We often hear a common refrain at Loyalty360 from loyalty marketers and vendors alike: Get the right product to the right customer at the right time. In other words, right time marketing.
That refrain was put to the test during a recent online survey conducted by Sabre Corporation. Sabre surveyed 1,500 travelers from 20 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East, to gauge how much they would be willing to spend on ancillary services such as seats, bags, and food when traveling.
The surprising result shows that travelers would spend as much as $100 to make their respective trips more personalized. What’s more, 80 percent of travelers purchased air extras on their last trip, spending an average of $62. The survey evolved around the theme of how hotels can deliver more tailored offers and services to customers.
Not surprisingly, the survey found regional differences among respondents as to how much they would spend on extras.
“It’s clear that while there are regional differences in ancillary preferences, 80 percent of all travelers spend on air extras, representing a significant revenue opportunity for airlines,” said Dino Gelmetti, vice president EMEA, Airline Solutions, Sabre. “Airlines know what their travelers want based on the data they have on past purchases. Yet, so much of this data remains unused today. However, by leveraging the latest technology, airlines can unlock this data and show they know their travelers by offering the right products at the right time and tailoring a personalized experience that will improve customer loyalty and generate much-needed revenue.”
That’s the gist of the study: tailoring a personalized customer experience by getting the right products to the right customers at the right time.
Some of those products/services include: cabin class upgrades, onboard food, and beverages, preferred seating and extra leg room, in-flight wi-fi, and extra checked baggage.
That right time, right place, right product mentality falls under the heading we know as right time marketing, which is a sophisticated way to boost customer acquisition and retention, provide seamless customer experiences, and create revenue lift by understanding a customer’s characteristics, channel preferences, and in-market purchase signals.
As the Sabre study noted, right time marketing is built on a foundation of leveraging rich customer data to tailor those personalized customer experiences.
Right time marketing matches offline and online data sets to drive right real-time connections with today’s consumers.
Airlines, in particular, can certainly leverage their abundance of customer data through right time marketing so they can better ensure a personalized experience.
Here are the four Rs that comprise right time marketing:
The Right Person: Identifying the right person through a combination of internal customer and prospect data, as well as third-party demographic and firmographic enhancement, digital data, and in-market purchase signals.
The Right Channel: Once the right person or audience has been identified, marketers must use a multichannel approach to target today’s consumers. As consumers go from device to device and use as many as eight channels or more for research and purchases, marketers must continually strive to provide a seamless experience for the customer, however, or whenever they decide to interact with your brand.
The Right Moment: Consumers today are constantly bombarded with marketing messages and advertisements. Cutting through the clutter requires that you serve up the most relevant messages at the right time.
The Right Answer: By integrating the right data across multiple channels to understand a consumer’s behaviors in the moment, companies can find the Right Answer to meet increasing customer expectations. When targeted to the right person, through the right channel, and at the right moment, every customer interaction is an opportunity to strengthen customer loyalty, reduce churn, and boost revenue.