With travellers researching trips and fares more carefully than ever, travel providers must maintain a constant and highly relevant dialogue with potential customers in order to influence purchasing decisions and increase customer loyalty within this highly competitive space.  Continental Airlines has selected Silverpop®, a leading provider of email marketing and marketing automation solutions, as its email service provider for the United Kingdom and Ireland.

With sophisticated tools such as Send Time Optimization and Share-to-Social that enable users to send email messages when recipients are most likely to open, and let email subscribers share favourite messages to social networking sites, Silverpop helps travel companies like Continental Airlines, increase customer loyalty and ensure they are top of mind when travellers are ready to book.

Continental Airlines uses its email program to increase travel from its nine UK and Irish airports to New York and across the Americas by providing special fare offers to subscribers. To remain top of mind, the airline also distributes quarterly newsletters and important updates to its trade and corporate clients—such as increased services from Heathrow to New York and the recent introduction of their BusinessFirst Flat Bed Seat. The airline now plans to integrate several of Silverpop’s proprietary features into these campaigns to extend reach and connect with consumers at optimal times.

Shelley Hinde, Marketing Manager of Continental Airlines for the UK and Ireland said:

“We selected Silverpop based on their excellent track record in achieving great results for clients in the travel industry. Their ideas and approach to implementing engaging campaigns will be instrumental in assisting us in retaining a loyal customer base and building upon the successes we’ve seen when communicating locally.”

“Share-to-Social will be fantastic for increasing Continental’s exposure to like-minded individuals and we also look forward to watching Send Time Optimization increase our interaction with customers by reaching them at the right time,” added Hinde.

East Coast Trains, another leading travel provider and Silverpop client, has experienced tremendous success with Silverpop’s Share-to-Social feature in particular. The company, operated by U.K.-based public transport group National Express Group, significantly bolstered their viral marketing activities and reached a new set of potential customers after placing social network links in their emails.  Seventeen percent of emails that subscribers shared on their social networks were opened at least once, and 33 percent of the people who opened a link clicked on the content. Other Silverpop travel industry clients such as Air New Zealand, bmibaby and Miles Media are also finding value with this tool.