Ms. Kelley

Technology

Leveraging the Internet to Drive Key Objectives

By Jacki Kelley, Yahoo! Category Development Officer, Travel

The Internet has revolutionized the way consumers make travel purchasing decisions. In fact, according to a recent comScore Media Metrix study, more than 55 million consumers used web searches to research travel throughout the month of July 2006 alone. Moreover, the majority of those who conducted a web search booked travel online. According to Forrester Research, the Internet makes up one quarter of all travel sales today and is projected to grow to just under 50 percent by 2010, making Travel second only to computer software and hardware when it comes to overall category growth.

Lodging companies have made significant strides in harnessing the Internet to leverage distribution and make it easy for consumers to research, compare and buy from their desktops; however, when it comes to building brands on the Internet, opportunity exists. With broadband penetration projected to reach 83 percent of U.S. households by 2008, the opportunities to leverage the medium, engage consumers, drive preference and manage channel distribution has never been greater.

Engage Consumers:

Understanding, engaging and motivating consumers has always been at the heart of marketing initiatives. Today, the consumer is in the driver's seat like never before and technology is helping to facilitate the conversation. As BusinessWeek recently reported in its story entitled, "It's a Whole New Web," "It's no longer all about idly surfing and passively reading, listening, or watching. It's about doing: sharing, socializing, collaborating, and, most of all, creating." Our industry has much to gain with this new phenomenon - dubbed Web 2.0 - because intrinsic to travel is the desire to experience and share.

Social media is at the center of Web 2.0, where people around the world create, share and discuss their experiences, opinions and content. From creating blogs about interests or hobbies to experiencing family and friends' adventures by sharing photo albums and video clips, consumers are creating social communities. The phenomenon of social media adds an exciting dimension to the way we search the Web and will be fascinating to watch as it grows.

It is clear that giving consumers this much power can cause marketers some trepidation, but engaging consumers is not about completely ceding control of your brand; it's about creating a meaningful conversation. Brands are searching for the "holy grail" in de-commoditizing the industry and what better way than to showcase experience and sharing of collective knowledge instead of discounting.

Rather than trying to think about ways to simply react to user-generated content, marketers should consider how to encourage and embrace it. Brands have an opportunity to increase relevancy for their audiences by integrating trusted and credible user-generated content into their marketing efforts.

There are many ways to adapt your marketing strategy with social media applications. Here are a few suggestions to help get you started:

1. Be a consumer. Familiarize yourself with the popular social networking Web sites:

2. Visit travel related sites that have invested in social media. Two examples:

3. Consider the ways in which you can engage consumers. How can you integrate social media tools into your marketing strategy? In what ways can you use social media to help personalize a customer experience? How can these tools help in your effort to be unique versus ubiquitous?

The one thing to remember is consumers trust other consumers. Social media enables marketers to leverage engaged and knowledgeable consumers as effective partners in influencing other consumers.

Drive Preference:

Forrester Research and eMarketer have conducted studies to determine what consumers want to see from hoteliers. Not surprisingly, more than 70 percent of consumers want to see detailed descriptions of the accommodations and have access to visuals of the property and rooms.

Industry leaders like Starwood understand this. To launch the new Aloft brand, Starwood created a simulated online world called A Second Life (www.secondlife.com) where an Aloft hotel is under construction and guests can watch the process. According to Travel Weekly, as of August 14th, 389,000 consumers had registered to watch the progress.

In a world where uniqueness trumps ubiquity, hotel companies have improved sites to meet consumer expectations by enhancing online features to include detailed descriptions and visuals of accommodations. However, increased broadband access, the ability to use video content and the abundance of consumer data has created an even bigger opportunity for marketers to:

The Internet is the ultimate marketing tool because of its flexibility and efficiency. The key is finding a partner that is large enough to narrow its audience against your priorities and deliver what used to be an oxymoron - a targeted mass audience.

Manage Channel Distribution:

With the largest three-year, revenue-per-available-room increase since 1981, hoteliers have plenty to be excited about, but one could argue that the Internet has provided one of the most profound benefits to the industry - consistent yield gains. According to Jupiter Research, more than 56 percent of rooms are booked on supplier sites, growing to 62 percent in 2010.

Effective use of Internet marketing can accelerate this with focused reach and increased relevancy. Think of the best attributes of advertising on various "traditional" media - the targeted demographics of radio shows and television programs, or the broad local reach that newspapers provide. The Internet delivers all that and more. Clearly, it's not time to abandon traditional advertising programs, but it is time to fully integrate them with the power of online branding.

New technology means that television and print campaigns can be extended online. Expanding your campaign online allows you to build your business by continuing the conversation with potential and existing guests by providing them with additional information, experiences and insight from larger social communities that will in turn help them make their decision. And as online marketers know, success can be measured in a matter of hours and days, not weeks and months.

Jacki Kelley currently serves as the Category Development Officer for Yahoo! Travel and is responsible for developing and leading online marketing strategies for Yahoo!’s travel clients. Jacki works with Yahoo!’s world-class marketing solutions team to create integrated programs that increase brand association and purchase intent/sales and is a member of the AAF Hall of Achievement for advertising executives who have achieved significant results before the age of 40. Ms. Kelley can be contacted at 212-381-6860 or jkelley@yahoo-inc.com Extended Bio...

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