Hoteliers, airlines and tour operators have been ahead of the curve in so many aspects of marketing – they were promoting loyalty programmes, building apps and collecting data way before many. But there’s one thing they lag behind on: a personalised approach to marketing.
And there’s really no excuse. According to online travel group Amadeus, 86% of travellers consider, like or value personalised offers (ICEF Monitor, 2015) and the marketers who personalise their customers’ web visits typically see a 19% uplift in sales (Monetate).
The capability to present the recipient with personalised content, offers and communications is already here. Technology such as our PureTargeting solution allow brands to deliver personalised content across email and websites – serving the customer based on their interests and behaviour.
We take a look at how travel suppliers can improve personalisation in their marketing. How they can go far beyond simply inserting a name into an email and deliver relevant and personalised content throughout their customer’s entire journey.
Bespoke landing pages
It’s no good putting all your effort into personalising communications if you’re going to then shove the recipient on to a one-size-fits-all landing page. 74% of online consumers state they get frustrated with websites when content appears which has nothing to do with their interests (Janrain, 2013), so a personalised landing page will dramatically improve your customer experience. It doesn’t have to be complicated to create a personalised page – you can use PureTargeting to displaying things like the browser’s name, location and show content that’s relevant to their browsing or purchase history.
Personal recommendations
Anyone who’s researched a flight, hotel or holiday will know it can take hours, and sometimes days. Help the browser find what they’re looking for faster by using PureTargeting to display relevant recommendations based on their interests or what they’ve browsed or bought before. You can even make suggestions that they may not have considered by displaying crowdsourced ideas of bestselling resorts, rooms or destinations.
Providing social proof
Show potential holidaymakers what people like them liked or booked. You can do this easily using customer profiling, managed through PureIntelligence. And with this profiling data, you can show relevant content using PureTargeting. Research shows that 70% of consumers trust social proof such as customer ratings, reviews and recommendations above what brands say (Neilson, 2013), so you’re much more likely to give them confidence and pique their interest using this approach.
Bespoke calls-to-action
Make sure you’re adapting your call-to-action to the potential booker and their needs – offer ‘free children child places’ to families, ‘free room upgrades’ to couples or promote ‘free gym access’ to a business traveller. Making calls-to-action relevant to the customer improves conversion rates – a recent study found a 42% higher view-to-submission rate using a bespoke approach than with standardised calls-to-action (Hubspot).
Suggested upgrades
Travel operators are the masters of the upsell, presenting potential travellers with a multitude of options to improve their holiday experience. Our PureTargeting technology seamlessly integrates upselling into websites by suggesting complementary purchases at the checkout. From airport transfers and car hire to room upgrades and flexible ticket options – there are a host of opportunities for the travel operator to tempt their customers into increasing the value of their booking.
And this is just a taster of what’s possible when it comes to personalising communications and content. Technology such a PureTargeting makes personalisation easily, time-efficient and cost-effective meaning you can tailor your marketing to every recipient and visitor.
So next time you think about personalisation make sure you’re thinking beyond just including the customer’s name in their email. Look at how you can make their journey from your communications, through your website and to your checkout as relevant and as personal as possible.
