Profiled - Cheapflights.co.uk - How the travel price comparison website taps into social media
An Interview with Joseph Sikorsky, UK Marketing Director at Cheapflights.co.uk
Travel price comparison site Cheapflights.co.uk discusses social media and how it is using Twitter to reach out and connect with its target audiences
Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your full job title and role at Cheapflights.co.uk?Joseph Sikorsky (JS): UK Marketing Director responsible for driving engagement and loyalty with the Cheapflights brand.
SMP: When was the Cheapflights.co.uk site launched and what has been its major milestones?JS: Cheapflights was founded in 1996 by John Hatt, the then Travel Editor of Harpers & Queen. Launched from his attic in Wandsworth, by the end of 1999, the company was not only profitable but had traffic of over 300,000 visits a month. Sold to a consortium of shareholders in 2000, who still own the company, Cheapflights then introduced Pay Per Click to the UK which transformed the online advertising industry and drove huge growth for the company. With just under 80 million visits to its websites combined, Cheapflights last year drove an estimated US$1.8 billion in 2008 to its advertising partners. The site, which launched its international expansion in the USA in 2003, has been a Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 company achieving CAGR of 50% for five consecutive years and is shortlisted for a sixth this year.
SMP: Who are your target audiences and why?JS: As the most useful starting point when planning a trip Cheapflights appeals to various audiences, from those looking for the best flight deals to others who need tips and advice on destinations they haven?t been before. We frequently engage with 18 ? 34 year olds as they are the most prolific users of the internet for travel.
SMP: How is Cheapflights.co.uk involved in the social media space?JS: Cheapflights has recently launched a space on Twitter (
http://twitter.com/cheapflights_uk) which provides our followers with ridiculously good deals, topical travel tips and the most important travel news of the moment. We?re further engaging followers through Flickr by choosing one of their submitted travel photos as our Twitter background each week. Anyone can go to (
http://www.flickr.com/groups/twittertravelphotography) to submit their favourite photos and have their name and website highlighted for the week.
SMP: How does your target audience react to your involvement in social media, and have you found it?s had an increase in loyalty / traffic / involvement?JS: Cheapflights.co.uk?s approach is to engage with our audience in an unobtrusive way and use the space where our users are as appropriate. For example, our tweets are insightful and highly topical for what is happening in travel during the course of the day. We do not hard sell, but rather engage in conversations that are helpful to our followers in the hope that they think of Cheapflights.co.uk and use our site when they?re planning their next holiday. Loyalty and traffic are monitored over time and since our Twitter launch at the beginning of May we are seeing traffic come through; however, our main objective is to increase brand awareness and add to our proposition as the consumer champion for travellers.
SMP: What social media activities have worked best for you so far?JS: We?ve tried various different social media strategies and all have worked in their own way however, at present, we?ve seen that our greatest success is coming from our activity on Twitter, so we?re putting the majority of our efforts into that.
SMP: What social media activities haven?t worked so well?JS: We experimented having a presence in a few niche forums with the objective of providing tips and advice to travellers. Although no overt selling took place, a few forum administrators were not keen on us being there. Given this fact and it would require many hours to manage, we decided to stop the trial and focus on other social media activities.
SMP: What are the plans to use social media in the future?JS: We?re going to continue with Twitter and use our learnings to engage with consumers in other areas as appropriate. We have an organic social media growth strategy ? we monitor what works naturally and expand into different areas based on trial and error.
SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks?JS: Geolocation and the ability to know the location of your contacts / users at any given moment.
SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2009, and what impact does this have on Cheapflights.co.uk?JS: If our users would like to receive information that is tailored even further to their specific needs and interests, geolocation technology will enable us to provide this service with greater precision. This means we would use the same kind of segmentation that we currently use for our newsletter within social media. For example, we wouldn?t want to be sending users based in Ireland, deals departing from London. At the same time, we wish to maintain the same standard of fun, informative social media interaction we have now.
SMP: What impact is the global recession having and what do you think the best way is to manage it for businesses such as yours using social media?JS: Clearly, the global recession is having an effect on consumer and business spending on the global aviation industry. However Cheapflights now has five national sites and importantly people still need and want to find the best deals on the web. We are able to provide access to one of the broadest selections of deals on the internet which has helped us during the downturn. We have also taken the opportunity to look at rationalising external costs and to review the options we have on SEO. These have provided very satisfactory results and also the chance to look at social media as a way of reaching out to a wider audience in the growing social media sphere and to build brand awareness amongst them.
SMP: How does this fit into plans at Cheapflights.co.uk?JS: The use of Geolocation technology within social media fits nicely with our overall online strategy. We are already trying to tailor our services for consumers to provide them with information that is specific to their needs rather than providing general information that they would have to spend time searching through in order to derive what they need. We already try and do this as best we can on Twitter, but having the technology would enable us to take it a step further.
SMP: Tell us about the Cheapflight.co.uk widget. When did it launch? Where is it located? What does it do? How did you promote it? What were the results from using it?JS: We have an affiliate programme run by TradeDoubler which launched in January 2009. This allows our affiliates to select from many numerous creatives, one of which is the Cheapflights.co.uk widget comprising a simple search widget and detailed flight search widget. The programme helps to drive awareness, interaction and traffic to our site. The results are constantly growing as we continue to push the creatives onto relevant, authoritative sites.
SMP: The travel industry is notoriously competitive, what are you doing to differentiate your services and keep ahead? What role does social media play in this?JS: Social media has been a part of the Cheapflights strategy since we launched our Travel News blog sites in the UK and USA some years back. However, the medium is now enjoying a surge in popularity fuelled by the early Social Network phenomenon. To differentiate Cheapflights would be to ignore the marketing and brand awareness opportunities provided by the likes of Twitter and others. Cheapflights is aware of the opportunities and will ensure that it continues to monitor those developments which best meet the needs of its advertising partners and its users.
SMP: Best way to contact you?JS: By e-mail for sure. I?m never without my blackberry and normally also have my laptop close to hand, so you can reach me at joseph . sikorsky @ Cheapflights . com
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?JS: A chocolate and banana protein shake to energise me for the day.
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?JS: I helped a woman on the tube carry her pram up the steps this morning.
SMP: How many hours do you work a week?JS: 50 for Cheapflights.co.uk, five for charity work and eight at the gym trying to stay trim for my next summer beach holiday!
SMP: If you weren?t running marketing at Cheapflights.co.uk what would you be doing?JS: I?d be running a dive school somewhere warm and sunny.
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?JS: I rented a Chateau in the Loire Valley with 16 friends in May of this year.
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office in the morning?JS: Check the daily stats to see how trading was the day before.
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?JS: Well if I could fly, travel would be free and I could take off more often!
If you are interested in being Profiled, get
in touch with the SMP editorial team via our contact
form.
Read more