Blog home*** STOP THE PRESS *** - Teletext Holidays are launching a travel deals email sent every 2 weeks to their 500,000 registrants [See announcement via Travolution].
Wow.
While other companies are thinking about social networks, clever video help guides and mobile platforms - what are Teletext Holidays doing? Email newsletters.
Wait up – I believe this is a good thing. For people who read blogs and go to travel technology conferences we are all chasing the next big thing in online travel. Forget it for 2009. What the focus should be is on executing existing projects well.
Email newsletters may not be sexy and I have never been to a bar camp to discuss newsletter strategies either…. but they make money. They make money today. Not next year, not 2010 – but they make money now. 2009 will be all about revenue today not jam tomorrow. Teletext Holidays should be applauded for their focus.
No more staff retention worries
One reason that some companies undertook highly interesting web projects was that it was part of a staff retention strategy. You needed to be doing something social in order to attract (and retain) the best web people (and agencies) to come and work for you.
Give them a honeypot project and they were happy running an awkward and antiquated ecommerce platform for 75% of their time. But now people are just happy having a job. No need for any attractive developments. Get your web staff working on something dull like code refactoring and target to reduce your web hosting charges by 50%. There will be more immediate ROI there than from any social or UGC project.
If you are a product guy go and ask your development team how often they refactor their code. Chances are that over the last few years you have pounded your web guys for constant new projects – never letting people go back and improve on existing work. It is also a good plan to get your web development contractors to refactor before you decide not to renew their contracts…… er – should I have said that?!
Prediction for 2009
So to sum this up – my prediction for 2009 will be that there will be more focus on immediate revenue generating projects. Email newsletters being one. Tacking on 3rd party affiliate products being another.
This will cause a minor problem for people like me who have got into the habit of only writing about fun, future looking, stuff. We will have to become much more creative to come up with blog post ideas as there will be little that looks like good article fodder. I don’t really fancy writing about email newsletters regardless how worthy they are.
Which reminds me – I am currently writing a book about travel ecommerce (for smaller tour operators). That isn’t very sexy either. Dull really. I much prefer writing this blog. But it is the same principle – I am writing that because it may (!) make money (my bank manager hopes). If dull projects are what it takes to continue – that is what we have to do.
Happy new year everyone. Make it a good one.
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I like this kind of move too. Just 3 months ago I spent the better part of a week putting together a rather cool newsletter admin area for a travel biz I run here in Norway. Tailored to recipients addresses to show them when we’ve got something going on nearby, so very localized. For 2009 most of projects planned in different companies all revolve around improving traffic and conversion we already have, not trying to get more.
Good post Alex. Its funny that you bring up newsletters as I see that as low hanging fruit for many in the travel industry. Many of the smaller tour operators I work with STILL don’t offer an e-newsletter. That is obviously a quick and easy way for them to stay in touch with their past/potential customers.
I also think the bigger travel companies could do a better job of offering customized newsletters. Why does Travelocity send me the same newsletter they send my mom?
New tech is clearly very exciting but the old standbys aren’t going away anytime soon.
Cheers,
Tyson
Alex,
Good thoughts. I do think people need to focus on driving ROI. I also agree that unsexy but effective tactics like email newsletters are proven tactics and good execution can put money in the bank. But I don’t agree that Social Media can’t be a proven tactic to drive revenue. In fact, when everyone else is going “dark” it might be the time to run a program that has extremely low cost compared to (a) traditional PR and (b) advertising. And besides, its more fun!
At UpTake, we’re putting our money where our mouth is and sponsoring things like Claude Benard’s Marseilles conference just because we like Claude and he is an exceptional connector in the consumer travel and travel industry blogosphere. On the other hand, we are likely to spend less on traditional PR and we never had any advertising $ anyway…
I think this next year requires:
1. brutal honesty about how things will turn out on a macro level…most likely worse than anyone even thinks today.
2. balancing of “practical” highest risk/return projects and what you are passionate about.
I look forward to the challenge!
