Tripit - the Traveler’s Agent

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Establish Criteria

The goal of criteria development is to learn what matters to your business so you can choose from various strategy possibilities. Here are some of the questions you'll need to answer (Merchant, 2008):

- What will success look like?

- Why should we?

- How will we know when we're winning?

Based on these questions and feedback, we have chosen 4 criteria to best make the marketing decision of Tripit.

Cost: Tripit recently secured it’s second round of Venture Capital funds of $5,100,000 in April of 2008 designated for development and Marketing (Applegate). Due to development requiring majority of available funding it is important to maximize inexpensive marketing options to achieve desired results.

Implementation Time: Alpha release of Itinerator was launched in April 2007 with anticipated Beta release in July 2007. By March of 2008, Tripit had increased its functionality to include Mobile Access, Cruise Bookings and an Alert feature to notify customers of itinerary changes (Applegate, L., Piccoli, G and Brohman K., 2008). Tripit requires a fast acting, low cost marketing strategy. Marketing expenditures usually take a minimum of six months before Return on Investment (ROI) starts being realized.

Target Market: Tripit’s target market consists of all consumer based travel whether being a Business / Corporate traveler or the average vacationer. The Itinerator would be used as a single source for all Trip data for example: Flight & Hotel Reservations, Car Rental, Restaurants, Sight Seeing, ect.

Users Reached: To maximize the number of potential visitors / users Tripit needed to reach many people easily. Profit per Ad Dollar equates to approximately 49% better ROI for Radio advertisement overall than Television Advertisement Radio Advertising is a great cost effective opportunity to target these individuals (Brown). While commuting, people are subject to the content on their favorite Radio Station. This should leave a lingering imprint due to hearing the Ad while traveling. In addition, Partnerships with existing Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) enabling the consumer to populate their bookings to Tripit’s Itinerator will increase exposure to people actively making travel plans.

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Alternative Solutions

- Partnerships with OTAs: Tripit is a small, startup business with recently secured venture capital funds to be used primarily for Software Platform Development and Marketing.

- Media based Advertising: Tripit desires to monetize increased user traffic. Revenue growth derived from marketing does not happen overnight. Our recommendation is to use Radio Advertising & Social Media to reach new customers. Considering the amount of time the average person is driving just to and from work we can target our campaign around commuter hours in major markets and syndicated programs. Social Media is starting to become mainstream. It is crucial to populate our product and message in this venue. It is important to launch this effort just before Beta release.

- Incentive Based Word of Mouth Referrals (Recruit a Friend): Tripit would like to reach a unique user base of 500,000 per month. Tripit should offer incentives for current users to refer new users to our product. This would take the shape of offering short-term service/membership fee discounts to both existing and new users when a referred user joins.

- Innovative Products and Services: Tripit believes the customer service gap existing with other OTAs can be monetized. Tripit will focus on constant user feedback (from Beta to full operation) to design and implement new functionality that meets customer needs. Release often and release early.

- Combination for Two Alternatives-Partnerships and Media Advertising

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Identify Best Alternative

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Timeline and Support of the implementation

Month 1:

- Identify best Internet Radio platform and stations to reach Target Market

- Identify popular and emerging social media platforms

- Minimal resources needed

- Partner with OTAs and apply for a link button

- Offer condensed yet informative added value facts for consumers

- Respond inventively to inquiries from OTA click through traffic

Month 2:

- Finalize contracts with chosen internet radio companies. Initial allocation of $300,000 with a budget of $500,000

- Create company profiles on identified social media platforms

- Designate personnel to operate social media contents

- Create a “How did you hear about us” section to be selected during New User Signup

- Offer rewards on OTA sites to returning consumers who have viewed but not created an account

- Evaluate current location and presentation of link button for maximum consumer touches

Month 3 forward:

- Continuously update social media content with a concerted effort to increase message distribution

- Expand outreach to OTAs

- Consider paid placement and/or advertising on the OTA sites

- Evaluate campaign performance

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Evaluation, Monitor and Major Assumptions

- Analyze unique user traffic for source of origin

- Apply this data to streamline advertising efforts on Social Media

- Apply this data to maximize unique user traffic generated Internet Radio by switching stations/Syndicated programs as needed