A model for eCommerce in the airline industry using personal experience and best practice

1. eCommerce in the Airline Industry
Colin Lewis

2. eCommerce Maturity models
• Unplanned – Uncontrolled with limited integration. Content focus.
• Diffuse management – A more structured approach in some
areas. Visitor acquisition focus.
• Centralised management – Organisation level objectives and
control. Conversion focus.
• Decentralised operations – Execution integrated with marketing
activities. Retention focus.
• Integrated and optimised – A refined approach to improve digital
marketing. Optimisation focus.

3. eCommerce process map: the day-to-day
Acquisition
Operating processes
Conversion /
Proposition Dvlpt
Retention
& Growth
Search engine optimisation
Pay Per Click search
Partnerships / affiliates
Online ads / sponsorship
E-mail marketing
Online PR
Offline campaigns
Proposition development
Content creation
Content management
Merchandising
Site usability & accessibility
Design & Development
Customer service
Proposition development
Outbound communications
E-mail marketing
Customer management
Touch strategy definition
Loyalty programmes
Personalisation
Management processes
Supporting processes
Performance improvement including Management Information, web analytics and customer analysis
Interfacing with
senior management
Interfacing with marketing
& corporate communications
Staff development, education
and retention
Strategy &
Planning
Creating the vision.
Assessing technological innovation.
Market analysis
and competitor benchmarking
Financial analysis and
modelling
Defining the multichannel customer
experience. Managing customer information
Interfacing with IT
Managing external relationships.
Vendor selection & management.
Annual planning and
budgeting
IT Project and campaign planning and
management
Managing
relationships
Managing improvement
and change
Design guidelines and operating procedures
Technical infrastructure including service level management
Source: eConsultancy

4. Acquisition tools map
1 Search marketing
· Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
· Pay Per Click (PPC)
· Trusted feed
2 Online PR
· Media alerting services
· Portal representation
· Blogs and RSS
3 Online Partnerships
· Link-building
· Affiliate marketing
· Sponsorship
· Co-branding
4 Interactive ads
· Display ads/banners
· Rich-media
· Dynamic/behavioural
· Sponsorship
5 Opt-in e-mail
· Cold (rented list)
· Co-branded e-mail
· 3rd party e-newsletters
· House list e-mails
6 Viral marketing
· Pass-along
· Prompted
· Incentivised
Web site
and
microsites
Offline communications
1. Advertising
2. Personal selling
3. Sales promotion
4. PR
5. Sponsorship
Offline communications
6. Direct mail
7. Exhibitions
8. Merchandising
9. Packaging
10. Word-of-mouth
Online communications Offline communications
Source: eConsultancy

5. Example: Thomas Cook online strategy model
Customer
Acquisition
Harvest repeat business
• SEM
• Affiliate Marketing
• Display
• Aggregators
• Email
• Offline
• Online PR
• Viral
• Consumer generated
content
Customer
Retention
& Growth
Measure
& Optimise
Customer
Conversion
Attracting new
customers
from existing
customersers
• Customer
service
• Process
• Segmentation
and targetting
• Email
• Cross-sell
• Online PR
• Personalisation
• Multichannel
Turn ‘lookers’ into
‘bookers’
• Usability
• Accessibility
• Enhanced
content,
copywriting
• Promos and
better
merchandising
• Email
• Customer
decision support
• Payment options
Track & analyse every
aspect of activity
• Web analytics
• Site
performance
monitoring
• Market
intellignece
• Online surveys
• Usability testing
• Online panels
• Customer
insight
Source: eConsultancy Thomas Cook

6. Customer conversion – connect site visitors and
convert as many as possible
• Proposition development – planning and specifying the product to appear
• Content creation – sourcing the information used to define appropriate
pricing and messaging,
• Content management – managing the software and database infrastructure
• Merchandising – product presentation
• Site usability and accessibility
• Design & Development

7. Customer retention
• Touch strategy definition and execution can define appropriate combinations
of timing, targeting, product:
o Automated event-triggered messaging through customer booking cycle
o Developed with a acceptable level of
• Timing frequency
• Target
• Interval
• Content
• Email marketing is the keystone to retention (and further acquisition)
o low-cost, personalised
o integration of customer behaviour including email response patterns and
transactional data is ideal
o DM

8. Operational support processes across
acquisition, conversion and retention
• Performance improvement including web analytics, commercial
analysis and providing management information
• Design guidelines and operating procedures such as the review
process for publishing new content or triggers for when content
updates were required.
• Managing the technical infrastructure including hosting in order to
deliver the right service levels, experienced by customers as site
performance and availability.

