1. Discover a new transport or destination
Transportation and destination campaigns are standard for travel and transportation brands, but they can be elevated with the use of data and personalisation.
For instance, if a customer has been regularly browsing a specific landing page, a personalised email or in-app notification can be triggered to promote similar travel or destination options which are likely to be of interest. These communications can be further personalised with the specific dates and pricing that each individual has been searching for.
This type of personalised automation can be used in a variety of scenarios. As well as more general promotions, they can be triggered for abandoned browse or booking notifications, re-engagement campaigns, and relevant up-sell and cross-sell promotions.
2. Predictive travel updates
With the use of marketing automation and real-time data, travel and transportation brands can generate predictive and personalised updates based on recipients’ behaviour and preferences, alongside external factors such as travel delays or weather updates.
With the use of dynamic content, these updates can be populated with information specific to each individual. Ensuring the most accurate and up-to-date communications.
And updates don’t have to be boring, they can come in the form of dynamic itineraries, feature real-time countdown timers, and incorporate personalised imagery.
3. Promote travel partnerships
Travel and transportation brands have the opportunity to partner with related businesses or sister brands to offer their customers the benefit of both services.
This can be particularly useful for combining accommodation with travel options, and supporting customers in all aspects of their journey from A to Z. Brands can automate cross-sell emails post-booking to promote additional travel partnership options, such as taxi or car bookings, or overnight hotel stays for flight transfers.
This is the perfect way to cross-sell services, broaden the brand’s audience, and also support customers throughout their trip.
4. Surprise loyal customers
Loyalty programs are a fantastic way to reward VIP customers. But instead of offering regular loyalty points or discounts, brands can offer a surprise to loyal customers to grab their attention and keep them engaged.
This could include discounts or freebies from sister companies, partnering with complementary travel brands, or utilising data to provide an offer that is highly specific to each individual’s browsing and booking behaviour.
5. Milestone celebrations
We’re big fans of a ‘Happy Birthday’ email campaign, but these celebrations don’t have to be restricted to date of birth.
Travel and transportation brands can celebrate a range of travel-related milestones, such as the anniversary of their first booking, visiting a specific number of countries, or reaching sustainability goals using green travel options.
How Travel & Transportation brands can prepare for the future
When it comes to marketing technology and advancements in personalisation, futureproofing is essential. By doing so, brands in the travel and transportation industry won’t be left behind when the latest advancements are implemented by competitors, or demanded by customers.
Invest in data collection and management
The first step in any personalisation journey is to collect and manage top-quality data.
Without it, personalisation is simply not impossible.
With this in mind, travel and transportation brands need to broaden the range of data they collect, incorporating customer preferences, behavioural data, historical travel patterns, and geolocation. All of which will form the foundations of excellent personalisation campaigns.
In addition, a dedicated data platform will help businesses in this industry to centralise, analyse, and utilise their data through multiple sources. This platform should be able to integrate data from multiple locations, such as websites, CRM, finance systems, and mobile applications for a more well-rounded customer view.
Leverage marketing automation and AI
In addition to a data management platform, quality marketing automation and AI solutions are essential for analysing data, utilising it for personalisation, and triggering relevant communications and campaigns at scale.
With these solutions, personalisation can be automated through a variety of channels, such as email, SMS, and in-app. Ensuring a consistent flow of communications where travellers engage the most.
Furthermore, as your personalisation sophistication grows, any good marketing automation solution can grow with you. Enabling your brand to expand your audience and experiment with sophisticated personalisation tactics
Implement scalable personalisation
With the use of the right technology, personalised campaigns can be easily scalable, and able to grow with your business and customer base.
There are a couple of strategies that you can implement to improve your scalable personalisation.
Firstly, the use of hyper-segmentation enables brands to move beyond basic segmentation to create niche groups for even more targeted campaigns. These segments should be dynamic, adjusting in real-time as new data becomes available.
Secondly, the creation of dynamic content and the use of dynamic content blocks enables travel and transportation brands to easily customise content for different customer segments, or individual recipients, without needing extensive technical skills.
Build partnerships with experts
Marketing technology moves at a rapid pace, so to keep up it’s a wise idea to build partnerships with experts. Experts in marketing, personalisation, and of course travel and transportation.
When looking for any technology linked to personalisation, such as a data management platform or marketing automation, we recommend choosing a solution which offers expert support and guidance. Look for dedicated account management, support teams, and free resources, and ensure you are making good use of them.
Next steps
As the travel and transportation industry continues to evolve, it’s clear that personalisation will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping customer experiences and brand success.
By investing in advanced data management, marketing automation, and scalable personalisation strategies, brands can meet and exceed customer expectations whilst staying ahead of the competition.
If this sounds of interest, then at Deployteq we can help.
We boast an industry-leading marketing automation platform alongside a team of experts who are keen to help you on your journey to personalisation success.
Get in touch to find out more.
