Online Marketing Strategies Conference Social Media Strategies Conference

Agenda

9.00 - 17.30 Day 1

9.00 - 10.45 Keynote: A Changed Audience - Your customer's travel purchasing behaviour is changing. What are you doing to adapt your marketing strategy?

There's no doubt that the rapidly changing macro-economic environment has had a profound effect on travel consumer behaviour across Europe. This complied with the arrival of a ‘new marketing age’ where consumers are more informed than ever and increasingly seek relationships with companies, mean that your customers are now looking at your product and services through new lenses. The longer these trends persist, the more likely it is that your consumer's behaviour will change permanently.

  • With the biggest challenges come the biggest opportunities. Understand how the most savvy travel companies are adapting their marketing strategy to retain existing customers, acquire new customers and gain market share
  • Analyse the current European competitive landscape. Which travel companies are ‘successfully’ engaging their customers and riding through the downturn? What insights does this give into current European consumer behaviour?
  • Ensure you are fully up to speed with the latest trends in consumer behaviour, when it comes to purchasing travel online and offline.
  • Understand which factors - price, destination, online booking capability etc are having the most impact on travel spend and analyse where you should concentrate your marketing efforts
  • What role does engagement marketing play in the new marketing age?
  • Jesper Palmqvist, Director eCommerce - EMEA | APAC, Wyndham Hotel Group
  • Ghislain d'Auvigny, Commercial Director, Pierre et Vacances Group
  • Krista Pappas, GlobalHead of Business Development - Bing Travel - a Microsoft Company
  • Andrew Pozniak, Head of Travel - Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa, Google Inc

11.15 - 12.30SOCIAL MEDIA TRACK

The New Social Media Landscape - What role does social media play in the travel marketing mix?

It's no longer a question of if Social Media and User-generated content will impact your business it's how. According to a recent survey by Adobe “Over 90 percent of respondents are planning to invest in new rich media and social networking technologies to ensure their brands and products stand out on the Web”. Ensure your company does not fall behind.

  • Examine the rise in the importance of social media and user-generated content as a cost effective way to increase brand awareness and customer dialogue
  • Where does social media and user-generated content fit into the marketing mix?
  • With so many different social sites how can you identify where your target audience is?
  • Will we see mass consolidation in the social media arena? Will the large OTAs continue to buy social media companies? What are they actually buying? Traffic? Brand? User-Generated Content?
  • Why does TripAdvisor dominate the landscape? And why is there so little traction in travel-specific social media companies?
  • Why has Twitter caused such a buzz and is it worth all the fuss?
  • How do you decide what social media can do for you commercially, culturally and from a brand perspective?
  • Sandra Leonhard, Director of Web Strategy, TUI
  • Thorvald Stigsen, CEO, Momondo
  • Martin Verdon-Roe, Director of Sales, Europe, TripAdvisor

12.30 - 14.15 Networking Lunch

14.15 - 15.15 Marketing Metrics, Data & Web Analytics

At this crucial time, identify the holes in your marketing strategy and avoid leaking value marketing Euros down the drain.

  • How do you put analysis at the core of your marketing strategy?
  • Get expert advice on measuring your performance to ensure all parts of your marketing campaign are delivering optimal return on investment
  • How can you use data analytics to enhance your customer experience across all your customer touch points?
  • Web analytics - are you taking full advantage of the simple, free tools available to measure online performance?
  • Where a reliable metric is not in place, how can you decide on the effectiveness of a particular marketing tool?
  • Is true marketing accountability attainable? Make sure you are getting the right level of return on every marketing euro you spend
  • Barbara Pezzi, Director Webmarketing & e-Commerce - Swissotel Brand, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International
  • Terry Kane, Director of Digital Strategy, Jumeirah

14.15 - 15.15 Social Media Strategy - Set the right goals, budget and resources and avoid the pitfalls

  • What resources should you allocate to social media? How costly will it be to manage effectively?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing your social media campaign?
  • What legal aspects do you need to consider when planning your social media/UGC strategy?
  • Is it better to set separate goals for each portion of your social media campaign? Or should you also take a holistic approach when it comes to setting targets?
  • Should you concentrate only on the major players? Or do emerging and start-up social networks offer value, too? How do various sites compare in terms of ROI? Who has critical mass so far as travel is concerned?
  • Moving outside the dorm room - which demographic actually uses social media and how should you plan your SM strategy accordingly?
  • Allison Wightman, Head of Marketing Systems, Virgin Atlantic Airways
  • Paul Harrison, CEO, Carve Consulting

15.15 - 15.45 Networking coffee break

15.45 - 17.15 Improve the Performance of your Email marketing campaigns

In this hectic email marketing landscape, it's very important to send precise emails that resonate strongly with your readers. This means never overlooking any aspect of your campaign.

