A review of travel website Destinology and their online brand reach with tips on how to improve it and and get more brand reach with new channels

1. Destinology have just taken delivery of a new City Break product from
IT. The product has been delayed and now needs to be
implemented into the business asap.
What actions would I take as Head of Marketing to make this product
work?
Assumptions

most if not all of the actions I would take would have been planned in / initiated prior to delay
with delay putting some of this activity on hold

We have 400 more city breaks ready to go live asap

Budget has been agreed for online and offline launch

2. An integrated online and offline campaign promoting the new city breaks range and our
expanded product offer
1 Offline element will focus on brochure mailshot to existing customer base plus key media
placements promoting new range
2 Online element will take the extended product offering and use a combination of
recruitment channels to engage with our audience profile to recruit new customers cost
effectively
3 Social media will be a big player in the campaign and activity will be co-ordinated across
all platforms
4 Campaign long incentivised competition will drive qualified new customer leads
5 RAF discount given for any customer whose friends purchase a city break
Website Dev changes may be required for the campaign however depends if we can add to
dev list in time – may be a nice to have
The Campaign – City Breaks
- Easy to implement, minimal IT resource, minimal cost
- Personalisation and localisation will be key in next few years
- Provides great info from customers which we can use to expand / improve offer
Main message Competition message
Over 800 city breaks now available
from Detsinlogy... Win a luxury break for 2 worth x

3. Whats the competition doing?
Inspiring and good graphics with clear price points and savings = live chat also visible

4. Whats the competition doing?
Again inspiring and a different
take on city breaks
Let us inspire you – music
cities, national parks, China for
exotic explorers etc
Provides inspiring solutions for
travellers

5. Whats the competition doing?
Trade homepage well – good functionality

6. What are we doing?
Slider needs better
trading
USPs?
Savings, Price points
etc – do we want to
be shouting?
Main content is
buried BTF
Ned to improve how
we trade category
Why do I have to
select somewhere –
inspire me!

7. What may we need to address on site pre launch?
Mobile – no switch to mobile on desktop site
Live chat – buried / in top nav – not prominent
Slider – too many options – can we trade offers better
Feefo – add overlay
Category images – not clickable
Star ratings – clarify / change colour / lost a little
Search filter – need more attributes longer term to provide better UX
Email signup – do we want more prominence / incentivised overlay?
UGC on hotel pages – great content and good SEO / staff answers
Awards – TTG 2014 awards not listed
Meet team page – cant find / do we have / got a question – ask one of our
Destinologists
Holiday Extras – shout more / buried / we take care of everything
Testimonials – can we start collecting / if even manually from FB to start
Discounts – can we make more prominent / add as attribute
Sort filters – need to add more options in line with competition
Sort filters – why do I need to enter a destination?

8. What does the cotemporary luxury traveller want in 2015? “A new breed of traveller” Report by
HVS highlights 3 major factors
Rising Affluence / changing attitudes - Rise of the Millenial – modern travellers no longer
focused on 5 star experience but more on time experiences. .
Globalisation - The world is getting smaller – people want their own unique experiences.
Luxury travellers are looking for their own “Finds” - how can we help the? Come up with truly
unique finds
Technology
The selfie, social media, connected world etc brings technology into every stage of the
experience
Connect with your customer regularly and provide technology to do it
Again and again unique experiences, new destinations, technology and sharing come out
strongly – I would be looking at these longer term
Given this research I would look ta trying to integrate into City Break launch campaign ….

9. Understand the Product Functionality, price, quality, margins etc – staff
need to fully understand
Understand the Competition SWOT – us vs them, how can we get a steal, what
is missing, what is additional
Targeting our audience Best customers, existing city break customers etc
Unique Value Proposition Why buy from us? What is special? USP?
Marketing Strategy Online and Offline, consistency of message, TOV
and relevant channels
Internal briefing All staff handout, Pen portraits, targets, inform
staff weekly
Timelines and Rollout All parties have been advised and testing
complete re tagging/ KPIS agreed etc etc
Product launch SEE NEXT SLIDES
Before launch, following work to be undertaken for staff handouts etc

11. Offline Collateral Online Collateral
Test DM mailshot to top customers
Test DM brochure to top customers
Press / Affiliate / PR / Blogger handouts
Insert campaign – conde nast traveller etc
Ad creative – spot media buys
Banner creative re GDN / Affiliates
Email creative plus retargetting
Email RAF creative
PPC campaign – ad groups set up
Social imagery – all channels
Rich media video – Youtube rollovers etc

