Travel marketers, your industry is changing, especially when it comes to email. Subscribers expect you to send them targeted, personalized messages based on where they’ve been, what they’ve searched for on your website, and other criteria. With the holiday season quickly approaching, you can’t just blast emails to customers based on what destinations, deals and promotions you want them to see. Instead, learn how to prepare personalized email campaigns now that will lead to success later.

1. HOW TRAVEL MARKETERS CAN
MARKET SMARTER FOR THE HOLIDAYS

2. TWEET!
Tweet about this webinar using #SmartTravel
Follow:
@WhatCounts
@timbrechlin
@ugigirl
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3. TODAY’S SPEAKERS
Tim Brechlin
Inbound Marketing Manager
WhatCounts, Inc.
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Joy Ugi
Digital Marketing Coordinator
WhatCounts, Inc.

4. CONTEXT
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5. • Google continues to make inroads into travel (Flight Finder, Hotel Search)
– Field Trip app for Android and iOS is a game-changer
• TripAdvisor ranked as “most trusted” website on the Internet
• Budgets are tight
• Next-generation travelers are smart travelers
• Holiday inboxing is always a challenge
CONTEXT
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6. SO LET’S MARKET SMARTER FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
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7. ARE YOU PERSONALIZED?
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8. ARE YOU PERSONALIZED?
• The game has changed…
– Using dedicated ESPs, segmentations, first-name values was
good at first
– But “personalization” goes deeper than that

9. SMART, PERSONALIZED MARKETING
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ENHANCED DATACLIENT DATA SYSTEM DATA 3RD PARTY ANALYTICS
EMAILWEB SOCIAL MOBILE

10. PERSONALIZATION BY AFFINITY
• For travel marketers, affinity marketing
is one of your greatest personalization
tools
– If someone came to your destination at this
time last year, try and get them again
– If you collected information by interest, let
subscribers know of anything new and
exciting in those particular areas
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11. BE EVERYWHERE YOU CAN BE
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12. BE EVERYWHERE
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• By the very definition of marketing, you have many competitors
• If you aren’t everywhere humanly possible, something has gone horribly wrong
• Set expectations - make sure your readers know what to expect from your emails
• Frequency (daily, weekly, monthly…)
• What day (Tuesdays, 1st Saturday, 15th of the month…)
• What time (overnight, morning, afternoon, evening…)
• Content (news, special offers, promotions, announcements…)

13. MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE TO OPT-IN
• Sign-up form on website
• SMS
• Facebook Page Tab
• Facebook Connect
• QR code at your hotel front desk
• Those addresses are your most valuable asset!
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14. MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE TO OPT-IN
• WhatCounts Client Visit
Baltimore did an SMS-to-opt-in
promotion for the Sailabration
event
• Users who opted-in received
Baltimore-area deals and hotel
promotions to encourage
return bookings
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15. BE READABLE EVERYWHERE
• Being everywhere means that it’s
imperative to be readable everywhere
• It’s finally happened: >50% of emails
are opened on mobile
– Source: Experian
• Just because someone is on a mobile
device doesn’t mean they’re on the go
– More than 60% of purchases made on mobile actually
happen while at home
• Source: PayPal
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16. EMBRACE THE SEASON
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17. EMBRACE THE SEASON
• Think back to context (TripAdvisor most
trusted site)
– Authenticity and authority is what travelers
want
• If you’re marketing the Midwest, the
holidays will be cold and snowy
– Don’t cover it up, embrace it – just as some
people like to go to Florida, some people
like to vacation in the frozen tundra
• What gives your audience a warm,
fuzzy feeling?
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18. EMBRACE REVIEWS
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19. EMBRACE REVIEWS
• Online review sites (TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.) are your friends
• Reviews have huge impact upon search
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Digital Marketing World

20. EMBRACE REVIEWS
• Overcome the “certainty gap”
• Planning a trip isn’t the problem: Having the confidence to pull the trigger is
• “Travel is composed of thousands of questions, challenges and
concerns. Your job is to convince the traveler they can overcome
them.”
– Troy Thompson, Principal, Travel 2.0 Consulting Group
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21. CONVERGE
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22. CONVERGE
• Web, email, mobile and social should
all be supporting one another
• Identify your success metric and ask
yourself how each channel can help
you achieve it
• Make sure the cross-channel
experience is consistent
• Never forget: At its core, travel is
aspirational
– “I need to see / do / experience more”
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23. REWARD
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24. REWARD
• Identify and reward your top customers
• Airline / travel agency: ID VIPs and give them a discount
• CVB / DMO: ID frequent travelers and social evangelists and offer a “carrot”
to entice a return visit
• Solicit customer reviews (drip campaign post-visit) and offer a drawing or
discount to support retention
– Reminder: Your audience is asking, “What’s in it for me?”
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25. REWARD
• Ask yourself what gives your audience the warm, fuzzy feeling
• Don’t offer rewards that are incongruent with your branding
– A city known for restaurants probably shouldn’t offer a drawing for a quilt
• Don’t offer rewards that are too expensive / valuable to you
– While returning customers are valuable, don’t focus on them at the expense of new
customer acquisition
– Also don’t want to train people to only engage with you when there’s a carrot involved
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26. GET INTO THE INBOX
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27. • Historically, inbox placement gets more difficult beginning in November
– Email volume increases significantly, putting more strain on servers, hence tightened
filters
• Many messages either get bulked or go missing entirely
• There are many reasons for this, but:
– You can still win!
GET INTO THE INBOX
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28. • Gmail has traditionally been one of the more
restrictive B2C filters
• Strongly engagement-based
• Important to suppress inactives
– Previous wisdom was 1 year
– Now: 6 months
• Keep content fresh
GET INTO THE INBOX: GMAIL
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29. GET INTO THE INBOX: YAHOO!
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• Yahoo! changed the email marketing
landscape last month when it
released all unclaimed addresses
without a login <1 year
• Though initially it wasn’t thought
that old addresses would be recycled
into spamtraps, that may no longer
be the case
• Essential to suppress inactive Yahoo!
addresses and set bounce-outs to 1

30. ALWAYS, ALWAYS EMPLOY BEST PRACTICES
• Honor opt-outs and unsubscribes
• Monitor your complaint rate and IP reputation
• Don’t send to unengaged subscribers
• Don’t buy a list
• Understand that not all subscribers’ value is equal – it’s OK to say goodbye
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31. QUESTIONS?
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32. NEXT WEBINAR
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33. NEXT WEBINAR
WHATCOUNTS
Title: Deliverability: Get Your Emails Into the Inbox!
Feat.: Brad Gurley, Director of Deliverability, WhatCounts
Date: October 16, 2013
Time: 2:00 p.m. ET
http://www.whatcounts.com/email-marketing-resources/webinars/delivery-webinar/

34. CONTACT US
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35. CONTACT WHATCOUNTS
WhatCounts, Inc.
3630 Peachtree Road, NE
Suite 900
Atlanta, Georgia 30326
1-866-804-0076
www.whatcounts.com
Twitter: @WhatCounts
sales@whatcounts.com

36. THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!
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