Changes in weather conditions, delays and unexpected events happen minute-by-minute in the travel industry. People constantly check the news, online and off to find out if they might encounter any problems during their journey. Yet the travel industry has been slow to engage with consumers using social media until very recently.

During the Eurostar incident when thousands of travellers were left stranded – worried that they would not get home to their families before Christmas – the brand quickly learned how damaging ineffective communication with its customer base can be. Eurostar’s Twitter profile was flooded with unanswered questions which rather than being picked up by Eurostar’s communication department, were instead quickly spotted by the media and every major news channel covered the brands failure to engage with its customer base. So there is reason for travel brands to take engaging with customers via social networks very seriously.

Many travel brands are now setting up effective online campaigns to not just communicate to, but also with their consumer audience. International airline Icelandair has recently created six targeted campaigns including social media engagement, newsletters, frequent flyer updates, pre-flight informational messages and post-flight surveys using software and support from email and one-to-one marketing specialists, ExactTarget.

“Email and online communication provides Icelandair with an unparalleled channel to build loyalty with our guests and create a buzz around our products that drive repeat purchases,” said Katrin Erna Gunnarsdottir, web marketing, project manager at Icelandair. “The web-based software which we use provides us a flexible platform to power all of our communications – both external guest communications and internal communications to agents.”

Social mobility

Icelandair has a set up a Facebook group and Twitter account which allows the brand to engage in two-way communication with consumers and it uses an informal friendly tone, for example tweeting ‘Thanks! We are in love with you too!’ in response to positive feedback from consumers. It also uses the medium to announce deals and competitions, but the profile seems more like a conversation between friends than an exchange between a corporation and a customer. Gunnarsdottir explains: “We are engaging with social media audiences to strengthen our brand and develop our current image so our customers feel that we are easily approachable online and quick to respond when the need arises.  The long term goal is to translate this increased positivity into our customer loyalty clubs.”

“The power of social media is something we are well aware of, we closely monitor how our brand name is discussed online; using specially designed monitoring tools, we are able to respond quickly to any issue that may arise in the online landscape.  Our strategy is to address all issues on a personal level and correct misunderstanding or direct potentially unsatisfied customers in to channels that enable us to resolve any situation with ease.”

We wish you a safe flight

Icelandair also sends daily emails to its customers one week before they depart using ExactTarget’s ‘Dynamic Content’ capability to personalise content, providing a variety of information from rental car information to flight departure details. This is sent in eight European and Scandinavian languages using ‘International Sending Technology’ which allows marketers to control how their email marketing is encoded; the airline is able to send its messages in the appropriate format for each country as well as the correct language. Also, using ‘Enterprise Edition’ which allows centralised control of its one-to-one communications and triggered email technology, Icelandair automatically sends its suite of email communications to clients in ten countries throughout Europe and North America.

Thank you for travelling

500-600 personalised emails per day are sent out to customers to thank them for their custom three days after they have returned home. This is a two-way communication, enabling the brand to engage with any unsatisfied customers and pass on positive feedback to staff, although a certain number of requests for the brand’s young CEO’s hand in marriage have had to be filtered through.

Keep coming back

Newsletters are sent to the airlines loyalty club (‘Netclub,’) providing information on discounts and offers which are available; increasing traffic to the website. The first nine weeks of the campaign have been successful, the total number of visits to the site reached 200,000, and once consumers logged onto the site they viewed more pages, with the rate rising to 9% above the site average.

This particular email campaign gradually increased Icelandair’s ‘Netclub’ conversion rate from 0.34% to 0.97%. In addition, at least 77% of the people who clicked on the site during the last six months are return visitors.

Planning for the future

The airline plans to continue to expand its use of ExactTarget in the coming months by integrating data from its Web analytics provider Google Analytics to build automated email campaigns to customers based on their browsing of Icelandair.com.  The company also plans to integrate its existing social media strategy into its email efforts using ExactTarget’s Social Forward technology to enable customers to share email content with up to 50 social network sites.

“Icelandair is able to better serve its global customers by harnessing data to build and send personalised, relevant messaging,” said Peter McCormick, the co-founder and general manager of ExactTarget.  “The gains Icelandair has made are exemplary of an international marketer who is using technology to build customer loyalty and drive sales in an exceedingly tight market. The brand is successfully engaging with its social media audience taking a personal approach to inspire loyalty and connect with its consumers.”

Peter is General Manager and Co-founder of ExactTarget.