Laffitte Conseil

Travel meets Web 2.0: a match made in heaven

Just as many people wouldn't think of buying a new toy like a plasma TV or a laptop without first checking online customer reviews and comments, it seems that many people wouldn't dream of booking a vacation to a new location without first reading online reviews from travelers who have been there, viewing rich media such as virtual video tours, and reaching out to other travelers online to ask questions. 

This is not news to the travel industry. A recent survey on the adoption of social media found that the travel industry is well ahead of other sectors.  According to the survey, 73 percent of travel companies plan to invest in social media over the coming year. The pre-event survey for Online Marketing 2007, which was held London's Business Design Centre on June 26-27, also found that 66 percent of travel companies name social media as the biggest growth area for marketing in the coming year.

This should come as no surprise, considering that recent research by Compete, Inc. found that consumer-generated content already influences $10 billion a year in online travel bookings.

In fact, more than 66 percent of travelers surveyed said they consider this content more credible than reviews from professionals or information from the brands themselves, and that it impacts their purchase decisions. 

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Five Holiday E-Mail Marketing Do's and Don'ts

The holiday shopping season is 59 days away from its official U.S. launch on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This time of year can make or break your e-mail marketing program. Tune it up now to avoid mistakes once the season is in full swing.

My do's and don'ts will help you avoid some common traps.

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Marketers Hooked on Old Media

Six in 10 marketing executives put at least one-half of their media spending into traditional channels, according to a Gundersen Partners survey. About 45% of respondents allocated less than 10% of their budgets to new media.

Respondents said they were going to change their emphasis on traditional media. More than one-half of respondents planned to put 10% to 30% of their media spending into new media, and 28% planned to spend over 30%.

About 80% of respondents planned to hit their new media spending goals in two years, and more than one-third planned to achieve their ideal new media spending level within 12 months.

Asked what was holding them back, 40% cited insufficient knowledge, and one-third said they did not have enough time to evaluate new media channels.

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Holiday Retail Sales Growth To Slow

Holiday sales growth will be the slowest it has been in five years, according to TNS Retail Forward. The company forecasted that fourth-quarter growth in 2007 would slow to 3.3% from 4.6% in 2006.

The company projected that online sales would be the bright spot for retailing, bringing in nearly $42 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, up from $35 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006.

"The credit crunch will lead to a consumer crunch by the holidays," said Frank Badillo, senior economist at TNS Retail Forward, in a statement. "This will extend the weakness in retail sales beyond home improvement stores to other retail channels."

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InterContinental to open its first Crowne Plaza in Hanoi

HG has signed an agreement with Tran Hong Quan Trading to manage the Group’s first Crowne Plaza hotel in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi. Scheduled to open in early 2010, the new hotel will be known as Crowne Plaza West Hanoi and will be  part of a US$65 million mixed-development complex. The complex will also feature an upmarket commercial centre and luxury serviced apartments.

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Surge in online social networking predicted

Some 70% of internet content will be created by individuals as opposed to publishers and brands within three years.

The figure was revealed by Spannerworks business development manager Madeleine Wood as she urged travel companies to get involved in and be talked about on social networking sites.

Wood, who was speaking at the Travel Technology Initiative's autumn conference on the Future of Travel Distribution, said search engines like Google have evolved into reputation management systems because of online social networks.

"Search has gone beyond anyone's imagination and there is greater momentum than ever before. It's about a combined strategy of natural and paid for search, social media and display media," she said.

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Affiliate marketing delivers the most cost-effective customer acquisition

• 95 per cent of brands say affiliate marketing is ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost effective’
• An average of 18 per cent of the online marketing budget is spent in the channel
• Travel companies using affiliate marketing most effectively

Affiliate marketing is revealed as the most cost effective channel for driving customer acquisition in research out today from E-consultancy. Sponsored by buy.at, the UK’s largest independent affiliate network, the comprehensive research into how UK brands use affiliate marketing found that the majority of UK advertisers (merchants) say that it is either ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost-effective’ for acquiring customers. 44 per cent of merchants named it as ‘very cost-effective’ for driving customer acquisition compared with 34 per cent for paid search and just seven per cent for display advertising.

