t do you justice” campaign, where we paired a relatable experience — not liking your driver’s license or passport picture — with a surprisingly tricky concept to explain — that CLEAR replaces the need for ID entirely. It was a simple, fresh way to educate an audience unfamiliar with CLEAR.
CLEAR’s Photo ID campaign email
How you do explain biometrics to customers. Does that happen in one of your early onboarding emails?
The majority of our members sign up for CLEAR at the airport and are walked through the process in person by our Ambassadors. For those who sign up online, we send a dedicated email explaining how to complete enrollment, which includes adding your fingerprints at the airport.
Wherever we can, we try to reinforce the benefit of experiencing biometrics firsthand — it’s really the best way to understand how CLEAR works!
What is CLEAR is doing to get non-users excited to become a customer? Are you seeing list sign-ups based on account creation or do you have an outbound marketing email to entice more people to sign up for your emails?
We currently don’t collect email addresses from prospective members who are looking for more information about new airport launches, but we may implement this capability in the future.
We always keep our current and former members up to date on our latest airport openings by sending an announcement to all members, which we support through multi-channel campaigns and experiential activations. We try to build excitement around new airport openings, so that members will be excited to spread the word to their friends and family in those areas, which we’re very appreciative of!
What are the primary value propositions for your emails to customers? In other words, once customers have signed up for CLEAR, what do your emails do for them?
An amazing member experience is top priority for us. Our team is focused on the member and their CLEAR journey, so we’re very thoughtful about messaging cadence, relevancy, and value.
Education is a priority for us. In our welcome series for instance, we try to provide the most relevant information to help with onboarding, such as where we’re located, how to complete enrollment, how to add family members to your CLEAR account, etc. That strategy ties into our main goal of making life simple and stress-free for members. Seeing is believing, so driving members to actually use our Lanes is the best recipe for retention and loyalty.
Overall, we send a wide range of content to each of our segmented audiences — from airport announcements, to transactional emails, to surveys, to exclusive ‘guest passes’ that members can forward to friends.
Have you run any tests that you can share with us?
We, of course, do general run-of-the-mill email testing, such as subject line, preheader, CTA and template variation tests, etc. But we also try to get more creative with our testing.
For our Daylight Saving Time campaign, we tested two offers — one discounted rate offer, and one that also included a coffee gift card. That extra bump [of a $10 Starbucks card] moved the needle in enrollments with a lift in conversion rate, and the increase in revenue offset the cost of the cards — it seems like a no brainer, but we wanted the numbers to measure effectiveness, i.e. whether or not it’s worth the added effort.
