A look back over the IAB’s fourth half day conference of the year that assembled leaders from online travel space to converse and share there knowledge and experiences.

Tuesday, 16 September 2008

Kieron Matthews kicked off the event looking back over his personal experiences with the booking of his holidays online. As the process has lengthened and become more complex, Kieron said ‘it helps to be digital, useful and visible’ for you to get the most out of your brand.

It was then the turn of the speakers and first up was Kevin May from Travolution. He discussed his perspective on the current status and the future of the market in ‘Travel 2.0’. Kevin mentioned going ‘back to basics’ and finding out exactly where your audience is and then working out how to reach them. He spoke of the importance of not putting pressure on your consumer to buy and overpowering them with copious amounts of products, rather its best to present a relaxed atmosphere for them to browse peacefully. Kevin demonstrated this with the STA Travel group they created for the social networking site Facebook - the consumer does not log onto Facebook with the intention to purchase but to socialise with friends and share experiences with one another. It’s all about having the consumer as a ‘brand advocate’!

Next up to the stage was Microsoft Advertising’s Nick Drew, who presented their research, ‘Better Together: The value of combining search and display in a travel campaign’. The research - based on a major international airline’s online search and display campaign - reinforced the importance of combining both these elements in an integrated online campaign, rather than focusing on one or another internet marketing tool in isolation.

Lewis Lenssens from Netizen Digital walked through the ‘travel buying cycle’. The cycle process is long, complex and constantly changing, and Lewis said the steps taken by a consumer generally consist of: Inspiration, research, product choice, supplier’s choice, confirmation and then finally purchase. He also informed us that users on average make 12 travel-related searches, visit 22 websites and take almost a month before making a purchase. So understanding the buying cycle is very much a vital part to securing that sale.

The stage gauntlet was then passed over to Russell Gould from Thomas Cook. He took us through his four point strategic plan which revolved around retaining old and acquiring new customers as well as building upon their brand. He stated that using email marketing to engage and re-engage the customer about their prospective holiday keeps the relationship strong. Another way Thomas Cook held consumers’ attention was by merging traditional email communication with TV to produce their new e-magazine – which received a whopping 40% click-through rate to the Thomas Cook site. Russell rounded off his presentation showing the audience their new personalised cruise video which enables the customer to get exactly what they want out of their holiday.

After some much needed tea and biscuits, Tom Bazeley of Lean Mean Fighting Machine presented his Creative Showcase winning campaign ‘Non stop Fernando’, produced for Emirates.com. Explaining the brief set by the clients that they needed to propel awareness of the new route from Dubai to San Paulo. They proceeded in making a live site that lasted for 14 hours and 40 minutes with Fernando talking non-stop about how great Brazil is.

It was then Anneli Ritaris from Bigmouthmedia’s turn. Anneli spoke about managing multinational campaigns for Hilton Hotels with outstanding results. She discussed the significance of optimising campaigns to capture users early on in the purchase cycle - via market knowledge, experienced localisators for multi-national local language campaigns and the importance generic PPC keywords play. She assertdd that: ‘All channels play a role – understand the relationship’.

Mark Simpson of Maxymiser, gave us some food for thought on conversion management. He mentioned that conversion metrics should be managed proactively, accurately and in real time. Mark went onto discuss campaigns they created for National Express and Flight Centre. Their work for National Express compared their original fares section of the site with a new second version, the second version resulted in a 14% increase in flow through checkout. Mark reinforced the point that conversion management makes your web site perform better, sells more promotions, delivers better user experience, optimises your forms, processes and check-outs and increases customer numbers and their satisfaction.

Catronina Campbell and Doug Campbell from Foviance delivered their presentation on merging widgets, CGM and social media. They presented their work on the STA Travel Facebook community. Facebook offers an easy way to market products, services and improve customer communication, and this platform attracts employees of STA as it empowers them to create, manage content and product feeds through the CMS which is shared across a Facebook sharing application. The campaign was widely regarded as the most successful community in travel boasting approx 25,000 friends.

A common theme from the day was usability; the easier it is for the consumer to move through each step of the chain it boosts the likelihood of a sale. And like any other brand sector, get in front of the consumers wherever possible, at every point of the customer journey.