Okay, now I have lost the plot, totally. Having listened to people banging on about social networking sites and how they are the way forward and having been lambasted for saying that I could see no way of quantifying any (financial) return whatsoever from social networking sites…. I have spent a while trying to get my head around the likes of twitter (what’s that all about??) Myspace (which my daughter is trying to help me understand) and various other networking sites, microsites and tools … suddenly, one is being told to get on with doing email newsletters which I had been originally advised, went straight into the spam box… All you media thinkers seem to blow hot and cold about something faster than I can reboot a PC…. HELP!!
Hi Murray
Yeah – sorry about the confusion.
Maybe this helps….. social stuff / User Generated Content – will determine who wins in 2 years time +++
In the meantime you have to stay in business in order to get to still be trading in 2 years time. To do that, not much help spending resources (development time, money) on projects that only give return too late – instead focus on projects that give return today (like email newsletters)
So companies that are worried about staying trading during 2009 may go the conventional project route. Companies sitting on cash may do long term return projects. VC backed companies who (perhaps) don’t care about revenue today can keep on looking at building for the future….
Email works for us – although only 25% ever open! (so 75% do go straight to the delete box)
Also this comment is a bit of a generalisation – some social stuff – and a some styles of UGC - can deliver a return sooner than 2 years….
Does that help?
Well said > If you want to stay in business, focus a little bit more on ROI (depending on how big you are). If you can afford to spend money on social medias and UGC projects too then go ahead.
Happy New Year!
Personally I hate email newsletters. I think the simple thing you/teletext/whoever should be concentrating on is: RSS FEEDS
Give me a whole bunch to choose from not just one that gives me your blog updates or your latest news. Then I can effectively create my own newsletter. Well, sort of – at least I can choose what sorts of info I want from you. The problem with email newsletters (and newsletters generally) is they are usually so untargetted – there’s one thing in there amidst the clutter I might want to read, but I just don’t have the time to wade through and find it
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy – you are right of course. We shouldn’t confuse content with the method of consuming the content.
We don’t actually send out newsletters. But we do send out “ad hoc” news – only only when we have news that people may actually want. We also segment our list to ensure that only the right people get each one!
Tell us more about the book!
I should clarify my statements. At Travari our marketing plan will involve a lot of social media interaction (Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon etc) but at this point we don’t see it returning significant ROI to develop our own social media tools within the website. As a bootstrapped organization engaging with social media is absolutely the most cost-effective. Building new social media tools is not cost-effective.
I strongly agree with Jeremy that I’d prefer RSS feeds, but we all need to remember that we are not our own target market (usually.) The percent of internet users who are using RSS feeds on a daily basis is still very small (last I heard was around 4% but I’m sure it’s grown). E-mail newsletters aren’t the future, but 25-30% of them get read and they are cheap/easy to send. My mom still opens the Travelzoo e-mail EVERY week!
Tyson
PS – I still contend that those 25-30% open rates could be boosted by improving the quality of the e-newsletters but that is a different subject altogether.
RSS is great but is failing in terms of mass adoption. I used to work in an international marketing department for a large company. Mostly young professionals with MBAs from Insead etc. very few even had a clue what RSS was. It’s so easy to overestimate general engagement with technology and new media based on our own use.
[...] I’ve been inspired by a couple of really interesting posts offering predictions for what will happen in the travel industry in 2009. I know I’m about 8 days late but here are my predictions for the adventure travel industry. [...]
Alex, yes it does help. This is a bit of a new world (technology) that goes far beyond the realm of us agents who deal with the humdrum of satisfying client enquiries. For us to learn, it would also help a bit if people would not use too many techno terms (in return we will not use travel speak) for example RSS, yes I know about that – almost sussed that one. But “Bootstrapped”? … and there is a new post of yours where I lost the plot after the first sentence….
Hi Murray,
Bootstrapping – refers to funding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_funding
The book, when it comes, will go cover the general knowledge ground in a structured way – hopefully there won’t be any terms in that which people won’t understand
Thanks. Alex