  • Email marketers need to be more targeted and relevant than ever as they continually strive to stand out. Consider how to balance design vs. audience needs
  • Understand how to use site navigation as part of your email design to keep the user experience consistent from email to website to checkout
  • Focus on transactional messaging and driving traffic to your web site
  • Nearly 9% of European customers read emails via mobile devices. Ensure your emails are ‘mobile friendly’
  • David Oliver, Director, Marketing Programmes, Hertz Europe
  • Amelie Bourgeois, Internet and Direct Marketing Director, Disneyland Paris

15.45 - 17.15 User-generated content - increase customer dialogue and understand its impact on the purchasing cycle

  • What are the opportunities to engage your customers on social networks such as Twitter via mobile platforms?
  • Where do consumers consult user-generated content in the purchasing decision-making process? What impact does it have?
  • How can you leverage user reviews to increase conversions?
  • Should you integrate user reviews into your website? If so at what point should they be integrated into the booking path?
  • Video user-generated content is currently low quality and relatively unstructured. What opportunities exist to develop this area?
  • What is the right combination of trip-planning tools, user-generated content and blogs? Do you need to provide all of them to achieve maximum results?
  • Wesley Put van den Beemt, Lecturer, International Tourism Management, NHTV University of Applied Sciences
  • Sebastian Heinzel, CEO, tripwolf
  • Anthony Rawlins, MD, Digital Visitor

17.15 - 19.30 Networking Drinks Reception

Relax and network after an information packed first day

9.15 - 17.00 Day 2

9.15 - 10.30 Making your marketing budget work harder - Ensure the greatest ROI on your marketing spend

Your marketing budget is being scrutinized like never before and yet the pressure to deliver results is even higher. It is essential that every cent of your marketing spend proves its worth - relying on gut instinct is not enough. The panel of leading travel marketers will show you what really works and what doesn't - saving you valuable time, money and resources. This session alone will justify your attendance at the conference!

  • In this year of value - understand how to evaluate and assess the true worth of every marketing Euro you spend
  • How can you maximize the impact of a limited budget?
  • Measuring true ROI- take a hard look to define what goals you want to reach and avoid getting distracted along the way
  • Balance offline vs. online marketing strategies - are both still needed? How can they effectively fuel each other?
  • Email marketing, online advertising, search etc which media vehicles can you use to add the most value?
  • Which new trends are worth integrating into your marketing mix and which should you approach with caution?
  • How can you make your presence on the web more meaningful? What new technology is available to cut out the noise and ensure you're communicating effectively with your customers?
  • Danny Barrasso, Director eCommerce Services, EMEA, Hilton Hotels
  • Niki van Wijk, VP e-Commerce, transavia

10.30 - 11.00 Networking Coffee Break

11.00 - 12.30 ONLINE MARKETING TRACK

Understand the importance of integrating local content into your online marketing strategy

Events, restaurants, attractions, nightlife - just some of the reasons why travel consumers choose to go to a specific destination. How can you integrate and leverage such local content to improve SEO, convert traffic and ultimately increase revenues?

  • Analyse what local content is relevant to the customer in relation to their decision to book a certain holiday
  • Inspirational content - how can you leverage local content to inspire your customer and increase conversions?
  • Hear how you can use a combination of new tools such as geo-data, social networking, UGC to inspire the customer
  • Integrate local content into the research and booking path - how does this work? What results can be gained through integration?
  • Geo-Content - how can advances in online mapping techniques based around the destination drive quality traffic to your site and boost conversions
  • Understand the relevance of mapping techniques to display local content
  • SEO advantages - use local content to jump up the search rankings
  • Which third party sites such as DMOs or social, or community sites can be leveraged to add valuable content and to achieve your revenue and conversion goals?
  • Richard Verhoeff, Director e-Commerce, Center Parcs Europe
  • Ines Verburgh, E-commerce Distribution Manager, VisitBritain
  • Jared Salter, Founder, Joobili

11.00 - 12.00 SOCIAL MEDIA TRACK

Social Media Metrics - HOW can the effects of social media and UGC be measured?

