-
Links
- marketing for airlines - Marketing services for airlines (english)
- amara, ingeniería de márketing - Marketing Consultancy Services (spanish)
on-line marketing for airlines
Attracting potential customers to airline websites is the first step towards boosting the sale of flight tickets online.
The orchestration of online marketing campaigns aimed at Internet users is one of the methods that is giving the best results in this direction.
One of the several possibilities available is email marketing. According to a survey conducted by the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), over 35 million Internet users made a travel reservation after receiving information on offers or promotions by email.
The same study also found that in 2003 ten million people were influenced by email marketing to make a trip or journey that they otherwise would not have made.
This means that an online offer may be the start of a transaction or at least a way of attracting customers to the brand and its website.
In order to start up online marketing campaigns, the definition of the goals to be attained and the performance of prior segmentation of the data bases to be employed are both crucial. It is also important to reach persons forming part of the target audience who will receive the offer favourably, with a strong interest in the services offered by the airline. At the same time this type of actions will contribute to brand notoriety.
In this context the email marketing campaigns conducted by Austrian Airlines (which according to organiza.com managed to attract 11,000 new customers) or Vueling are of special interest. The latter was centred on the prize draw of a trip to Venice, linked to the willingness to receive information on special flight offers.
One of the most interesting elements of these actions is the possibility for th results, degree of acceptance and participation and speed of reply to be measured.
The effectiveness of these campaigns depends to a great degree on the definition of an appealing offer, preferably linked to an attractive prize along with a creative message, the capacity to make an impact on the selected target, clearly described benefits and hopefully with a tendency towards virality.
There is wide variety of online marketing methods. According to a survey on the Effectiveness of Display Publicity conducted by IAB and the Cocktail Analysis in April 2009 on a sample of 1035 Internet users of both sexes, aged between 15 and 50 and who had been online for at least one hour before accessing the survey on which the research was based. The results showed that in terms of generation of brand recall, layers and pop-ups were found to the most effective formats. With only 3.1% of the investment, a 23.4% recall rate was attained (+655%). The second most effective format turned out to be online video. Even though only 3 out of 100 euros are destined to this format, its effectiveness on generating brand recall is proportionally much higher. Almost 2 out of 10 of the commercials associated to the brands recalled by the persons surveyed were linked to this format. As could be expected, it was the more creative, dynamic ads that generated greater recall. Over half (54%) of the ads mentioned were dynamic.
It would seem to be a good idea to use online commercials not as isolated, specific actions but rather as part of a strategic approach covering the website itself as well as its promotion.
In this direction, one of the points to be included in this online plan would be the analysis of presence in social networks. The same study found that 78% of the persons surveyed belonged to one of the social networks under analysis (Facebook, Fotolog, Tuenti, Myspace, Hi5, Twitter, Sonico, Badoo).
It is clear that these communities provide an opportunity for spreading information on airlines’ special offers, however it is not as simple to find a way to do so successfully; this will entail the analysis of what moves our future customers. Airlines such as American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic already have a presence in Facebook.
On Twitter, some airlines such as Vueling only offer corporate information to their users whereas other such as JetBlue offer a more a more active service where customers are provided with access to exclusive offers.
Other companies such as the Dutch airline KLM have developed their own social network, the China Club, aimed both at young people looking for cheap flights and the business community.
A good online strategy therefore requires the analysis of different possibilities as well as the use of high doses of creativity capable of captivating our Internet target audience, attracting them to our special offers d where hopefully they will become customers.
Sources:
http://www.revistadeinternet.com/e_Marketing/2619/2009/06/17/El-80-recuerda-las-campanas-on-line
http://www.revistaorganiza.com/noticia.asp?ref=1069
Similar posts:
- e-mail marketing
- airlines and experience marketing
- the importance of websites in the airline industry
- airlines and web 2.0
- a wi-fi christmas gift at airports
Your comment |
Email This Post
| | Visit our website
comments
Your comment: