Tag Archives: #digitalmarketing

How legacy airlines are using digital innovation to engage customers and improve they experience.

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Low-cost airlines retain a lead when it comes to online engagement but do not necessarily have everything their own way. Legacy Airlines are constantly developing strategies to enhance customer experiences through digital marketing approaches in order to generate customer engagement.

Building long-term relationships with customers is essential for any sustainable business and this applies equally to online elements of a business. Customer Relationship Management is a marketing-led approach to building and long term business with customers. (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Having more control over customer relationship allow airlines to increase their capacity to proactively monitor and plan how efficient they are with aspects such as routes, timetable, seat allocation, refreshments and cancellations during the flight.

Airlines such as Delta airlines has started using the Guest Service Tool, which provides its 22,000 flight attendants with key information so they can better engage with customers while in flight. Similar to this, British Airways and Iberia or its competitor Lufthansa have started incorporating ‘Head of Innovation and Technology’ roles and digital labs into the organisation in order to come up with ways to better engage with the customer.

The following points are some of the ways that legacy carriers are using to engage customers and differentiate from low-cost airlines.

#1 Boarding  Wearables

In order to enhance a great customer experience, Legacy carriers should focus on every stage of the journey process, involving when passengers book the ticket, check-in, drop bags, board the plane, travel and arrive to destination. One of the innovations playing an important role in defining the airport experience is wearable technologies. Virgin Atlantic led the way being the first airline with a trial of its kind in London Heathrow’s Upper Class Wing, and has since announced that it will productionise Google Glass.

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Smartwatches Bording passes are being offered by of Vueling, Iberia and AirBerlin and Copenhagen Airport has undertaken a passenger-facing trial of Google Glass, Furthermore, Japan Airlines has equipped select members of staff with smartwatches as part of an ongoing trial.

#2 Retail – Apps integrating NFC

Air New Zealand has taken advantage of today’s ‘coffee culture’ and has been featuring barista’s who make freshly brewed coffee to passenger’s preferences in its ‘Koru’ lounges for some time. Customers can order their favourite coffee by ticking a few boxes on a piece of paper, add their name and hand it over.However, this initiative has been taken to digital levels improving the flyers experiences.

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In a clever move, passengers now can order Barista-made coffee via ANZ’s tablet or smartphone app the minute they walk into one of the airline’s Koru Clubs around New Zealand, including its international lounge at Auckland Airport.

#3 Innovative Content Campaigns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsMZRl71Zo4

Virgin America excelling itself in the world of social video, and launched a gigantic multichannel, world-building content campaign that is as hilarious as it is inventive. The campaign is a six-hour video in which “BLAH Airlines” illustrates a satire of how awful air travel can be. The message behind this ad is that BLAH Airlines is the antithesis of Virgin America, and that life is far too short to be wasting your time flying with any other airline. Furthermore, Virgin take the ad further by creating a website for BLAH Airlines that not only takes ages to load but is also non-responsive, mobile unfriendly, difficult to read. Responses from audience has been positive and also a blog post about the 18 reasons to love Virgin’s BLAH Airlines content marketing campaign has been written.

#4 Email Marketing Innovation

Email is the 21st century evolution of traditional direct marketing. It’s almost free and gets delivered almost instantaneously (they don’t call conventional mail snail mail for nothing). It retains the strengths of a push medium, while adding the potential for automated response loops and tracking via digital channels. (Ryan, n.d.)

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Email Marketing is a digital marketing strategy frequently used by Airlines in which the messages which are sent often contains broad content and do not provide personalised experience that today’s customers expect, especially for first-class travellers. However, as that every traveler experiences elements of travel differently, Delta Airlines found the way to take its SkyMiles frequent flier emails to new heights by using data to deliver segmented, relevant messages. Together with its agency DigitasLBi and marketing technology provider Experian Marketing Services, in May 2015, Delta launched a Flight Cycle Program sends targeted, triggered emails during the four key stages of their travel experience: plan, prep, fly, and home. As result customer engagement has increased. Along with cutting back on email clutter, the Flight Cycle emails produced open rates of 60% (doubling Delta’s 30% benchmark) and a 17.4% click-through rate—up from 4%.

 

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2012). Digital marketing. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Ryan, D. (n.d.). Understanding digital marketing.

How Airlines can benefit from offering in-flight Wi-Fi service?

