How applying Qantas’ Red Planet marketing strategy could help your business
Red Planet, an emerging digital marketing and data analytics business, has already signed up 15 corporate clients to provide it with media, analytics and research services. Created by Qantas Airways members with media backgrounds, Red Planent has helped Qantas and several other key partners, such as Australian book retailer Dymocks, improve their marketing campaign effectiveness.
The airline’s integrated media, analytics and research service was launched by Qantas last year, and is now combining offline and online behavioural and consumer data with media buying in an effort to target advertising and marketing campaigns. It will also launch a new research panel next month with 100,000 members to aid its understanding of customer needs, with its vision being external partnerships are important to customer loyalty growth.
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The airline has turned its program into a strong revenue stream with the help of business partners, who purchase Frequent Flyer points as another service to customers as part of its rewards strategy. Qantas calls this deal a “coalition loyalty business,” as consumers engage in the program in several different ways. The airline views this as a growth engine, as a lot of the growth opportunities its had came from continued investment in other businesses.
Qantas has also brought in some new businesses, including a pre-paid travel card that is meant to engage customers by combining finance and travel while still serving as another Frequent Flyers card.
Putting together the panel was part of the airline’s vision to start new businesses under Qantas Loyalty to make sure the division keeps creating double-digit growth, as the program allows small businesses to earn points by flying Qantas and making normal, everyday purchases.
This new offering will cover the aspects of media, research and analytics using information retrieved by the program’s members, in addition to its Qantas Shop and other sources to offer more targeted advertising to other businesses. However, the company insists it won’t sell any customer data to those outside businesses.
Red Planet views its competitors as other companies that have large data sets at their disposal, including banks and TV networks. This strategy is inteded to combine offline and online data sets for clients to bypass the distribution.
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An example of its success is its recent work with Dymocks on a high-value, targeted digital marketing activity that had email open rates as high as 50 per cent on individual targeted campaigns. This contributed to a 30 per cent raise in sales in both one year and in overall year-on-year sales growth. Dymocks also had a 418 per cent improvement in clickthrough rates for individualized EDMs, compared to the non-targeted variety.
Qantas insists its focus is on protecting individual data and privacy, but data generated by the loyalty program offers great insight into consumer trends and traits. Making sure people are not being given irrelevant communication is the main aspect of communicating in a targeted manner. Your goal should be avoiding having the wrong ads applied to the wrong audience, which ultimately will enhance the experience for your online members.
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