Dionisio Andreia

24/01/2012

GREEN EXAM

Knowledge Expertise

SEO •SEM •IQ Digital •Direct Booking •SoLoMo •Case study

24/01/2012

Green ExamKnowledge Expertise

- EXCERCIE 1 -

OTA: It’s a travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides tourism related services to the public on behalf of suppliers such as airlines, cars rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, and package tours. In addition to dealing with ordinary tourists most travel agencies have a separate departement devoted to making travel arrangements for business travelers and some travel agencies specialize in commercial and business travel only. There are also travel agencies that serve as general sales agents for foreign travel companies, allowing them to have offices in countries other than where their head quarters are located.Most consumers are aware of the benefits that online travel agencies, OTAs, provide in assisting them in making their travel arrangements. The values of OTA is : empower consumers in

researching travel destinations ; provide increased inventory and choices, transparency and comparison shopping between flights, hotels, other amenities; offer lower prices and travel specials; provide consumer reviews and other intel on destinations and hotels; and give consumers the ability to quickly and easily make travel arrangements. Examples: Expedia, Voyages-sncf, Travel city, Orbitz, lastminutes, Priceline, Webjet, etc.

Last Moment Booking Apps   : Consumer use a mobile device to book a hotel room within 24 hours, and the various reasons for doing so. Many last-minute holiday bookings are made late at night. The most commonly cited reason (selected by 50% of these respondents) was

1

Expedia

Blink booking

24/01/2012

necessity; they had consumed one or two drinks too many and elected to spend the night in a hotel.With shifting consumer expectations due to the proliferation of last-minute booking apps, hotels must consider the implications of offering rooms via the last-minute mobile channel. The promise of reducing empty rooms via last-minute bookings is nothing new – last minute travel has always been big in Europe, where the close proximity of dozens of relatively inexpensive destinations encouraged many consumers to care less about advance planning in favor of a lower priced getaway.The consumer will book hotels last-minute

when the deals are there for hotels they want, and when the inventory tightens up, they will shift back to advance bookings to lock in the hotel they want. And for the price conscious consumer, there will be dozens of tools across channels to help them secure the best price for their travel dollar.Example : Last-minute, Blink Booking, Hotel to night, Expedia.

SEO   : It’s the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

SEM   : It is the process of gaining traffic from or visibility on search engines. The phrase is also sometimes shortened to “search marketing.”

2

24/01/2012

SEM is the wider discipline that incorporates SEO. SEM includes both paid search results (Using tools like Google Adwords or Microsoft adCenter) and organic search results (SEO). SEM uses paid advertising with AdWords or Bing Ads, pay per click (particularly beneficial for local providers as it enables potential consumers to contact a company directly with one click), article submissions, advertising and making sure SEO has been done. A keyword analysis is performed for both SEO and SEM, but not necessarily at the same time. SEM and SEO both need to be monitored and updated frequently to reflect evolving best practices.

SEM is an umbrella term that covers two broad areas: Gaining traffic through free SEO efforts and Gaining traffic through paid search advertising.In some contexts, the term SEM is used exclusively to mean pay per click advertising, particularly in the commercial advertising and marketing communities which have a vested interest in this narrow definition. Such usage excludes the wider search marketing community that is engaged in other forms of SEM such as search engine optimization and search retargeting. Another part of SEM is social media marketing (SMM). SMM is a type of marketing that involves exploiting social media to influence consumers that one company’s products and/or services are valuable. Some of the latest theoretical advances include search engine marketing management (SEMM). SEMM relates to activities including SEO but focuses on return on investment (ROI) management instead of relevant traffic building (as is the case of mainstream SEO). SEMM also integrates organic SEO, trying to achieve top ranking without using paid means of achieving top in search engines, and pay per click SEO. For example some of the attention is placed on the web page layout design and how content and information is displayed to the website visitor.

Interactive Campaigns: Many companies decide of outside the box and creating innovative campaigns that engage fans and actually work. These companies harnessed the power of social media and took it out into the real world, with brilliant results.