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In-Flight Wi-Fi have been great news to customers as its allow them to stay connected during the journey. Airlines know that passengers expect a wireless connection, and they are eager to offer it. Furthermore, the Airlines also benefit by offering this service. There are two main benefits to an airline.

1. In-flight advertising and shopping promotions.

One of the best ways to advertise to people is through in-flight advertising where flight passengers are a captive audience and cannot just get up and walk away. Some of the ads are more traditional whereas some of them are involves high technology such as touch screens and interactive ads. This is very convenient for advertisers as they can target specific audiences and reach millions of people on thousands of flights everyday. However, passengers can get tired and annoyed of the constant in flight ads and announcements.

According to Chaffey and Smith (2008) a key success factor to achieve main digital marketing objectives is to provide customer satisfaction through the electronic channel. Mike Flores, president of U.S. Airways, states, “A lot of passengers complain about it because they don’t want to listen to ads in flight”.

The growing availability and popularity of in-flight Wi-Fi, it is attracting significant attention from marketers, who are looking to reach this captive audience with shopping promotions and advertising.

The negative attitude towards advertising in-flight could be reduced by offering in-flight wifi service for free. By offering these service marketers can sneak in advertising whereas maintaining customers happy with the free service. During the 2009 holiday season Delta Airlines partnered with Ebay and gave passengers on nearly 300 airplanes free access to wifi during their flights for seven days beginning November 24. Passengers were given a promotional code that takes them directly to Ebay’s Holiday homepage which featured daily deals and advertisements for various brands and partners of Ebay.

This was a great way for not only Delta and Ebay to advertise, but also for all the other brands featured on the Ebay homepage. This idea was especially successful because it was implemented during the holiday season, which is one of the busiest travel periods and shopping times of the year.  In addition, some airlines use Wireless Networks to Replace the Seat-Back Catalog

2. Data mining.

Data mining and other forms of analysis are the key to a firm’s ability to target its customers and prospects based on their lifetime value to the firm as well as the basis for identifying and meeting the customer’s needs and wants.

The technology benefits marketing by making tacit knowledge more accessible. Some of the most important knowledge about customers is tacit knowledge, such as their shopping patterns, interest and activities profiles, payment transactions and chatroom discussions. (Wind and Mahajan, 2002)

The opportunities created by mobile data mining can change the way airlines market and advertise their services. Airlines could install and exploit WiFi infrastructure for customer insight that helps to personalize the flying experience and develop better target promotions. For example, on some airlines, flight attendants carrying tablet computers will soon have far more data on fliers at their fingertips, including their allergies, seat preferences and whether the carrier lost both their bags last trip.

Furthermore, airlines’ marketing pitches are also becoming more relevant, in part based on customers’ online-browsing history, their likes on Facebook and their income.  Thomas Davenport, a Babson College professor who has studied how airlines use data, says such systems will help carriers make strides in onboard revenue, an area where they have long missed the opportunity presented by bored, typically affluent buyers trapped in one place for several hours.

As it can be seen, Wi-Fi in-flight can benefit not only the passengers but also the company. However, is important to take into account that offering WIFI for free could be costly, According to Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, these cost involves expensive roaming charges and a physical weight cost which adds to the airline fuel bill (Read More).

On an interview to it was asked to Tony Tyler, Director General and CEO of IATA, whether he believed airlines should offer free Wi-Fi on board to passengers, and that was when Tyler’s forward-thinking moment passed. “No,” he replied (Read More). Furthermore, Infrastructure to provide Wi-Fi on aircraft, is much more complicated than infrastructure to provide Wi-Fi in airport terminals.

References

Chaffey, D. and Smith, P. (2008). EMarketing eXcellence. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Wind, J. and Mahajan, V. (2002). Digital Marketing. Symphonya. Emerging Issues in Management, (1).

How Airlines interact with their customers through Digital Marketing.

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In order to satisfy consumer needs and improve interactions with customers, digital marketing has become highly important for the airline industry. Digital marketing is applied from, the moment the customer is searching for places to go on holidays, booking on a mobile phone or computer, to the moment they are boarding using the app of the company as boarding pass on their mobile or even Google Glass.

