Social Media and Marketing

IN-DEPTH: Paolo Torchio, VP, E-marketing & Revenue Consulting, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, believes it is early days to definitely place Social Media and Email in context of each other

Published: 16 May 2011

IN-DEPTH: Paolo Torchio, VP, E-marketing & Revenue Consulting, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, believes it is early days to definitely place Social Media and Email in context of each other

By Ritesh Gupta

Late last year a study indicated that rather than attempting to decide which is the best, most influential or effective marketing channel, marketers need to understand why people are behaving in a certain way on social networks and email.

Also, it is important to note that there is a high overlap between the number of people who can be reached through email newsletters and social media marketing, with over 50 percent of Internet users accepting marketing message via both these channels.

So to what extent social media and email can create a potent combination together?

“It is early days to try to definitely place Social Media and Email in context of each other – rather look at these as means to communicate different types of information – by their nature they are different channels. Social media: real time, continual updates on the consumers schedule; email more periodic updates pushed on the marketers schedule. We have however seen good results in getting consumers to opt in to email programmes from social media sites – this is a good way to segment users by their desired communication styles,” Paolo Torchio, VP, E-marketing & Revenue Consulting, Sabre Hospitality Solutions told EyeforeTravel’s Ritesh Gupta.

Relevancy

Travel companies now consider real-time outputs from single to multiple channels and have got the granularity to know which touchpoints are used by different audiences and can design specific campaigns to appeal to different user segments.

Email has moved from being a ‘blast’ type channel where the same mailing is sent to everyone, to a more segmented approach. By using granular data, provided by the subscriber (lifestyle, departures, destinations, interests, frequency) and click behaviour segments can be created with content specific to that segment so the subscriber receives emails that are relevant to them.

“E-mail marketing is still a valuable channel, but it is evolving and now needs to be “Smart” in order to target the right segments and offer the right promotions and packages based on consumers’ needs and interest,” said Torchio. “By customising the messaging towards that consumer based on segmentation, visit dates, past stay behaviour and preferences indicated once can really encourage the consumer to opt-in to ongoing messaging: the first step in a successful CRM programme. The technology is there to automate this process today.”

Relevancy of email is an extremely important factor. It is likely that a typical subscriber will receive many other marketing emails in the same day or week so the key to a conversion is to make the content relevant and specific to the subscriber’s needs, wants, and demographic information.

Social marketing and video are great for delivering content to a user. However, as pointed by Mo Bulbrook, head of International, Cheapflights, in an interview last year, the message that is given from these channels tends to be mass-broadcasted and generic. There tends to be a lack of specificity to a subscriber’s exact information, especially when a combination of different types of information is considered. It wouldn’t be totally reasonable for a company to add personalisation into, say, a video, as it would end up being too costly. Email is cost-effective in this manner, as it is now so easy to tailor emails to a subscriber

Emails can totally fit into a traveller’s plans, especially in an age of sophisticated mobile devices. Latest deals and newsflashes can be sent out in an instant, and the moment it’s received, the subscriber can be notified. Social marketing and video can do this to some extent, but the speed in which it does so is nowhere near emails.

Real-time email marketing

Considering that consumers are behaving and communicating in real-time, travel companies have embraced real-time email marketing.

For instance, a hotel group like InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has created a dynamic email template for its reservation confirmation email that is populated with individualised, custom offers and delivered to each recipient immediately following a booking. This highly customised email has 31,680 versions and 7,000 URLs that are automatically generated. Each confirmation email is customised and delivered to the recipient in less than two seconds.

“E-confirmation, pre-Arrival and post departure email messages are a great opportunity to reinforce your relationship with the consumer and we have found that email related to an upcoming or recent stay receive much higher email open rates,” shared Torchio.

“Another new channel to consider in a similar way is SMS text messaging – great opportunities exist in this channel taking the same approach: obtaining opt-in related to a stay and then encouraging ongoing opt-in.”

Going strong

Return on investment (ROI) is important for all channels delivering incremental traffic and bookings. Emails are very cost effective in delivering targeted and time sensitive campaigns as well as a branding channel to a target audience – be it on demographics, age, lifestyle etc. Email channel in some ways can provide a very positive ROI as the subscribers have chosen to receive the information. On their part, travel companies have to ensure that they do receive only the information they have signed up for.

Still it is pointed out that social media is eating into the efficacy of email marketing and will soon supplant email as a primary communication device.

Bulbrook highlighted that it used to be said that TV would replace radio and Internet would replace TV too!

“Social media is certainly very important and continuously evolving and will no doubt have an effect on how emails evolve but not replace them. Emails can be used in conjunction with social media, websites, offline marketing etc and still is one of the best ways of speedily sending highly relevant content to a targeted audience,” Bulbrook said.

As per the findings of the new Ypartnership/Harrison Group 2010 Portrait of American Travellers survey released in December 2010, among all active travellers in the U.S. (those who took at least one trip that required overnight accommodations during the previous 12 months), just under half (an estimated 46 percent) had a page posted on a social site. It mentioned that theoretical reach doesn’t necessarily translate into influence, particularly when it comes to commercial communications. The true power of social media derives from their ability to reach large numbers of travellers who share some common affinity in an engaging and dynamic way. Traditional sources of information about destinations and travel service suppliers appear to continue to exert greater influence over consumer choice, however, even though their reach is generally substantially less and the composition of the audiences they deliver tends to be more diffuse.