13. Industry influencers - who are our influencers and how can we use them
effectively on launch? 3rd
party partnerships, CEOs, top tweeters etc
Customer base – who are top customers? Can we get their testimonials on
site and use them for endorsements etc. Exclusive discount – for 1 month only
– off all City Breaks identify and offer 'exclusive” discounts for any RAFs. Who
engages a lot with us on Social – get them more involved..
Offline – good old fashioned letter to top customers – Tweets wear off but a
letter ...Online – who are our best advocates online?
Bloggers – Who are our top bloggers? Do we know? We should engage more
with them and nurture relationship offer them same discount as above for 1
month – possible London session for bloggers? Get them on board – Luxury
Travel Bloggers / weekend away bloggers
Media targets – press pack for media contacts etc. We are a luxury brand and
this should be reflected in brand look feel in press packs with selection of top
hotels
PR -what PR are we creating in the industry? Do we have PR agency to
nurture relationships?
Staff – Use staff – we have an engaged workforce who love the brand – how
can they use Social Media etc Young workforce therefore SM savvy – use
them

14. Made by Originals
Coolhunter
Four Seasons Magazine
Hoosta Magazine
Luxique Travel
Five Star Alliance Insider
Paridizo
Kuoni i-travel
SLH Blog
Luxury Travel Vietnam
Artisans of Leisure
Kiwi Collection
Gourmet Chick
Our Man on the Ground
Globorati
Luxury Travel Magazine
Supertravel
Pret a voyager

15. Ask them to follow you on social media and comment on and share what you post.
Ask them to write positive reviews and testimonials on your site, review sites like
Citysearch, or their blog and social media profiles.
Ask them if you can film them talking about their experience with your brand.
Ask them to contribute to communities or forums.
Ask them for referrals.
Ask them to write blog posts or create images for you.
Ask them if you can use their experience as a case study.
Ask them to speak directly (over the phone or via email or chat) to potential
customers.
Ask them to come up with FAQ questions and answers or identify improvements for
your website
How could we use these
advocates to improve conversion?
Eg embedded content at checkout?
In return we give discount options at
checkout?
How can Brand Advocates help us?

17. Offline campaign Online Campaign
DM mailshot to top customers
DM brochure to top customers
Press / Affiliate / PR / Blogger handouts
Insert campaign – conde nast traveller etc
Offline ads
Affiliates
PPC
Retargetting
Email
Video
Social

18. All Affiliates emailed re competition, new creative, new City Breaks addition to
inventory etc
Most affiliates are London based – perhaps a launch evening for the new campaign –
what we are aiming to achieve etc (something I did for Jacamo launch)
Driven to City breaks landing page – email capture overlay for competition entry
Are we competitive? (Sandals – 4-6%, Luxury Link -same).
- review rates and adjust if margin
- if not, provide stepped targets and bonuses for each affiliate based on ave sales
- if no margin for comm changes, run affiliate competition – for most improved
sales during campaign – prize being City Break for 2 of their choice
Affiliates

19. Landing pages ad specific but not apparent
Improve CTR by moving slider? Eg weddings – does not show engaging wedding image /
offer
Review campaign set ups and review UX for CTR improvements
Paid Search – revise current
Luxury Hotel Cape Town

20. Paid Search – revise current
Review match types – Luxury hotels cape town is broad matched on luxury
– going to homepage BUT have 21 Cape town hotels and better landing
page – big opportunity here for bidding at destination level

21. Paid Search – City Break reach

22. Paid Search – City Break reach

In Beta in US – real time price inventory fed
through Googles API

In effect an adwords for the travel sector

Trial performing well – great opportunity for
City Break recruitment

Revise DGN creative and introduce most
popular city breaks creative

Add competition details

Add price savings test creative

Optimise each Ad campaign for each
destination

Ensure each destination landing page
have sufficient offer (eg 10 hotels)

Ensure the landing pages are optimised
for each ad group (esp image and UX)

23. Video
Travel industry in particular has seen rise of customers using more video to source holidays
Coupled with improved technology to distribute AND luxury branding and imagery
With video ad networks, we can get across
the luxury element of our offering

24. ..
.
Competition
Lots of opportunity to drive new
customer traffic
Have we done before? If not then
at least test
Traffic may be less qualified than
normal however ROI may prove
worth it in long term
Email add capture and follow up
asap with City Break offers
Data drops into ECRM program
Bulking up new customer
recruitment

25. Launch offering / competition across all social channels
Integrated creative / message across all channels
Daily updates – today's top city break and why
Make it quirky for better engagement eg
– these are the 5 most unusual things to do in Palermo – create stickiness and
get great feedback / engagement
– 5 places the locals suggest in .….
Social Catacombs of Palermo