How can you effectively monitor the results of your social media strategy and capitalize upon it to build a better brand awareness, web presence and customer engagement?

  • Are traditional metrics for online activity inadequate for measuring social media? What new metrics such as ‘volume of mentions’ will become important in judging the success of your social media strategy?
  • What free tools exist to monitor ‘buzz’ in-house?
  • How can you measure the influence of social media on search engine results? Can social media be leveraged to drive quality traffic to your site?
  • What data do you need to understand how well your social media strategy is working?
  • How do you evaluate the performance of social web conversations and the revenue they drive?
  • How can you use surveys, embedded tracking tags and social media monitoring tools to monitor your social media initiatives?
  • Intercontinental Hotels use the number of room nights attributed to social media as their metric. What should you measure? Are you misaligning your goals with your metrics?
  • Monitor feedback - Use Web 2.0 to listen to what your customer base is saying across multiple channels
  • Stephanie Leavitt, Manager, Online Publishing, Carnival Cruises

12.30 - 13.45 Networking Lunch

13.45 - 14.30 Driving results from your social media initiatives - What's the likely ROI?

Profit from the experiences of companies that have used trial - and error - to discover what really drives results

  • Can social media actually drive revenue? What is its likely ROI?
  • Hear case studies from leading travel brands who have made it pay
  • Are your efforts generating positive brand awareness? Just how valuable can social media be to your brand?
  • What can you do to ensure your social media choices generate significant - and valuable - incremental website traffic?
  • How can you measure the effect of incorporating UGC and social media into your website design to increase conversions?
  • In tough economic times, how do you argue the value of social media over traditional, proven channels?
  • How can you use social media to reach specific customer segments that are unavailable to you via traditional channels?
  • Malte Siewert, MD, Trivago
  • Ania Smith, Head of Business Development, Eastern Europe, Expedia

14.30 - 15.30 Smarter Search Strategies - Ensure you stay at the forefront of Search

The search arena is constantly evolving. Companies big and small are moving forward, experimenting with searches based on complex sentences, images, video and audio, mashing up mobile search with location data, and aiming to make results more useful than the traditional list of links.

  • As search becomes more advanced, how can you ensure that you get the basics right and are driving quality traffic not junk traffic to your site?
  • Keeping up with Google - ensure your SEO strategy remains competitive
  • Mapping the customer journey - how can you identify how your customers find you online?
  • How do you create a search strategy where conversion is key?
  • Ensure your videos, maps, podcasts, blogs and images are well optimized. How can photos and videos help your business climb higher in the search engine rankings?
  • The long tail of search - how can you use local attractions, events and restaurants to improve search optimisation?
  • What value can user-generated content and social media add to your search strategy?
  • How can you personalise your approach to search?
  • Adam Healey, Co-Founder & CEO, hotelicopter
  • John T. Peters, President & CEO, Tripology

Panel - Debate the Future of Search

  • How are search comparison sites evolving? Will we see a convergence from different business models such as that of TripAdvisors' flight search engine?
  • Which search comparison site business models are the most effective in driving quality traffic to your site at a reasonable price?
  • What does the future hold?
  • What is the most effective way for your business to work with search comparison sites?
  • Adam Healey, CEO & Co-Founder, hotelicopter
  • Ole Stouby, CEO, Travelmarket
  • John T. Peters, President & CEO, Tripology

15.30 - 17.00 Social Media and Online Marketing Think Tanks

Join your industry peers for a series of insightful roundtable discussion groups.  Worried about how to reply to negative hotel reviews?  Want to know how much rich media content is too much? Or how about which tweaks to the booking path can save you €€€   This is your chance to get the answers to all your burning questions regarding online marketing and social media.  We guarantee that you will go home buzzing with ideas to implement and no stone will be left unturned!

17.00 End of Conference

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