Downloaded 29 times
Uploaded byOptimizely
Spring Into Action Webinar: Travel & Entertainment with Blue Acorn
This document discusses how to optimize travel and entertainment purchases by rapidly testing different strategies. It begins by explaining how travel and entertainment differ from traditional retail in terms of time sensitivity, options, and consideration cycles. Next, it introduces sample personas for travel and entertainment customers. It then discusses analyzing the customer journey funnel and developing a testing plan focused on goals, themes, experiments, and actions. Finally, it proposes eight initial experiments focused on limited time deals, group rates, price comparisons, social validation, price guarantees, urgency in checkout, sharing promotions, and newsletters. The key takeaways are to create personas, visualize the funnel, build a testing plan, and take action.
More Related Content
Similar to Spring Into Action Webinar: Travel & Entertainment with Blue Acorn
Spring Into Action Webinar: Travel & Entertainment with Blue Acorn
- 1. Tackle Complex BuyingBehaviors in Travel & Entertainment
- 2. SPRING INTO ACTION Whatyou’ll walk away with 1. Understanding of how travel and entertainment differ from retail 2. Examples of Travel and Entertainment Personas 3. How to analyze your funnel 4. Keys to effective testing 5. Eight test ideas
- 3. SPRING INTO ACTION BlueAcorn • Premium eCommerce agency in Charleston, SC • Full service: design, development and optimization • Clients span multiple industries and include Ticketmaster, Olympus, Everlast, Le Creuset, Char- Broil, Rebecca Minkoff, Signature Hardware, Southern Tide. Jay Atkinson • Director, Optimization • 15+ years in eCommerce • Source of mustache envy
- 4.
- 5. SPRING INTO ACTION Opportunitygreater in this space than traditional eCommerce Retail eCommerce vs. Travel & Entertainment
- 6. SPRING INTO ACTION DigitalTravel Sales Worldwide (2014-2019)
- 7. SPRING INTO ACTION Travelvs. Retail • Booking vs checkout • Time sensitive inventory AND pricing • Option/package variation • Price • Convenience • Consideration cycle/length
- 8. SPRING INTO ACTION OnlineTicket Sales
- 9. SPRING INTO ACTION Entertainmentvs. Retail • Scarcity and capacity • Time sensitivity • Mood/temporal circumstances • Social considerations
- 10.
- 13. SPRING INTO ACTION We’regoing to answer… How would we rapidly strategize and launch multiple tests in a short time frame? What would we do if we had no time for rigorous data analysis? What assumptions could we safely make about the travel and entertainment industry?
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17. SPRING INTO ACTION Crafteffective personas Doug Goals: 1) super bright smile 2) perfect hair Behavior 1) shops constantly 2) uses mobile phone while walking Becca Goals: 1) 1st 28-year-old VP at company 2) Learn HTML/CSS Behavior 1) eats and exercises simultaneously 2) tablet addict
- 18. SPRING INTO ACTION OurSample Personas: Travel The Opportunist • Has disposable income, open to travel at any time • Looking for opporunities to get out of town • Motivated by limited deals or sense of urgency • May be looking for minimal alignment (friends, favorite artist/sports team, bucket list) The Planner • Is more likely to travel for a particular occasion • Needs to be able to assess the full picture • Will likely be comparing across multiple sites and sources
- 19. SPRING INTO ACTION OurSample Personas: Entertainment The Opportunist • Looking to find a unique experience that’s worth her time • Fear of missing out (FOMO) • Can be impulsive in preferences and decision making The Planner • Needs to be able to iron out the full experience and details • May need to coordinate friends or family and accommodate their needs • Needs more validation to avoid risk of disappointment
- 20. The Funnel SPRING INTOACTION
- 21.
- 22. SPRING INTO ACTION Understandingyour Funnel Quantitative Analysis & Qualitative Analysis
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26. Goals Themes ExperimentsActions SPRING INTO ACTION The process
- 27. Goals Themes ExperimentsActions SPRING INTO ACTION The process
- 28. Goals Themes ExperimentsActions SPRING INTO ACTION The process
- 29. Goals Themes ExperimentsActions SPRING INTO ACTION The process
- 30.