Example   : Friskies Plus Playhouse is a playground for rescue cats created by Facebook fans, which is filmed and streamed onto Facebook. Fans of the Friskies Facebook page can control the cats’ toys in real time and see the cats’ reactions. It’s a cute idea that requires participation and engagement while maintaining the brand’s presence at all times.

3

24/01/2012

KLM have done some pretty cool social media campaigns over the past few years, and this one is a great example of how big brands can relate to consumers on a human level by meeting them in person and giving them a small gift! KLM found passengers who had made it clear online that they were flying KLM- cue a quick brainstorm over what gift would suit this person based on their social media profiles, and a dash to find them in the airport before they boarded their flights. Hyundai created an engaging large scale iPhone Controlled Racing Game in Times Square, which, as the video shows, garnered a lot of attention from passers-by. The draw was a racing car game, projected on the huge screen, wirelessly controlled via iPhone. It looked like a whole lot of fun and was a well timed event, happening in early December, when many people would have been out doing their Christmas shopping. Orange, the mobile network provider did something pretty innovative by getting attendees at the Roxy Pro 2011 surf event to sign up with their Facebook account, and that data then transferred onto a bracelet that contained RFID technology. This meant that people could check in their location, tag and take photos which would upload to their profiles. By doing

this they were also in with a chance to win daily prizes. It’s a great example of how a company can make an event better shared and publicised by enabling easier Facebook engagement.

- WHAT TYPES OF BOOKING IS ROOM KEY ?

It’s an Hotel Booking application. Founded by a group of leading hotel companies, Room Key’s mission is simple: offer travelers direct access

to a broad network of hotels around the globe, provide accurate and comprehensive information, make it easy for travelers to discover what’s right for them. Room Key’s experienced hospitality management team has partnered with great hotel brands to provide this one-of-a-kind search and booking experience.

The motivation for hotel companies is to drive bookings to a less-expensive direct channel rather than costlier OTAs like Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline. Brand.com bookings also give consumers the chance to earn loyalty points and allow hotels to handle guests and any customer-service issues from the moment they book.

4

24/01/2012

A recent report from TravelClick showed brand.com bookings grew 6.1% last quarter (to 25% of all transient booked rooms), while OTAs accounted for 12%. Preliminary data from a distribution channel analysis by STR and the AH&LA last year found the OTA portion to be at 10% in 2010. Though, Adam Saks, the managing director of Tourism Economics, extrapolated from the study that OTA bookings cost the hotel industry $2.5 billion.

Like with many third-party distributors, Room Key charges hotels commissions for the reservations the site delivers. The fees are negotiable based on various factors, including the size of the hotels or chain.

Most of the partners have an opt-out arrangement for their owners, who are automatically enrolled in Room Key. Best Western, with its unique membership model, is the opposite with an opt-in approach. Room Key is just another storefront, another distribution channel.

-

5

24/01/2012

- - Excercie 2 -

Digital IQ is an assessment of how well companies understand the value of technology and weave it into the fabric of their organization. Growing your Digital IQ entails more than merely adopting the latest tools or having a large IT budget—it is about integrating technology into the way a company plans, innovates, measures results, interacts with customers, and ultimately creates value.

Despite the greatest economic crisis since the Depression, retailers saw revenues from e-commerce increase in 2009, signaling a shift from bricks to clicks. By 2014 U.S. online retail sales are forecasted to increase to $250 billion and the web influences 46 percent of offline purchases. In a new study, NYU Stern Professor of Marketing Scott Galloway and a team of experts from L2, a think tank for digital innovation, evaluated and ranked 82 prestige specialty retail brands’ Digital IQ. The study measures site and e-commerce strength, digital marketing and mobile capabilities, social media savvy and search engine marketing and optimization. The results reveal a relationship between a firm’s Digital IQ and its year-on-year revenue growth, suggesting digital competence may be a forward-looking indicator for sales.

