Case Study: Air Canada`s webSaver – Turning

Case Study: Air Canada’s webSaver –
Turning Innovation into New Revenues
Mark Sniderman
Manager, Marketing Communications – North America & Caribbean
Air Canada
Welcome!
Air Canada webSaver® - building on innovation
Meeting the challenge
Leveraging email to increase revenue
Results
Key lessons
2
Introducing Air Canada
Air Canada is Canada’s largest airline
Network spans over 170 destinations on 5 continents
31 million customers annually
Founding member of Star Alliance™ network
15th largest airline in the world
3
Air Canada invests in…
Comfort
o makes your flight more pleasant
Technology
o makes your life easier
People and equipment
o gives you peace of mind with the highest standards
Network and alliances
o making the whole world easily accessible
Refinement
o pamper and gratify the most demanding travelers
4
…extending the brand experience
Air Canada webSaver® email Program
10+ years – steady growth,
Dynamic newsletter
Weekly distribution and ad hoc
Personalized offers
Since 2006 from 450,000 to approx.
4,000,000 subscribers
Canada (English and French) and US
Supported by a highly comprehensive
online subscription centre
6
Goals
Grow 2010 online revenue
Increase engagement (grow clickthrough rate)
Maximize retention (keep unsubscribe rate below 1%)
Create cross channel synergy to promote online sales
Decrease resources and time needed to create emails
Leverage customer profiles to drive targeted content
Enhance the “flying experience” and reinforce the brand
7
Air Canada webSaver® email Program
• Objectives
Use our experience and innovation
Increase effectiveness of the email program
Grow online revenues in 2010
Reduce unsubscribe rate – a measure of customer retention
Increase clickthrough rate – a measure of engagement
Continue to personalize:
Target product offerings for each subscriber
Provide each subscriber with the control to define key elements of their user experience.
Reduce time to create emails
8
Challenges
Collecting complete and consistent subscriber data
Allocating resources efficiently for production and
deployment
Producing a completely dynamic newsletter specifically
targeting each subscriber individually
Creating a modular email template for easy addition / removal
of content
Provide information in a quick and easy to find manner
9
Our approach
Expand/refine our ongoing 1-to-1 dialogue with subscribers
Provide each subscriber with the means to define their own
user experience
Learn and adapt to subscriber’s evolving preferences
Target product offers based on subscriber profile
Build scalable solutions to evolve with subscriber’s needs
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Our approach
PLAN
EXECUTE
ANALYZE & OPTIMIZE
•
Use online/offline historic data to identify meaningful
segments
•
Use data to dynamically target
each segment
•
Common Data includes:
•
Test during the process of
developing content/design
•
Establish a schedule of on-going
email testing and refinement:
o
Purchases behaviour
o
Click behaviour
o
Loyalty (e.g. length of customer, referring friends,
switching from competitors)
o
•
•
Profile Data (e.g. demographics To help identify
‘big purchasers’
o
Subject line
o
Design
o
Placement of
graphics/copy
Establish meaningful business metrics (e.g.)
o
First-time purchasers
o
Content
o
Dollars spent, number of purchases
o
Copy
o
Growth of membership
•
•
•
Gather results to streamline processes
and marketing outcomes
Measure results against goals
o
ROI
o
Conversion
o
Response rate
Redefine strategy
Link business metrics to email metrics
o
Open rates, click rates, number of clicks per email,
unique opens, time on website
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Our approach
Collect and integrate subscribers’ historic
clickthrough and conversion patterns
Designed email template to accommodate
millions of highly customized content
requirements
Integrated profile and response data with
highly intuitive email template
Automated the assembly of content
Email template focused on empowering
subscriber to define their experience
12
Our Approach
Developed highly intuitive “customer choice tools”
embedded in the newsletter
Provided the means for subscribers to continuously
refine the type of information they receive - quick links
to “Edit my preferences” linked directly to online
subscription centre
Anchors allow quick and easy navigation to various
sections in the email
Fares/offers are based on user’s home airport
Scalable template allows for future increased program
complexity
Database that continually collects, analyzes and reconfigures emails based on subscribers’ preferences
13
Result: a dynamic email
We reached our goal by using an Online Creation Toolset to help speed
up creation process, which allowed us to make us of:
A fully-dynamic template for modular personalized content
Fewer resources
Increased volume of email
Increased variation of email messages
Easy-to-Use Back-End Administration Tools
No HTML coding required…marketers can assemble and deploy
Designed in modules for easy administration
Optimized coding so that the time between deployment and delivery is
dramatically decreased
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Result: a dynamic email
Introduction paragraph summarizes
top offers and deals for the week
“My Preferred Destinations” section
can contain up to five user choices
Only offers matching users’ preferences
will be displayed in this section
Similar Destination offers are selected
and displayed to subscribers
as a value add
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Building on innovation to increase revenues
Additional features and revenue opportunities:
Aeroplan offers
Air Canada Vacation Packages
My Hotels
My Car Rentals
Travel tips and new product launches (Wi-Fi, In-Flight
Entertainment)
Subscription centre
Customer feedback section
16
Building on innovation to increase revenues
Geo-targeted banner advertising
Increase personalization of offers
Cross-selling opportunities
Introduction of mobile version
Launch of webSaver Fare Alert
Social media, third-party ads and aircanada.com
17
Extending the reach
webSaver email is now also supported
by a designated Air Canada webSaver
Twitter page
Twitter followers receive first hand insight
into all our specials and deals
Air Canada has used Twitter to engage
with our customers and prospects at an
individual level
We have also used Twitter to listen
to our customer base
18
Extending the reach
Launched webSaver fare alert, April 2010
Subscribers can set up to 5 destinations
and price thresholds – Air Canada alerts
them when prices are under set price
Monthly view of prices from lowest to
highest
Quick links allow subscribers to:
o Book a flight for a preselected date
o Update their destinations
o View prices for up to 2 months in advance
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Extending the reach
Extending the reach
Extending the reach
Extending the reach
webSaver fare alert results:
o
o
o
o
Qualified, engaged audience
Unique opens increased 21%
Clickthroughs increased 23%
Added revenues
Overall Results
Objective: Grow online revenues
Results:
Dramatically increase the number of visitors to aircanada.com
Increased Revenues by 20% over 2 years
24
Overall Results
Objective: Increase customer retention
Target: Reduce unsubscribe rate to 0.5%
o Result: Reduced unsubscribe rate to 0.4% in 2010
o Result: Increased clickthrough rate overall
25
Overall Results
Objective: Increase new process/technology efficiencies
Target: Reduce time to create emails
Result #1: Reduced time to create emails by 50%
Result #2: Streamlined responsibilities for creating email without
additional hires
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Key Lessons
Database/email marketing is the present and future of
building an ongoing relationship with your target audience
Consumers are becoming more and more sophisticated;
as a result it is important to have a firm understanding of
their preferences and communicate only what is relevant
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Key Lessons
Increase activity and engagement by giving control to
subscribers/users
Every interaction – or piece of interaction – can yield
insights into a target audience
Value is defined by relevance:
o Every communication must be relevant
o Relevance is different for each subscriber/user
28
Achieving success…
Database Management
Complete Customer Profile Information
Easy-to-Use Admin Tools for Execution
Listening to your customers
29
Special thank you…
• Lisa Kupovetsky
o Transcontinental Interactive (formerly Thindata 1:1)
• Maggie Simonetti
o Air Canada
• Bobby Dupont
Karim Hammam
Mario Rendon
o Air Canada Web Team