How can airlines capitalise on moment marketing?

A new age of marketing has dawned, with brands worldwide moving towards a more agile, hyper-relevant, form of advertising. As consumer behaviour has changed, so too must the way we market to them. Nowhere is this truer than in the travel industry.

Travel companies, and specifically airlines, are struggling to compete in this over-saturated market; with a far longer sales cycle, and fierce competition from online travel agencies. In fact, according to ThinkwithGoogle, the average travel search can include over 500 touchpoints. 

As such, it’s important to stand out from the crowd. Which is where moment marketing comes in – It acts as an important tool to grab the attention of viewers. 

Moment marketing is all about relevance

Moment marketing, what’s the fuss? It’s all about creating campaigns that embrace events and opportunities to create relevant ads. Statistics have been showing for some time that consumers would prefer tailored advertising.

Moment marketing can mean anything from shopping events in the lead up to Christmas, weather related content in your display ads, or taking advantage of current events.

And the travel industry is in an advantageous position. No need to rely upon captivating imagery to lure in your customers (although it certainly helps). Instead, target them with relevant offers at key times.

Moment marketing moves beyond the seasons

Take Norwegian’s use of the #Brangelina post-breakup. Although you can disagree as to the tastefulness of the campaign, you can’t argue as to its impact. They successfully identified where and what their key target market was. They then tailored an offer and paired it with on a topic that everyone was talking about. #Bradissingle and flights to the US? Who knew…

Nike is another example, on a far more global scale. By now everyone will be aware of the Colin Kaepernick and Serena Williams current events oriented campaigns, and that’s almost enough to prove their success! (Although there are some hard facts here if you like.) They zeroed in on the growing political liberalism of their target market with these timely, hyper-relevant, and emotive ads.

The takeaway here is to be creative with your moment marketing. Yes, seasonal offers and key dates will always draw in customers. But produce campaigns that provide impact, stay on the pulse with the world around you, and tailor the message to your offer for exceptional advertising. 

A hugely successful print ad that could have been equally effective as display advertising – if only they had had a creative management platform (CMP)!

The 4 micro moments of travel marketing

Micro Moment marketing is simply a more granular approach – where you advertise with the goal of reaching those people in snap moments. For instance, where they’re searching for ‘the quickest route to Denmark’ it’s an ideal opportunity to display your cheapest connecting flight from Stockholm to Copenhagen based on their location.

As the customer journey has transformed it has created new opportunities at every stage of the sales cycle. From ‘I want to get away’ moments to ‘lets book it moments’ – your brand should be present for each of them.

ThinkwithGoogle perfectly summarised the two considerations you need when marketing to these 4 very important moments.

Be There.

Be Useful.

In this age where loyalty to travel companies is harder and harder to acquire, you need a new approach to your digital marketing. Get your ads out there. Account for all the questions that can be related to your product and tailor content to them. And ranking highly for these sorts of questions in search will make a significant impact on your ROI.

Creating content for every stage of the user journey can be daunting. Yet, by using a CMP you have access to easy scaling and dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) that automatically adjusts copy and imagery to your consumers wants and needs.

How do you make the most of your moment marketing?

1. Data Management Platform (DMP)

An effective way you can moment market is to leverage your DMP. The reason why campaigns of Nike were so successful was that they correctly identified their target market.

Yes, initially imagery of burning trainers and t-shirts may have spooked some. But the data showed that amongst young, liberal-minded consumers over 44% approved of the message, and sales jumped 35% as a result.

With a DMP you can accurately discern where and what your target market is interested in and publish media on the sites on which they spend most of their time. Input this data and pair it with your creative management platform (CMP) to create a seamless journey from first-party data to analysing the effectiveness of your campaigns, in one.  

Moment marketing can only be truly effective if it takes advantage of data to produce ads that engage in the right place at the right time.

2. Omnichannel advertising 

In a similar sense, make sure you’re present across all devices. Today, consumers typically browse across at least four touch-points. With the average customer searching on mobile but completing their purchase on desktop.

In fact, amongst airline marketing professionals, an effective cross-channel strategy as seen as one of the most important priorities for brands. Of course, this is pertinent for every type of campaign, not just moment marketing. But saturate your consumers with scalable ads across mobile, desktop, pavements, and TV and watch your engagement soar.  

3. In-app advertising for airlines

There are endless opportunities for airline centric apps. From the simple app that allows you check-in and display a boarding pass, to an app that enables you to video chat your pet throughout a flight.

Users spend on average five hours a day within apps on their smartphones in 2017. What’s more, there is a greater return on investment (ROI) compared to mobile web, with app consumption more of a daily habit. And ‘snacking’ throughout the day during moments of downtime. 

If you haven’t already, include in-app in your marketing strategy and update it regularly to coincide with your moment marketing.

So how do you move on from here? 

Moment marketing can mean a number of things for your advertising. It can be something as simple as adding snow to your display ads in winter or more complex event oriented campaigns. Either way, each presents an opportunity to move away from standardised ads to marketing that relates.

Previously, moment marketing in relation to display was nigh impossible. But now, using the creative management platform (CMP) with simple design processes, and easy scaling, your digital marketing can be as agile as your print ads.