There are several digital marketing strategies applied by the airlines. One very frequently used is email marketing. Ryan and Jones (2009) highlighted the importance of customer relationships management when using email marketing strategies. According to them, by using CRM technologies, companies can segment target lists, allowing them to focus highly targeted campaigns to the customers most likely to respond. The company can fine-tune its email offerings and align it with its customers purchase history. In the case of the airlines industry, for example, American Airlines uses triggered-email strategy to remind consumers that had add a booking to the cart but haven’t purchased the ticket yet. In this email American Airlines provides the lower prices and the best offers compared to the option abandoned in the cart.

Experian has searched some interesting facts about email marketing in the airlines, for example, the winter email campaigns generates the most clicks due that the people want to spend holidays in warmer destinations. Another fact is that Airline loyalty mailings have high customer engagement with a 72 percent lift in unique click rates for loyalty mailings compared to non-loyalty mailings.

Nowadays the presence of any company in the social media is an essential channel to deliver promotion, information and to interact with consumer. In the airlines industry there is a new trend called “Social Seating” . Airlines are increasingly allowing passengers who opt-in to share their social media profiles and use others’ to pick their seatmates.
A company launching a successful digital campaign that had over 1m YouTube hits was  British Airways with its cross-channel campaign, Magic of Flying, that connected with consumers through an interactive billboard campaign. The key to the campaign’s success was its call to action – the hashtag – which encouraged people to go to its #lookup branded site.

Another way in which airlines enrich interaction with consumers is through online booking and check-in. This not only improve the customer experience but its also provide the company with wide customer data that can be use for future marketing campaigns such as mailing.

However, many companies have been criticized because of use of passengers data. For example, Delta Airlines mentioned this subject and received negative responses. When customers found that their personal information was programmed onto Delta’s website, they were less than pleased.

The goal for airlines, however, is to deliver  a better experience. Imagine the flight attendants with tablet computers researching the people on the flight. Some is beneficial- allergies, preferences, and nationality may affect the food they serve to each flier.

Some high cost airlines are offering new technologies to interact with their customers. Virgin Atlantic for example, was the first airline offering air travellers to experience the benefits Google Glass technology as they arrive at London Heathrow airport, in an innovative pilot scheme that started in 2016. Concierge staff in the airline’s Upper Class Wing will be using Google Glass and other wearable technology to deliver the industry’s most high tech and personalised customer service yet.
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American Airlines has also implemented WIFI on board in order to keep interacting with their customers when they are on board and also keep satisfying passenger needs. For only $19, American Airlines passengers can enjoy of this service all flight length.
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References:

Experian, (2014). Email Marketing Trends. [online] Available at: https://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/white-papers/ccm-travel-industry-email-marketing-trends.pdf [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

OnSpot Social, (2014). Airlines Turn Digital Marketing into Data Collection. [online] Available at: http://onspotsocial.com/digital-marketing-turns-data-collection-major-airlines/ [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

Ryan, D. and Jones, C. (2009). Understanding digital marketing. London: Kogan Page.

Smart Insights, (2015). Digital Marketing in the Airline industry. [online] Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/b2b-digital-marketing/b2b-strategy/digital-marketing-in-the-airline-industry/ [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

the Guardian, (2014). Five brands leading the way in omni-channel marketing. [online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2014/nov/28/omni-channel-marketing-john-lewis-british-airways [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

How companies can increase sales whereas reduce costs by using digital marketing strategies? Airlines industry example.

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A business can develop its online marketing strategy for very little cost and can potentially replace costly advertising channels such as Yellow Pages, television, radio and magazine and other conventional marketing strategies that can be expensive and time consuming. The essence of this approach is to leverage the excitement around a company idea via free/low-cost platforms and to interact with consumers in a more effective way. Examples of how digital marketing and certain technology can reduce overheads involve techniques such as website-to-back office system integration, allowing users to personally update their profiles and linking to their CRM. In turn, this reduces any off-site administration costs.

The above is just one example. There are many ways that using the internet can save on overall company costs. For instance, switching from printed newspapers to online versions, or getting rid of direct mail and opting for email marketing.