- 31. A Few Starting Experiments SPRINGINTO ACTION
- 32. SPRING INTO ACTION LimitedTime Special Rate Hero • Hypothesis - By immediately showing the Opportunist the best deals and giving her a deadline for booking, we can minimize bounce rates and encourage impulse bookings. • kpis - bounce rate, conversion rate React Find Choose Buy Retain Experiment 1
- 33. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment2 Group Rates Advertising • Hypothesis - By explicitly indicating the value and efficiency of a group package to the Planner on his first experience, we will entice him to commit to our site and complete booking for their entire group. • kpis – average order value, conversion rate React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 34. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment3 Day by Day Price Comparison • Hypothesis - By showing Planners rates broken down by day, they can easily see which dates provide the most value to travel on. Also reduces friction of having repeat search queries just to evaluate slight variations. • kpis – average order value, conversion rate React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 35. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment4 Social Validation on Event Pages • Hypothesis - By visualizing the attendees and social connections of the Opportunist that are already committed to the event, we will increase her interest and ultimate conversion. • kpis – bounce rate, conversion rate React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 36. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment5 Best Price Guarantee • Hypothesis - By emphasizing a low price guarantee on package/trip/room pages, we can give the Planner a greater sense of confidence and reduce the likelihood of purchasing from OTA’s or competitors. • kpis –conversion rate, average order value React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 37. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment6 Race to Finish the Purchase • Hypothesis - By stressing the diminishing inventory and time to the Opportunist once she is in the checkout process, we will increase her sense of urgency and push her to convert • kpis –conversion rate, cart abandonment React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 38. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment7 Sharing Based Checkout Promotion • Hypothesis - By enabling and enticing the Planner to share their ticket choices, you will give facilitate and encourage their coordination with friends, resulting in higher conversion rates and referrals • kpis –social sharing rate, conversion rate React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 39. SPRING INTO ACTION Experiment8 F.O.M.O. Newsletter Signup • Hypothesis - By stressing the fear of missing out the cool activities available, we can get the Opportunist to sign up and become a recurring purchaser • kpis – returning Purchasers, newsletter signups React Find Choose Buy Retain
- 40.
- 41.
- 42. SPRING INTO ACTION KeyTakeaways 1.Create Personas 2.Visualize the Funnel 3.Build a Plan 4.Take Action
- 43.
- 44.
- 45. Thank you! Twitter: @jatkinson10 @blueacorn Email:jay@blueacorn.com SPRING INTO ACTION www.blueacorn.com
Editor's Notes
- #6 Traditional Retail Testing has become more common place Inundated with ‘best practices’ around standard page types Travel and Entertainment Both showing strong YOY growth in online expenditure Greater focus to date on distribution Less uniform behavior funnels and page types
- #7 Travel revenue online has been growing strongly YOY and is projected to continue well into the future.
- #8 Booking vs. checkout: booking plane tickets requires gathering a lot of personal information during checkout, which can introduce friction to the process. Time-sensitive inventory and pricing: with travel, inventory must be sold before a certain date, and prices fluctuate according to how close that date looms. Option/package variation greater than product SKUs: While physical products can frequently vary by color and size, travel packages can have enormous variations between amenities, upsells, activities, flights, room features, location, and more, which can be cognitively overwhelming for consumers. Pricing: Travel inherently exists at significantly higher price points than consumers’ typical online purchases, which increases hesitation and the risk of buyer’s remorse. Consideration Cycle Length: Given the price points and additional planning considerations, the evaluation process for travel purchases can significantly exceed that of other online purchases.
- #9 North American Concert Ticket Sales (proxy for Entertainment spending)
- #10 Scarcity and capacity: Compared to products, sporting events and concerts in particular have a risk that they can more readily sell out. Too, venues vary widely in terms of capacity and seating quality. Time sensitivity: As with travel, entertainment inventory must be sold before a certain date, however, unlike travel, the price is unlikely to fluctuate. Mood/temporal circumstances: The investment of time as well as money makes entertainment purchasing more susceptible to a consumer’s current mood, needs and interests as opposed to a physical product. Social considerations: Tickets to entertainment events are often bought in conjunction with friends and family, making it necessary for people to find and share their ticket information with others.
