Ancillary revenue guru IdeaWorks has taken a detailed look at six airlines post-booking email marketing efforts and suggests that “simplicity can be a virtue”.
Last December it made one-way seat-only bookings with six airlines – Aer Lingus, AirAsia, easyJet,Ryanair, Spirit and Vueling. The bookings were for departures from 31 to 43 days out and it opted in to receive promotional emails (where opting in was in fact optional and not, as is often the case, part of the terms and conditions of travel).
It sat back, waited for the emails which followed and analysed the form and content of the airlines messages.
The analysis showed that there is a big difference in approach – Air Asia only sent three emails with a total of 800 words; easyJet hammered the inbox with 12 emails, promoting 11 different ancillary products and running to 5,500 words.
“It’s not nearly the 587,000 plus words you will find in War and Peace, but it’s a heavy meal that might discourage most from savoring the individual promotional messages about trip insurance and assigned seating.”
Ryanair gets the IdeaWorks seal of approval by “offering the perfect balance.” Its look and feel works well on a mobile screen, the emails are short and use bullet points to break up the text, images load quickly and the content is relevant, such as a link to the correct destination page on its “Into the Blue” blog.
