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.