Make it relevant: using mobile advertising to reach travellers

We've just published a news release publicising our latest mobile advertising case study which shows how Bristol International Airport increased the average spend in its Tax and Duty Free store by 50%.

You may recall an earlier case study we published showing how TTT Moneycorp achieved a 10.5% redemption rate with a mobile advertising campaign.

Together, these studies show that if an advertiser has a relevant departure day message for travellers, then mobile is an excellent vehicle through which to reach this audience to raise awareness and drive action.

Relevance works for advertiser and recipient.

Ian Hughes, MD of Consumer Intelligence, writing in DMI News picks up on this theme (and thanks, Ian, for mentioning easyJetText!):

"SMS marketing, done well, is not an unwelcome intrusion but actually a, ‘Hmm, thanks for that; I’ll check it out’ tool.

The trick is to get the context right; to align the receipt of the message with an opportunity for the recipient. Make it meaningful, relevant, useful, timely and accurate. If you know I have to be in a certain place at a certain time, then you know it’s timely and accurate. It has a high chance of meaning, relevance and usefulness."

When it comes to creating an opt-in dialogue with travellers, whether you're providing marketing offers or travel assistance, it's essential to engage in a relevant dialogue. And, a relevant dialogue in travel is: time-sensitive, location-based, and context-aware.

You don't need to know my exact location to provide me with relevant information

I regularly read Alex Bainbridge's Travel Musings blog, so I was particularly interested to read his post about location based services for travel suppliers.

I like his idea of providing a service in resort, where tour operators can use location and mobile to provide holiday-makers with a support service that works in tandem with their existing holiday reps.

For online travel agents and airlines, who don't have in-resort reps, I think mobile and location can go one step further ... acting as a virtual rep ... providing travellers with relevant, contextual information and advice throughout their trip.

But, the thing I liked most in Alex's post was his comment that "it not about knowing exactly where someone is".

Exactly!

Knowing that someone is in Malaga is enough to allow me to filter the information I provide them (location-based). Knowing they are in Malaga on business allows me to further refine the information I provide (context-sensitive). And, if I know they're only in Malaga until Friday, then I can use this information to make the conversation even more relevant (time-critical).

I keep harping on about this ... but the information needed to create a really useful, relevant dialogue with travellers is the information travel companies already collect when they take a booking. A conversation based on this booking data that is time-sensitive, location-based, and context-sensitive is far more valuable than a conversation based on knowing my location with pinpoint accuracy ... but with zero knowledge of who I am or why I'm there.

In search of relevant mobile travel services

Providing mobile solutions to airline passengers should be about more than just delivering SMS flight notifications or destination weather forecasts.

If you goal is to maximise take-up of mobile services to enhance customer service and maximise your ancillary revenue, then your mobile services have to be relevant.

Relevant in the context of travel means that one size does not fit all. A business person travelling for 2-3 days does not have the same mobile content needs as a holidaymaker enjoying a 7 day break. Your mobile content strategy needs to reflect this.

This means airline and travel companies should create different packages of mobile-content to appeal to different customer segments. Ideally, you want to offer each customer a choice of a standard or premium package - each of which has been tailored to their profile.

Getting your packaging right involves experimentation and measurement - borrowing from the tried and tested direct marketing technique of multivariate or A/B split testing.

To do this, your chosen mobile platform needs to be sophisticated enough to:

• Identify which segment a customer belongs to


• Offer package A and package B to equal numbers of customers


• Measure the conversion rate of each package

Multivariate testing is an iterative process. But, when you get this right, you'll see a significant increase in your conversion rate and in the earning power of your mobile services.

Location alone does not create a mobile concierge for travellers

I've stated previously in this blog that airlines and travel companies have a big advantage when it comes to delivering mobile services to travellers. The other day someone asked me if GPS technology in newer phones would erode this advantage by allowing network operators, mobile search providers and the like to understand the traveller's location ... enabling them to use this knowledge to deliver an equally good mobile concierge service.

My answer was: "is knowing location enough to deliver a compelling mobile concierge service?"

When discussing mobile-advertising, Peggy Anne Salz of MSearch Groove states: "location is a must-have ingredient in the mix (and the industry is with me on this one); however, I also contend that other context information such as profile, preference and past purchasing behaviour are also essential."

I'd contend that this isn't just true for advertising but for other mobile-experiences too - including travel.

For example:

• Knowing location you might know that I was in the UK travelling along the M4 from Reading toward London. At some point I will go past Heathrow Airport. But does location tell you if I'm trying to catch a flight? Does location tell you what time my flight departs? Does location tell you that I'm running late and that the delay ahead means I could miss my flight?


• Knowing location you might know I'm in Barcelona, and that I'm roaming, so you can deduce that I'm travelling. But does location tell you if I'm in Barcelona for business or pleasure? Does location tell you how long I'll be staying in Barcelona? Does location tell you if I'll need to book a restaurant tonight or if I'll need to book transport back to the airport?