Four Seasons, Hilton and Marriott Top L2′s Second annual Digital IQ Index: Hotels. This study reveals that differentiated content on site and mobile bookings drive traffic and high margin revenue. The research demonstrates a clear relationship between hotel brands’ Digital IQ and shareholder value.

The Digital IQ incluse :

Web (2.0) and social media adoption is anemic given their power to drive traffic and sales. Less than half incorporate video on their sites, only 32 percent offer ratings and reviews, and only 23 percent offer online chat, all shown to boost sales and conversion;

Social media acumen is the strongest predictor of high Digital IQ. While most brands maintain a presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, the size of communities and robustness of social media programs varies greatly; The 17 percent of retailers that incorporate the Facebook “like” button on their site demonstrate 80 percent higher average traffic growth. Incorporation of the “like” button has grown 75 percent month-on-month;

Mobile marketing : Only 25 percent of brands maintain mobile sites and 35 percent have Smartphone applications. Only six brands have tablet-specific applications;

6

24/01/2012

Flash sale brands including Gilt Groupe, Rue La La and Haute Look demonstrate the highest category three month traffic growth (38 percent); however, their sites and marketing lack differentiation resulting in an average category Digital IQ.

7

24/01/2012

- EXCERCIE 3 -

Customer Discover Path

Most startups lack a process for discovering their markets, locating their first customers, validating their assumptions, and growing their business. A few successful ones do all these things. The difference is that the ones that succeed invent a Customer Development model. This post describes such a model.

The Customer Development Model

Customer Development is designed to solve the problems of the Product Development model I described in the four previous posts. Its strength is its rigor and flexibility. The Customer Development model delineates all the customer-related activities in the early stage of a company into their own processes and groups them into four easy-to-understand steps: Customer Discovery, Customer Validation, Customer Creation, and Company Building. These steps mesh seamlessly and support a startup’s ongoing product development activities. Each step results in specific deliverables.

The Customer Development model is not a replacement for the Product Development model, but rather a companion to it. As its name should communicate, the Customer Development model focuses on developing

customers for the product or service your startup is building.

8

THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT MODEL

24/01/2012

Four Steps

While startups are inherently chaotic (and will never be run from a spreadsheet or checklist inside your building,) the Four Steps of Customer Development are designed to help entrepreneurs leverage the chaos and turn it into actionable data;

Customer Discovery focuses on testing hypotheses and understanding customer problems and needs – in front of customers – by the founders

Customer Validation is where you develop a sales model that can be replicated and scaled

Customer Creation is creating and driving end user demand to scale sales

Company Building transitions the organization from one designed for learning and discovery to a well-oiled machine engineered for execution.

Market Type

Integral to the Customer Development model is the notion that Market Type choices affect the way the company will deploy its sales, marketing and financial resources. Market Type changes how you evaluate customer needs, customer adoption rate, how the customer understands his needs and how you should position the product to the customer, etc. As a result different market types modify what you do in in each step of Customer Development.

Customer Development is Iterative

Learning and discovery versus linear execution is a major difference between this model and the traditional product development model. While the product development model is linear in one direction, the customer development model is a circular track with recursive arrows.The circles and arrows highlight the fact that each step in Customer Development is iterative. That’s a polite way of saying, “Unlike product development, finding the right customers and market is unpredictable, and we will screw it up several times before we get it right.” (Only in business school case studies does progress with customers happen in a nice linear fashion.) The nature of finding a market and customers guarantees that you will get it wrong several times.

9

24/01/2012

The Customer Development model assumes that it will take several iterations of each of the four steps until you get it right. It’s worth pondering this point for a moment because this philosophy of “It’s OK to screw it up if you plan to learn from it” is the heart of the methodology.

The Facts Reside Outside Your Building

Customer Development starts by testing your hypotheses outside the building. Not in planning meetings, not in writing multiple pages of nicely formatted Marketing Requirements Documents, but by getting laughed at, ignored, thrown out and educated by potential customers as you listen to their needs and test the fundamental hypotheses of your business.

