Travelocity Talks Marketing - Day 2, 2:20 PM EST

[Garrett]

I just attended a Keynote Address by Michelle Peluso, CEO of Travelocity. One of the main things Michelle said that interested me was customers don't necessarily recognize differences between channels -- meaning that if a customer interacts with your retail store they're going to want emails from your business to reflect that interaction.

Customers also expect businesses to understand them across all channels. For this reason, Michelle stressed the importance of creating a 360 degree brand name image. This is something that was also brought up in a session yesterday -- that businesses must present a very consistent message from the store front to the website to the email marketing campaigns.

Apply your best offline practices to your online marketing. Test new methodologies. Have good data mining skills and optimize your segmentation. The goal here is to send fewer emails and get better results.

Know who you're sending to. Use niche marketing, geotargetting, and send customized marketing messages towards specific demographics of your audience.

Permission-based Marketing. A strong trend I've noticed at this conference is that all marketing must be permission-based. One in ten people consider marketing messages to be spam, even on opt-in mailing lists. Be sure to remind people that they gave you permission to send them mailings.

You should also have various options for how people can receive your messages. Find out what your customers are interested in and what activities they'd like to hear about. Give them different options as to how often they can receive this information (daily, weekly, monthly, etc...) Allowing for user optimization gets your business very strong permission from your audience.

Buidling online brands. Michelle noted that few online players have truly built a brand. This is based on her concept that a brand exists when consumers switch from seeing what you're offering as just a product to the idea that what you are offering is an experience.

Think about it. Why are people so willing to pay big bucks for expensive Starbucks coffee? Because the Starbucks mission statement is about more than just coffee -- it's about rewarding everyday moments.

Another great example is Nike. Before Nike came jogging into the picture, running shoes were just a commodity. Now people pay $80-$90 for Nike shoes because Nike has successfully built the experience into their brand, thus raising the perceived value of their product.

Michelle says her own company Travelocity, the sixth largest travel company in the world, has high recognition but no true loyalty from customers yet. Consumers typically check 3 - 4 different travel sites at a given time. People will sometimes switch hotels over just a fifty cent difference in price! Until the company can get people to stick with them she doesn't think they'll have true loyalty.

The dilemma for online companies is that they have no physical presence and fewer touch points with consumers. e-Businesses have to be very, very conscientious about building a brand at those touch points.

The bottom line: be aware of consumer interactions.