Paid search is the second most cost-effective followed by email marketing with these marketing channels viewed as ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost-effective’ by 90% and 82% of merchants respectively. Affiliate marketing is also a highly effective channel for driving volume, with three quarters of respondents (73%) saying that it drives either ‘high volume’ or ‘medium volume’. However, the best channel for driving volume remains paid search, with more than half of respondents (53%) saying that PPC generates ‘high volume’ for their businesses. Email marketing is the third biggest driver of volume, with 65% saying this channel drives high or medium volume. Mobile Marketing is still very much in the embryonic stage, with only 6 per cent of merchants saying that it drives high or medium volume.

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Kids, Teens and Virtual Worlds

The Walt Disney Company's $350 million purchase of Club Penguin signals a new focus of attention for marketers and media companies targeting kids and teens online.

Virtual worlds are becoming more frequent destinations as the percentage of children and teens who use the Internet increases.

"For marketers trying reach kids and teens on social networking sites, there is a new game in town: virtual worlds," said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Kids and Teens: Virtual Worlds Open New Universe.

"Of course, virtual worlds are not new, but the level of development activity, venture capital investment and consumer interest in virtual worlds is unprecedented," she said.

Club Penguin is one of the fastest growing virtual worlds for young children. As of August 2007, it had 12 million registered users and 700,000 paid subscribers, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

According to eMarketer estimates, 41.5% of children ages 3 to 11 will use the Internet at least once a month in 2007. In total, 14.9 million children will go online in 2007, rising to an estimated 16.6 million in 2011.

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E-Mail Top Digital Marketing Tool

Major marketers worldwide use e-mail in their campaigns, according to The McKinsey Quarterly.

In a survey of 311 marketing executives, McKinsey found that 83% used e-mail, ahead of display ads, paid search and online video.

McKinsey also asked about the future of online marketing. By 2010, respondents generally thought the Web would be part of the first two stages of the buyer decision-making process — product awareness and information gathering — for a majority of all consumers.

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How user friendly are your top internal entry pages?

In the world of long-tail searches, chances are pretty good that visitors are having their initial contact on your site by landing on an internal page of your site rather than your user-friendly home page. But have you ever had a look at one of your internal pages from a “brand new visitor” perspective? Because if you did, chances are good that you might be surprised to see that you are not really giving those new visitors a very sticky experience. So try looking at one of your top internal entry pages through a new visitor’s eyes.

Okay, so we all are just a little biased when it comes to how we see our own sites, especially ones we have poured blood, sweat and tears into. And while doing an eyetracking study can be expensive, you can easily do a poor man’s version of something similar. Sit a friend, preferably one who has little knowledge of your money website, or perhaps a bit of knowledge of the market area without having been a visitor of your site previously.

But first, you need to pick which pages to test. You will need to have a look at any analytics or stats program to find out which pages are your top entry pages (meaning the pages that new visitors on your site visit first), and pick a couple of internal pages that have the highest % of entry page visitors. Then you want to pick a page with a high bounce rate. If you have two pages that each account for 20% of entry page views, but one has an 80% bounce rate while the other is only 25%, it makes sense to use the page with the 80% bounce rate, because for some reason, 80% of all people that visit that internal page will view just that one page before they leave the site. Obviously it makes the most sense for you to figure out why so many people leave after their first page view on your site! You will also want to do a quick check of the page to make sure there isn’t something obvious that is accounting for such a high bounce rate, such as a coding error breaking the page after the header or another equally obvious problem that you can attribute the high bounce rate to. Nothing is more embarassing than bleeding money from a website due to your own mistake! But also look to evaluate what you think of the page overall.

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