Failure Is an Option

Notice that the circle labeled Customer Validation in the diagram has an additional iterative loop going back to Customer Discovery. As you’ll see later, Customer Validation is a key checkpoint in understanding whether you have a product that customers want to buy and a road map of how to sell it. If you can’t find enough paying customers in the Customer Validation step, the model returns you to Customer Discovery to rediscover what you failed to hear or understand the first time through the loop.

Customer Development is Low Burn by Design

The Customer Development process keeps a startup at a low cash burn rate until the company has validated its business model by finding paying customers. In the first two steps of Customer Development, even an infinite amount of cash is useless because it can only obscure whether you have found a market. (Having raised lots of money tempts you to give products away, steeply discount to buy early business, etc., all while saying “we’ll make it up later.” It rarely happens that way.) Since the Customer Development model assumes that most startups cycle through these first two steps at least twice, it allows a well-managed company to carefully estimate and frugally husband its cash. The company doesn’t build its non-product development teams (sales, marketing, business development) until it has proof in hand (a tested sales road map and valid purchase orders) that it has a business worth building. Once that proof is obtained, the company can go through the last two steps of Customer Creation and Company Building to capitalize on the opportunity it has found and validated.

Customer Development is For Winners and Warriors

The interesting thing about the Customer Development model is that the process represents the best practices of winning startups. Describe this model to entrepreneurs who have taken their companies all the way to a large profitable business, and you’ll get heads nodding in recognition. It’s

10

24/01/2012

just that until now, no one has ever explicitly mapped their journey to success.

Even more surprising, while the Customer Development model may sound like a new idea for entrepreneurs, it shares many features with a U.S. war fighting strategy known as the “OODA Loop” articulated by John Boyd and adopted by the U.S. armed forces in both Gulf Wars – and by others.

Customer Engagement for the Morgan Hotel Group   :

The Customers have different egagement points :

booking : through booking App, OTA, website, etc.

Discovery : official website, Hotel and Group information, Tripadvisor comments, blog, forum, etc.

Inspiration : Social Media, word of mouth, search (google, SEO), design of website, etc.

Thus, the approach of the customer who wants to book a room will be: it will first compare the hotel with the competition and learn (forum, blog, social media, etc..), It will then go to the website the hotel will analyze it and look at the calendar, the event in the hotel and around the hotel, and once made are opinions on the hotel reserve. For booking, good SEO is necessary not to lose a customer. As the picture shows, the Morgan Hotel Group is well referenced. The customer can quickly find the website and book directly.

11

24/01/2012

Excercie 4 -

What does   SoLoMo   mean?

In recent years an increasing shift in media habits can be observed. The massive proliferation of smartphones has opened up new fields of marketing and greats enormous potentials. Within these developments a new trend - called “SoLoMo”- is arising. Although there is no consistent definition to this trend, SoLoMo represents a movement that meets the needs of users and integrates their daily offline life into the online world. It is a combination of social applications and creating local content on mobile devices. The three basic pillars of SoLoMo ‘Social’, ‘Local’ and ‘Mobile’ offer a modern perspective of how to interact with customers. It means to offer users an added value by supporting his needs and wants to interact and recommend with his community wherever he is at the moment. Social - in the sense of an online community. Similar to existing social networks like for example Facebook, the recipients can interact and produce their own content, which they share with other customers wherever and whenever he is on his mobile phone. The new aspect and perspective for companies is the local component. To offer the customer an added value when he is

12

SOLOMO

24/01/2012

close to a shop helps to apply for a new target group and bound them to a brand: walk-in customers

So, SoLoMo emerged as a result of the growing popularity of smartphones, and provides greater local precision to search engine results via geo-location technology. The GPS technology integrated into these devices provides more accurate geo results than the "IP mapping" approach necessary for home or office PCs.

Also, big search engines are recognizing that there is a large - and virtually untapped - market in local search. That's because there are a lot more "mom and pop" operations out there than firms with a national or international scope. When search engines started incorporating more and more local results in search engine results, they proved the size of the local market on the Internet.