- #11 Blue Acorn creates strategies for clients, not industries, an approach that relies heavily on weeks of gathering your customer data. For the purposes of educating a broader audience, though, we had to take a different approach. We tried to imagine a scenario in which we would have to forgo that. In what dire circumstances would we alter our approach?
- #12 Naturally, we went with the classic dognapping scenario. Fashion tycoon needs her travel and entertainment websites revamped, guess she’s diversifying, so she’s given us 24 hours to get some tests up and running or, uh, you know…
- #13 Dog coats.
- #14 So what do we do to boost online revenue for a set of travel and entertainment sites in just twenty-four hours?
- #15 The clock begins
- #17 Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types that might use a site or product in a similar way Using Personas Focus and segment Content Marketing Apply optimization themes and test hypotheses against target segments Humanize your data points
- #18 Humanize your identifiable target user segments Use segments effectively identify and communicate with Focus on goals & behavior rather than tangential attributes Back up personas with DATA
- #22 React: This is the landing experience, whether that’s home page or a landing page. Simply put, it’s what people see when the arrive on your site. Find: This is the browsing portion of the shopping experience. It includes navigation, category, filtering, and search. Choose: This part of the funnel primarily occurs on the product page, when your customers look through product details and review options. Buy: Think cart and checkout. Confidence and reduced friction are key here. Retain: This is your effort to create repeat business. It starts with the order success page, confirmation emails and follow ups, and ends with a new react phase. For travel & entertainment, FIND and CHOOSE could possibly be the most substantial part of the funnel given 3rd party channels and the variety of providers offering similar/complimentary experiences. Think about competition with yourself given distribution on OTAs
- #23 Quantitative Analysis Evaluate primary entry points and channels Assess behaviors between key segments (new visitors, mobile, purchasers, etc) Quantify drop-off through browsing experience and checkout funnel Qualitative Analysis User test primary goals and usability throughout key pages/experiences Evaluate customer feedback
- #24 Just a reminder, our cartoon puppies are still in clear and present danger, so we are just going to pull some actionable tests for each part of the funnel
- #25 Since we are limited on time, we are going to treat all steps of funnel as if they have equal opportunity/issues for our testing ideas.
- #27 Goals Define the principal goals and KPIs that are critical to your business. Identify macro issues you want to affect via your testing strategy. Impose discipline around goals and metrics that are most significant to your company and online experience.
- #28 Themes
- #29 Experiments Design experiments that align to major theme and whose hypotheses, if validated can substantially contribute to accomplish business goal. Make sure each proposed experiment. Estimate level of effort and level of impact for each proposed experiment.
- #30 Actions Take action or create subsequent tests based on the results of your experiments. Dig deeper on neutral or losing test to understand why assumptions were incorrect and hypotheses failed. Revisit test roadmap and adjust based on findings or new data.
- #31 Since we are strapped for time and our puppies are in clear and present danger, we are just going to provide some actionable test ideas.
- #33 Content hero on landing page that showcases limited time flights/stays with a limited time remaining for booking at special rate By immediately showing The Opportunist the best deals and giving him a deadline for booking, we can minize their bounce rates and encourage impulse bookings.
- #34 Highlighting group packages and value props on landing experiences or navigation
- #35 Provide daily rates within a calendar modal during
- #38 Visually emphasizing limited inventory or time remaining for package/price in cart and checkout
- #40 Emphasized newsletter sign up on purchase confirmation page with content geared towards activity FOMO for purchasers who opted out during checkout
- #41 You should give each test sufficient time and traffic to reach statistically significant results. At conclusion of each test, you should evaluate positive, neutral and negative results. You should determine to route 100% of your overall traffic or the segments that were most impacted to a winning variation. You should communicate results to affected stakeholders and leadership so that they stay invested and can contribute additional insights/perspective. Even a test turns out to be neutral or a loser, you should evaluate what may have caused the disproving of your hypothesis and come up with derivative test ideas form those findings.
- #43 Craft meaningful personas to humanize your core consumers Visualize the full funnel of your online experience and do quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine the issues and potential impact within segments of the customer journey Build a testing plan that stems from your primary goals/KPIs and major user-centric themes rather than a disjointed laundry list Take action or generate follow up testing ideas from ALL test results (even neutral or losing variations)