According to Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2010), this benefit is delivered and achieved through online e-mail communications, sales and services transactions to reduce staff, print and postage costs. Saving also accrue through web self service where customers answer queries through online content.  Some typical strategies mentioned by Chaffey are:

-Generates 10% more sales for same communication budget

-Reduce cost of direct marketing by 15% through email

-Increase web self-service to 40% of all services enquires and reduce overall cost-to-serve by 10%

 

The Airlines industry:

The airline industry is taking advantage of lowering cost by the use of digital marketing, especially low-cost airlines which are always seeking to offer the best price to their customers and keep to the minimum all possible operating costs. For example, low cost airlines practice direct sales of air ticket or through online reservation and buying. A cost cutting strategy would be implementing by low cost airlines to keep their cost low and to have cost advantages.In the airlines industry, the application of digital marketing is very easy to perceive since they show how organisations can use online communications such as their website, third party websites and email marketing in the following way:

-Direct response medium: Airlines use sponsored links when a user is researching a flight using a search engine to prompt them to directly visiting the airline website site by clicking through it.

-Platform for sales transactions: online booking.

Relationship building: Medium where the airline can interact with its customers to better understand their needs and publicise relevant products and offers. For example: Easyjet uses its email newsletter and tailored alerts about special deals to help keep its customers and engage them in dialogue to understand their needs through completing surveys and polls.

Another Example is Ryanair. This is Europe’s favourite airline committed to offer the lowest fare by following its operations in a the lowest cost model possible. Ryanair distributes accommodation travel insurance and most of its services through its official website. This enables Ryanair to increase sales while reducing unit costs. Ryanair encourages passengers to do a online check-in with no charge as they charge extra for doing the check-in at the airport and as result, internet bookings account for 99% of all reservations. It also offers discounts on its website on pre-assigned seats, extra bags, boarding card issue and so on. (O’Higgins, 2010)

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Adopting these online services allow Ryanair to reduce its staff number to the minimum and to save €50 million per year.

 

To conclude, a well-implemented digital marketing strategy can enable companies to reduce costs, improve interaction with customers and increase sales. In the case of the airline industry these strategies are growing its adaprtion and are crucial for low-cost airlines as they are always trying to minimize cost and offer the lowest fares for their customers.

 

References

Business 2 Community, (2016). 5 Ingredients for Airline Online Marketing Success. [online] Available at: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/5-ingredients-for-airline-online-marketing-success-0301240#8vsw3q3BAYcrU6di.97 [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

BusinessZone, (2013). 10 Benefits of Digital Marketing v. Traditional Marketing. [online] Available at: http://www.businesszone.co.uk/community-voice/blogs/robbo75/10-benefits-of-digital-marketing-v-traditional-marketing [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F. and Chaffey, D. (2012). Digital marketing. Harlow: Pearson.

Marketingmagazine.co.uk, (2016). Low cost airlines rise above low-fares marketing focus. [online] Available at: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1089343/low-cost-airlines-rise-above-low-fares-marketing-focus [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

O’Higgins, E. (2010). Ryanair: the low fares airline-future destinations? Case Study. [online] Staffordshire University. Available at: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/sgc1/faculty/blb10089-3/documents/RyanAirCase.pdf [Accessed 23 Jan. 2016].

Smart Insights, (2015). Marketing a start up company on a low budget. [online] Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/marketing-a-start-up-company/ [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

Argos, Leading a high street revolution. (case of study)

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Argos, the UKs leading digital retailer serves around 123 million customers a year through its network of 758 stores. Being a aware of the importance of the digital age, Argos has as goal to transform the traditional in-store experience by opening more online stores. The challenge faced by Argos is to take into account every customer feedback and opinions of digital stores shared in different social media channels but with stores across the length of the UK and an estimated 123 million customers a year, managing, dissecting and digesting the volume of response would be a challenge. To accomplish this, Argos is using a social listening platform called Brandwatch Analytics helping it to understand consumers reactions and feelings front of the new concept stores. Brandwatch gathers millions of online conversations every day providing users the tools to analyse them empowering brands to make smarter, data-driving business decision.  Using Brandwatch Argos is able to segment social data by creating categories for each store including some criteria such as location data, names of the shops and streets. Argos can also set up Rules to segment the data even more, filtering data into pre-set categories and helping Argos to identify the performance of all the stores by feedbacks filtered in social networkings like Twitter.  Argos can also identify who was talking and where the social conversation originated by using demographics and location functionality helping it to identify consumer behaviour. By knowing customers sentiment and feedbacks Argos can give a response and make changes fasters by using this real-time information on customer satisfaction. Argos has exploit social analytics to its advantage, helping prove with supporting data, that its new digital concepts stores deliver the exact experience that its customers want.