Finally, in order for search results to have accurate local results, they need accurate information about local businesses. Good local search results just aren't possible unless what "local" actually means is made clear. This has proved to be problematic for browser-based search requests. But as an increasing number of searches are being driven by apps, this problem has disappeared simply because most apps have a larger arsenal of tools that allow them to determine exactly where the user is.

13

24/01/2012

14

24/01/2012

Requirements

The technological development in the mobile sector is one basic requirement for the rise of SoLoMo. Applications as Near Field Communication (NFC), Quick Response Codes (QR-Codes) and Global Positioning System (GPS) are only keywords and an abstract of new possibilities. Particularly important for “SoLoMo” marketing are Local Based Services (LBS) that allow companies to contact their local clients

15

24/01/2012

directly. This helps to reduce the amount of waste coverage in marketing. As well measurements are relieved as SoLoMo campaigns can directly be tracked and measured.

Objectives

SoLoMo marketing regulates the five main objectives. It offers a new possibility of customer acquisition: to bound walk-in customers. Despite that companies can easily increase their customer retention with price comparisons, company information, recommendations, word of mouth and a direct communication with their customers. Through check-in functions more benefits can be given to the client, that creates an added value for the use of the application. The benefits can occur as couponing or discounts which also helps to strengthen the image of a modern, communicative company. Through applications short and importantinformation of products or the company itself are easily shared with the customer. In the center of all SoLoMo activities lies finallysales as the last objective of SoLoMo.

Strategies

Strategies of “SoLoMo” focus on the interaction with the customer, to integrate them in activities and to create thereby an online and offline experience. Information and notification can be given about products or features to let customers learn and educate about the company and to create traffic in stores. SoLoMo applications should help to build a relationship between company and customer with a continuous contact and a rising community of people who like to talk about the company and its products. Thiscommunity is one basic pillar of SoLoMo. Therefore it is important to identify local influencers and to gain them for oneself creatingaccess by being available whenever they prefer. In summary, it is essential to equip each channel and each application communicative, so that it can result in a direct dialogue between companies and customers and transaction.

From the set of strategies different tactics derived and displays in a large variety. Examples from experiences are the campaign “Getaway Stockholm” by MINI, and as well the campaigns of Bing together with Jay-Z.

Conclusion   and Perspective

16

24/01/2012

Recent developments demonstrate that “SoLoMo” marketing measures have a huge potential in a new field of interaction with your customer. SoLoMo will become even more important because of the smartphone and internet access development. It can be conclude that SoLoMo will not be a temporarily movement – it will be a serious communication channel for companies. Therefore companies should not miss to build a relationship through SoLoMo with their customers now. This can only work if the client’s needsare at the center. “Commercial exploitation of SoLoMo potential will therefore only succeed if a clear benefit is offered to the user.” The walk-in customers can be attracted and bounded to your store. Beside that SoLoMo offers simple methods of campaign measurements in comparison to traditional marketing measures.

The possibility to proclaim your opinion all the time demands the allover standing question if SoLoMo leads to ‘grassroots-Marketing’ in the future. Everyone has the possibility to share, communicate, interact, recommend and criticize. It offers a wide range of possibilities and as well disadvantages for companies with several affordable objectives.

17

24/01/2012

- EXCERCIE 5 -

What is predictive Marketing   ?

Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics, modelling, machine learning, and data mining that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events.

In business, predictive models exploit patterns found in historical and transactional data to identify risks and opportunities. Models capture relationships among many factors to allow assessment of risk or potential associated with a particular set of conditions, guiding decision making for candidate transactions.

What the difference is between “predictive analytics” and “predictive marketing”? While predictive analytics can be applied to a wide range of fields and industries (e.g. supply chain, security intelligence, real estate, professional sports, sales and CRM, marketing, insurance, etc.), predictive marketing represents the direct application of predictive analytics to the needs and challenges of the marketer. As the leader in predictive marketing, Adobe seeks to empower digital marketers with the ability to make intelligent, forward looking decisions through automation, visualization and user experience innovations coupled with powerful predictive models.