9. eCRM – where it fits within eCommerce
Managing the online customer experience
• Supporting the customer journeys through useability evaluation and web site design.
• Providing web-self service facilities giving access to customer support
• Customisation / personalisation to provide recommendations at individual and customer segment level.
Customer insight
• Managing the data quality and usage of our knowledge of customers including their:
o Characteristics (who are they?) including managing profiles, segments and e-mail lists.
o Behaviour (what they do and when?) including response and purchase behaviour.
o Value (how much are they worth?) including customer lifetime value
o Attitudes (what do they think?) including surveying perceptions, satisfaction & loyalty drivers.
Customer loyalty and response analysis
Touch-strategy definition
• definition and execution defines appropriate combinations of timing, targeting, product
o Automated event-triggered messaging through customer booking cycle
E-mail marketing
• Outbound – acquire and build repeat sales through campaigns and e-newsletters to a house-list. May include direct
mail and SMS.
• Inbound – answering enquiries from e-mails and web-based forms.

10. SEO Fundamentals
Internal SEO
- Relevant
- Accessible
- Keyword Rich
- Quality Signals
- Targeting
External SEO
- Quality, related
links
- Relevant
- Linking speed
- Social Media
- Linking Signals
Technical Spec
- Site Architecture
- Navigation
- Meta data
- XML Options
- Quality signals

11. Suggested eCommerce Strategy for Airlines
Convert
Retain
and Grow
Acquire
• Site design
• Tracking code
• User friendly
content
• Site security
• Good calls to
action
• Site speed
• Viral
• Offers
• 4 stage process
• SEO
• PPC
• Email
• Affiliate
• Banner
• Video
• Viral
• RSS
• Email list
• Buy-in
• Customer
service
• Email
• Personalisation
• Site security
• Referrals

12. Effective web design
• Accessibility – w3C
• User-centred design and usability
• Linking with marketing planning
• Information architecture and findability
• Search engine optimisation (SEO)
• Web standards
• Web analytics
• Legal requirements
• Right fares, appealing
• Combining these will deliver a compelling website experience

13. Effective web design
• 1: Usability and Brand
o Problem: Which way do I go? Which navigation is the right one? Which company and site am I booking
on? Where am I? Can I trust the airline?
o Solution: Provide consistent user experience throughout the site to avoid disorientation and create
confidence and trust through a single, focused and consistent booking experience
• 2: Usability
o Problem: How many steps will booking really take?
o Solution: Optimise the booking flow to create a & efficient 4 step process to avoid drop outs
• 3: Brand
o Problem: Who is the airline and are they for me? What can they offer me others don’t have?
o Solution: Ensure site represent the company’s positioning, mission, values and personality? Enable
customers to understand our offer by providing platform for marketing positioning
• 4: Usability
o Problem: Where can I quickly compare availability and prices?
o Solution: Focus homepage on key user goals: booking, manage my booking, travel info, offers
• 5: Experience
o Problem: Why should I come back? Does the site cater for my needs?
o Solution: Create an effective site structure based on target audience specific needs and provide a platform
to manage relationships such as online check-in updates, flight updates, etc.

14. Number 1 rule - building a database
• Capture customer information in terms of
oName
o Email address
oMobile number
• Through
oWebsite
oCompetitions
o Business cards
• Build a customer database
• AND ideally – but not a deal breaker
• Capture some related demographics helps airline build accurate and timely
profiles about airline's customers
• Create personalised communication.

15. Best practice recommendations
• Acquisition has two meanings:
o Using web site to acquire new customers as qualified leads that can be converted into sales
o Encouraging existing customers to use online channels
• Balance resources between acquisition, proposition development / conversion and retention.
• Create detailed digital marketing plans to provide focus and direction with a structured planning
process for E-commerce
• Achieve senior level sponsorship and involvement in planning and review.
o Align E-commerce objectives and resources with business objectives.
• Be flexible
o Have a flexible response to planning with operational reviews enabling reallocation of budget
o Avoid the delays in “time to market” for introducing new web applications
o Use ‘Test, learn, refine’ model
• Allocate sufficient organisational resources for customer insight, customer data quality, customer
satisfaction, touch-strategy definition, not just web site efficiency and effectiveness.