Don't get me wrong. Location is a critical ingredient in the mobile travel technology mix. But, it is only one ingredient. GPS technology in new phones offers us a high-resolution view of location ... but without knowledge of time and of context you only get part of the picture.

With their knowledge of the traveller's itinerary captured through the booking process, airlines and travel companies understand time, location, and context. And, it is time, location, and context together that allow us to provide travellers with the most relevant, most compelling mobile concierge service.

Why airlines need 2 mobile web-sites

When airlines develop a mobile version of their web-site, they should consider offering 2 versions:

1. for travellers who are on the move
   
2. for other types of user
   

Many airlines have released, or are working on, mobile web-sites. Many of these projects seem to be IT, rather than business driven, in that they simply expose existing Internet functionality to a mobile phone.

Typical content within an airline mobile web-site includes:

• Manage my booking


• View my frequent flyer points total


• Check flight schedules


• Check current flight status


• Make a new booking

But, who is the target user for this mobile web-content and when will they use it?

In our recently published e-book, we suggested that an airline's mobile strategy should be closely aligned with its customer communication strategy. So, a mobile-web project should be business driven and should start by considering the needs of the user communities its designed to serve.

So, who wants a mobile dialogue with their airline?

In general, people use the mobile-web when they don't have regular PC Internet access ... so our target user communities are likely to be people on the move. These communities could include:

• The airline's passengers. When they're on the move, passengers want relevant travel-related information and assistance. The ideal mobile experience would combine the mobile concierge service we've discussed at length on this blog with the 'manage my booking' functionality.


• Meeters and greeters. People who are responsible for taking someone to or picking them up from an airport. This group includes friends, family members, and colleagues of the passenger and also private hire taxi drivers. Typically this groups is interested in flight schedules, flight status and traffic conditions around the airport.
  
• Last-minute travellers. This includes anyone who needs to arrange a flight at very short notice, including customer's who may have been let down by another airline. Typically, they want to check flight schedules and availability and then book a flight (from the mobile site or by using 'click-to-call' to fulfill through a call centre).

So, we have 2 types of user: people who we know and people who we don't know. We reccomend airlines create different versions of their mobile web-site to cater for each group:

1. For passengers, the airline knows who the person is and has lots of contextual information (from the booking data) about their trip. To provide passengers with an optimal mobile experieince, the airline should personalise the mobile site providing information about my flight, my destination, my itinerary. To direct passengers to the mobile-site, the airline should pro-actively kick-off the dialoge by sending a personalised URL embedded in an SMS or by WAP Push.


2. For other types of user, the airline should offer a generic site, which guides people to the content they need. For example:
   
   How can we help you?


• I'm taking someone to the airport


• I'm meeting someone at the airport


• I need to book a flight at short-notice

Let me know in the comments of other communities who would use an airline's mobile-site.

Free e-book to help travel companies develop their mobile strategy

We've just published a free e-book on the Mantic Point web-site to help travel companies define their mobile strategy.

The e-book pulls together many of the ideas discussed in this blog over the past 10 months or so.

For example:

• What do travellers want from mobile?


• Why are airlines, travel agents, and tour operators best placed to deliver mobile services to travellers?


• Mobile channel creates loyalty for travel brands


• How can airlines make money from mobile services? Part I and Part II


• Top 5 tips for airlines setting up a virtual travel concierge


• What is a virtual travel concierge?


• Extending the virtual concierge to cover the whole journey


• Creating one last chance to maximise airline ancillary revenue


• The mobile phone: a replacement holiday rep?

BBC's Watchdog exposes "exorbitantly high" data roaming charges

Mobile data roaming charges (accessing emails or the mobile web from your phone when your abroad) have reached the attention of the mainstream media - at least in the UK.

Last night's Watchdog - a consumer affairs programme broadcast by the BBC - highlighted a number of cases where people have racked up huge charges (£9,000 for one person) when they unwittingly used data roaming services.

Watchdog didn't mince their words, calling the charges "exorbitant" and pointing out that people are often paying hundred of pounds for services which cost the network operators pennies to deliver.

The operators argue that they are reducing their prices within Europe, to comply with the demands of the EU Telecoms Commissioner.

T-Mobile (responsible for the £9,000 bill) is reducing it's prices by 80% from the summer.

Vodafone has already reduced it's prices ... although you need to be very careful what package you are signed-up for. Passport customers pay £5 per day for up to 15MB, whereas non passport customers pay a much heftier £8 per MB.

For the travel industry, I think the more attention data roaming charges receive the better ... because, when we can all afford to access the mobile-web from abroad, travel companies can start to provide us with useful information to help us get the most out of our trip.