Shaping airline customer acquisition and retention plans

IN-DEPTH: transavia’s Niki van Wijk on optimising the media mix

How keen are marketers on improving the lifetime value of the customer in the aviation business? 

Lifetime value, if improved, can increase the effectiveness and return on the advertising spend. In effect, the better the brand engagement in the process, the more effective the spend for a longer period of time.

From an airline’s perspective, transavia’s VP e-Commerce, Niki van Wijk, believes in working on this “value”. 

“Loyalty generates lifetime value and represents potential income in the future,” says Niki, who is scheduled to speak at Sales and Marketing in Travel Europe Summit 2009  to be held in Prague (October 13-14) this year. 

At the same time, there are challenges associated with this, too. 

“The difficulty is that it is usually long(er) term income versus short term income, which is generated through sales/ ROI focused marketing initiatives. And in a heavy cycling industry like the airline business, making short term money weighs heavily,” Niki told EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta. 

Overall, while prioritising marketing initiatives, one has to consider several parameters. Working on lifetime value is only one aspect of planning and executing a marketing campaign. The other aspects include the amount of return on the marketing spend, certainty (the likelihood of the amount of return), timing (estimating when the return would be accrued) and sustainability (for how long there can be a steady stream of profit).

Best mix 

It is recommended that companies should understand their risk profile and strategic goals, develop marketing plans/investments accordingly and encourage a culture of testing new ideas and optimising existing programmes. The focus is on working the best mix for overall marketing plans. 

Niki says online marketing media channels have developed over the years and increased their relevance in the media mix. 

“However, online media is still considered to be most suitable for sales generating campaigns. Whereas television is still considered the most powerful media channel for branding,” she said.  

“The question is how do you compare those goals and thus results? What is the value of a TV commercial that was shown to 350,000 people on a Tuesday night? Also, it needs to be considered how many actually saw that commercial which isn’t clear or exact information is not available. How do you value that (TV commercial sampling) versus an online game where 35,000 people actively interacted with your brand?”

“My belief is that you should attempt to manage and measure your campaigns/ media channels in an integrated manner, but that it is an illusion to be able to quantify all of that - even though some consultants will disagree,” said Niki.            

Some companies do some testing but only in areas they think there is relatively longer term potential for the brand marketing mix.

Niki says testing new ideas is useful, but should not be too time consuming. 

“I believe you should have a clear media and communication plan that consists of proven channels, which you can measure. Same goes for your marketing planning in general. Optimising your media mix should be part of your daily business. Beside this you should reserve some money and time to initiate new products/tools and to test its potential relevance to your marketing mix,” she said. 

Selection

Marketers need to figure out how to prioritise resources be it for SEO, SEM, PR, brand marketing, social media and CRM.

For this, Niki says understanding your position in a market is your most important starting point. 

If you understand what it takes to build your brand successfully, to create a loyal base of customers and to optimise your sales, you will be able to define your communication strategy. 

“This requires insights from your consumers, and therefore research, customer feedback and metrics are important,” she added. 

Adjustment

While today’s economy is challenging, it may or may not change acquisition and retention plans dramatically.  Some marketers feel the combined impact of both traditional media and digital media are extremely important.

Niki says maybe the time of pure branding campaigns will pass by and integrated communication, in terms of messages and media channels, will become key for success. 

Speaking for transavia, she said the company will add tactical sales messages to most campaigns. “Online, we hardly do branding campaigns. The challenge is again to understand your target groups behaviour in terms of willingness to receive a message at a certain moment in time through a certain channel. If it relates, is recognisable, appealing and make sense, customers will know your brand and start buying it,” explained Niki. 

Social media analytics

Marketers acknowledged that it is essential that brands are aware of and monitor conversations that are happening about them in real-time so they can understand how their customers feel and can also protect their reputation where necessary. 

Niki says some companies are still in the process of deciding if they wish to participate. 

“I believe this is not a choice. That choice has been made for you by the customers. Not being there / present in those discussions will become harmful. Of course, you should be careful where you participate and how. This should be based on clear internal policies, following your primary brand values. But listening to customers allows you to improve and reflect about your product, making it future proof,” she said.

“What will strengthen your position even more is if you allow those conversations to take place within your own environment, by creating a blog/forum on your own website. It gives you better control and is also very good for your search positioning,” concluded Niki. 

Overall, marketers admit that given the immediacy of social networking, it’s imperative that the strategy and execution don’t end once it’s out of the door.  

The ability to quickly adapt and modify the approach is important based on that monitoring.

Sales and Marketing in Travel Europe Summit 2009 

Niki van Wijk is scheduled to speak at Sales and Marketing in Travel Europe Summit 2009  to be held in Prague (October 13-14) this year. 

For more information, click here:
http://events.eyefortravel.com/sales-and-marketing/conference/online-marketing-strategies-agenda.asp

or contact:

Gina Baillie
gina@eyefortravel.com