Case Study on Virgin Holidays
Let’s look at an example of how Virgin Media reinvented each step of their customer journey to maximise their profits.
To move away from competing just on price, Virgin analysed the booking cycle over 3 years. Analysing thousands of touchpoints, across multiple channels, they discovered three key mood states to target:
1) The dreaming state: Holiday research; seeking that holiday high.
2) The anticipation state: Pre-travel anxiety and excitement; managing the holiday high.
3) The reminiscing state: The returning home holiday blues; keeping the holiday high.
A series of mood focussed communications were created including a set of emails triggered on behaviour.
Changing the mindset to serve customers’ emotional needs not only hugely enhanced the customer experience but impacted profits, with a 58% increase in email revenue and a 10% jump in loyalty scores.
Let’s now summarise this using the planning framework:
| Group / Stage | Research phase | Pre-holiday phase | Post-holiday phase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descriptive name | The dreaming state | The anticipation state | The reminiscing state |
| Objective | Make research fun | Create and keep the holiday anticipation | Use the holiday high to generate a 2nd booking |
| Tactics | Games and activity rewards | Share function, holiday countdown content, personalised itineraries, airport guides | Miss you already postcards, personalised mugs, personalised next, destination ideas |
| Activity | Campaign emails | Trigger emails | Direct mail |
| Success measures | Open and click of emails, conversion to booked holiday | Open and click of emails, conversion for up and cross-sell of holiday extras | Conversion of next booking |
Join the discussion
Is there anything that you would have done differently had you been involved in Virgin’s campaign? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign? What did you find interesting about it?
Introduction to Marketing: Understanding your Customers
Introduction to Marketing: Understanding your Customers