Needs of Predictive Marketing:

Identify the customers and prospects who are most likely to buy your product

Attract new customers cost effectively

Better target an audience through market segmentation

Customize messaging to individual customers and prospects to increase response

Retain a higher percentage of customers

Accurately track and analyze the results of marketing programs, so you can measure ROI

Successfully introduce new products

Rapidly optimize your marketing programs   

18

24/01/2012

The Ben e fits of Pre dic tive Marketing

Predictive marketing provides value to everyone from analysts to technol-ogy experts to web content managers in all industries.  For the advertiser trying to identify which variables are most predictive of increased CTR (click through rate), predictive marketing provides a solution.  However, publishers can leverage predictive marketing to forecast advertising inven-tory for future periods. The following table represents some examples of the types of challenges solved by predictive marketing for different types of digital marketers:

The Aberdeen Group recently published an article entitled Predictive Ana-lytics for Sales and Marketing: Seeing Around Corners   that outlines the significant benefits that come to those organizations that apply data mining and statistical modeling to optimize marketing efforts.  Predictive market-ing drives as much as 2X lift from marketing campaigns, 76% higher click-through rate, and 73% higher sales lift.

19

24/01/2012

Predictive marketing represents the next phase of analytics and optimiza-tion for digital marketers.  We have completed our pregame warm up and we are now ready to enter the big leagues.  Over the coming weeks I will take time to dive deeper into specific applications of predictive marketing and how digital marketers can leverage predictive marketing in their deci-sion processes and workflows.

What is Google Hotel Finder, how is it related to hotel direct bookings?

Google Hotel Finder has been around for a while, but this week Google has started displaying Google Hotel results aggressively in SERPs (search engine result pages). Google Hotel Finder is designed to be a one-stop-shop for accommodation planning. It is designed to display relevant information from many hotels that fit your search criteria, and then give you reservation options. Similar to how Google scans other websites to find information to display, Google Hotel Finder gathers hotel information from a variety of places.

How Google Hotel Finder Works   :

Google Hotel Finder is Google’s attempt to dominate another search niche. Anything that can be searched, should be searched from Google, or so goes their thinking. Thus, they developed Hotel Finder to be a dashboard from which to shop for accommodations. Couple it with Google Flights , and you have a fully-fledged trip planner. Google makes money by selling promoted hotel placements to hotels and OTAs. Google acts as a middleman between the guest and an OTA, or the hotel, adding yet another layer to the customer acquisition funnel.

20

24/01/2012

Hotel Price Ads

OTAs bid for prominent placement in Hotel Finder using an exclusive service called Google Hotel Price Ads, which is similar to Google Adwords. Hotel Price Ads is not available to the public. Instead, Google develops direct relationships with OTAs, large hotel chains, and prominent CRSs, giving them access to Hotel Price Ads so they can re-sell the service to independent hotels. This means that independent hotels can’t sell their rooms directly from Google Hotel Finder unless they purchase advertising services from organizations that have access to Hotel Price Ads.

Hotel Website Links

If the hotel has a website added to Google Local, then Hotel Finder may provide a link to the website, allowing guests to book directly from the hotel website. However, the link is hidden under a ‘more’ drop-down button. It has no pricing information and is at the bottom of the list, discouraging clicks. In order for an independent hotel to take over the red booking button and sell rooms directly, the hotel must hire a service to run Hotel Price Ads on their behalf, and win a bidding war between the competing OTAs.

Why Should You   ?

Google incorporated Hotel Finder listings into standard search queries. Google ‘seattle hotels’ and you find a Hotel Finder search box at the top of the list. This is valuable real estate in the SERP Google could be using to place more AdWords ads, but instead they’re promoting Hotel Finder, demonstrating their dedication to this ‘experiment’. If people adopt Hotel Finder, then having a prominent listing with many reviews will be important to stand out among the crowd for local queries. The following OTAs and GDSs can be used to help you get the hotel rooms and rates listed on Hotel Finde

21

24/01/2012

22