Tag Archives: #emarketing

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].