26. Email
City breaks email to customer
database
Add more USPs to email – awards,
Feefo rating etc
Show discounts on creative – save up
to X
Price needs to be more visible
RAF email and social offer on all
emails throughout campaign
Refer a friend and get X off your next
booking with Destinology
Logic – high end market / better
experience / happier with service /
more likely to recommend

27. Email – abandoned basket
Travel companies one vertical which is not
chasing up lost sales effectively.
Improve contact frequency and logic behind
contact
Improve creative message re existing
contact – not sufficient
Combine phone with email also – and test
uplift in conversion
EG High value abandons get phone call and
follow up email
Lower value abandons receive improved
email creative
Co-op travel started converting 30% of
abandons after dropping off site

28. Change subject line to more relevant – Can
we help … Is there a problem etc
Can we personalise at base level – eg I
assume this is simple site re-targetting and
not basket?
Basket should be pulling holiday details /
name etc
I would also be adding other offers from that
category – millenium do good job here
Add more USPs / trust signals and add /
trial tel number
Show more city break options (eg in same
country or by biggest discount?)
Email – site retargetting

29. Can we work with VE Interactive to start pulling in more dynamic content
into both email creative (ie someone looked at break in Vienna – we pull
Viena specific content) and dynamic ads?
Dynamic Content

30. Partner Advertising
Lots of opportunity to drive brand awareness working with luxury travel partners –
blogs, review sites etc. What do we know re our consumer? Pen Portrait profile –
match against selection of relevant inventory....

32. Essential for the success of City Breaks is that we have our post contact
strategy lined up and we are doing all we can to get that conversion. In the
absence of a proper CRM strategy this is what I would concentrate on..
1 Can we improve on retargetting emails – content, more city breaks,
more deals etc better offers
2 Can we make sure we can handle any site visit enquiries in sufficient
time and test messaging – christopher ford
3 Wilmslow store not emailed out my package to Sri Lanka – customers
need initial greeting and adequate follow up
4 Retargetting segmented by high and medium value – calls made to high
value followed by email

33. Basic ECRM program to be mapped out with above touchpoints as base – suited for
luxury travel market – including “HAVE A GREAT TRIP' and 'POST TRIP FOLLOW
UP EMAIL

35. Crowdbooster – focusing on social
media engagement FB / TW and helps
improve presence
Klout – “Scores” media performance
and looks at engagement across all
platforms
Reporting - 3rd
party tools

36. Customer base health and trading trading rate YOY – would look at some form of this to
esatablish health of database and impact of ECRM
Reporting - trading rate YOY

37. Channel Specific reporting to agreed KPIs showing YOY growth eg
Traffic, Call Centre enquiries, Email signup, Competition entries, Data capture,
Bookings
Reporting – Channel Specific

38. Ultimately all our city break activity should be fed into overarching Customer lifetime
value models – giving us a good idea of how the base is trading and if our acquisition
and retention plans are working each year
Reporting – Lifetime Value

39. Post launch Review

Perfomance – review initial weekly sales vs budget / KPIs and assess good /
bad / how can we improve?

Delay – did it come out when we said? If not, why? What can we learn?

Timing – could it have better? City Break apetite in January?

Response – how did market respond? Positive / negative / lukewarm Did we do
all we could to push the product? If negative – why? Customer engagement
essential

Sales force – how was product perceived / could it have been improved
• Feedback -sales tea
• Promotional material
• Marketing materials
• Feedback from customers

Customer Support – products fail regularly due to poor support
• Customer service – educated sufficiently
• Product information – did we have enough?

Website – load balancing, server capacity handled etc

40. Traffic
Audience
Channels
Recruitment
Acquisition
Brand reach
CPA
Channel mix
The Offer
Trade
Offers , Deals
Merchandising /
buyers
Range planning
Descriptions
Attributes
Plugins
P and P
Returns
The Offer
Convert
Checkout
Multi channel
funnels
Analytics
CRO testing
Streamline
Make purchase
easy
Retain
Re-engage
ECRM
Customer contact
Build
engagement
Upsell
Cross Sell
2nd
, 3rd
orders etc
Devices - Across all devices – DT, mobile, tablet, phone etc
Channels - Across all channels if MCR – stores, concessions etc
RETAIL TRADING MODEL

41. Thank you for your attention!
Dominic Smith
Ecommerce Consultant
Www.redleafdigital.co.uk
E / dominic@redleafdigital.co.uk
T / 07849259033