Flight Centre vs Webjet (An inbound marketing comparison)

What is Inbound Marketing? 

“Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy by which you drive prospects to your website rather than outwardly advertising your products or services,” (Bond 2019). 

(Kelly 2020)

This article examines the inbound marketing approaches of Flight Centre and Webjet, two key players in the Australian travel provider industry today.

Flight Centre Inbound Marketing Strategy 

The inbound strategy of Flight Centre is "built on collecting data from travel consumers to establish what their content and marketing approach will be," (Wheatley 2019). "Only travel-related content that Flight Centre knows their customers want to read or watch is ever produced," (Wheatley 2019). According to Wheatley, this is done through in-depth search engine optimisation data mining and analysis before creating content on a destination. He says Flight Centre knows what information people are looking for about a particular destination because the content provided is based on what they have searched for when visiting the website. 

View presentation by Flight Centre Head of Content, Creative and Digital Marketing Luke Wheatley at the Content Marketing Summit Asia in 2019, Sydney on April 10, at The Westin  (YouTube: https://bit.ly/3gjJQxU)

Flight Centre Inbound Marketing Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths 

• Website homepage promotes all travel products including searches for flights – increasing potential sales. 

• Use of branding, bright colours, beautiful engaging images and videos showcasing destinations. 

• Effective use of typography, screen white space, modern design layout and format make website easy to navigate, search engine friendly and optimised for online channels, desktop and mobile devices providing a seamless user experience. 

• Both staff and travel specialists produce information and event-related blog posts. 

• The website blog provides ‘destination-specific’ and ‘lists of things to do’ content giving value to customers, in-text links and leveraged across social media channels. 

• Blog page structured into categories displaying the number of blog articles available enabling visitors to easily search for travel information. 

• Relevant and popularly searched for keywords used by visitors on website are incorporated into webpage and blog article headings and in blog posts. 

• CTAs used include request a quote, contact a travel consultant and find a store when visitors click on product offerings in the top browser heading, optimising the number of organic searches and increasing potential sales. 

• Social media share buttons available at beginning of blog articles. 

• A ‘gated’ content approach used inviting visitors to talk to a travel consultant and complete their trip and personal details via an online form to receive a quote. 

• Consistent posting of destination videos on YouTube and video descriptions contain links to subscription, product information, travel blog and ‘travel deals’ webpages. 

• Signing up visitors when they make enquiries or bookings and CTA to subscribe to a newsletter at end of blog articles and a subscribe CTA footer on every webpage for email marketing to generate new and repeat customers. 

• Seamless purchase process through e-Commerce store transactional pages on website. 

• Has a strong Instagram channel with 132K followers with comprehensive destination guides, regular IGTV destination stories and using hashtags targeting millennials – their primary target audience. 

• Consistent posting of photos and short experiential videos on Facebook linked to relevant website landing pages and CTAs.

(Jenkins 2019)

Weaknesses 

• No CTA’s at beginning or middle of blog articles and CTA's in top browser do not constantly appear as visitor scrolls down the screen. 

• Has over 26.5K followers on Twitter and its last organic post was back in February 2018 promoting “Hawaii Flights Sale”. Since then, there have been no consistent organic posts. 

• No chat service on their site only a phone number. 

• Has been increasing its paid search marketing and increasing the number of website visitors, but not nearly as many and at a higher cost as compared to Webjet (Jenkins 2019).

• No Facebook Pixel on Facebook site to track and retarget to users with Facebook ads in the future (Neil Patel, Ubersuggest SEO Tool (website) 2020).

Webjet Limited Inbound Marketing Strategy 

Webjet focuses on mass marketing where they do not differentiate between market segments. "Their singular or undifferentiated marketing strategy is designed to target all segments and consumers," (Henry 2018). In recent years, Webjet has almost halved the advertising budget for traditional marketing tactics while increasing their investment in digital marketing (McIntyre 2019). Webjet is now reaching a wider audience at a lower cost and increasing their engagement with consumers using their feedback to support marketing campaigns. "The marketing strategy constantly evolves based on market trends and consumer travel needs and wants," (Henry 2018).

(Jenkins 2019)

Webjet Limited Inbound Marketing Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths 

 • Good use of header tags on the informational pages of website which make it easy for visitors to view content relevant to them. 

 • Receives and provides feedback to customer questions on Facebook within a timely fashion, in a personable and helpful manner emphasising its positive customer service standards. 

 • Has a mobile-optimised website. 

 • Has option for visitors to sign up to a newsletter and receive alerts on travel deals and exclusive offers for email marketing. 

 • Flights presented in a compact fashion, limiting the scrolling necessary to find the flight the visitor is after. Visitors can choose the seat and price and are taken to a transactional page to begin the checkout process via ecommerce store (Jenkins 2019). 

 • The app is well promoted on website homepage. 

 • Social media share buttons available at beginning and end of blog articles. 

 • Use of in-text links within blog articles to other website information pages. 

 • Is reaching a wider audience at a lower cost than Flight Centre and increasing its engagement with consumers (Jenkins 2019).

Weaknesses 

 • Homepage carousel is unclickable and does not link to travel deals losing clicks to promotions. 

 • The fixed width left and right aligned design, cluttered navigation, ineffective use of white space, small images, no search tool and small type design on top right of header of desktop and mobile website versions are unappealing. 

 • Website ‘search function’ enables searches for only Flights and no search for other product offerings – potentially losing sales. 

 • Online Form only focused on getting consumers to book flights and not tailored for other product offerings – potentially losing sales. 

 • Missing out on reaching a larger audience by not using Google search clicks for advertising (Jenkins 2019). 

 • No chat service on their site only a customer support tab. 

 • Social media buttons appear in top header bar of blog webpage and blog post pages which may result in visitors leaving the website even though social sites open in separate window to website. 

 • Does not have a clickable tab on Facebook site for visitors to download the app. 

 • Lack of engaging and appealing video content on website and social media along with no IGTV content on Instagram. Has 14K Instagram followers compared to Flight Centre’s 132K followers.

Travel Agent with the Best Inbound Marketing Approach 

Both travel providers have achieved impressive accomplishments in their inbound marketing approaches. However, it is Flight Centre that is strides ahead with their more streamlined website and social media channels that appeal better to their target audiences. My verdict is based on their ‘data first’ content strategy, modern and responsive website design, ‘mobile first’ strategy and seamless online user experience, and use of travel consultants as influencers.

(Jenkins 2019)

Examples of how each Travel Agent could improve their Inbound Marketing Approach?

Flight Centre 

• In blog posts place CTAs (same or different) at the beginning, middle and end of article to engage with visitors, potentially generate more leads and sales.

(Flight Centre (Website) Australia)

Webjet 

• Reconfigure homepage search function feature to include additional search functionality for other core travel offerings in conjunction with flights. 

• Broaden SEM through Google Display Network Advertising to grow organic reach via YouTube, Gmail and other network sites. For example, use Gmail ads which will improve remarketing and increase website traffic from Google search engine. 

• Current YouTube videos fail to engage audience. Need a hyperlinked ‘end card’ to encourage people to subscribe with an email address so they can be notified of similar videos. To draw visitors to website in the video description provide a subscribe link, and links to the specific destination information, relevant blog and travel deals pages. 

• When visitors search for flights there are a lot of options that come up in the search results page requiring considerable scrolling through the list (Jenkins 2019). At the top left corner of the search results page there is a search filter that can be easily missed by the user. Instead, include this in the homepage flight search feature enabling visitors to limit their search results by filtering their search in the first instance.

(Flight Centre (Website) Australia)

Flight Centre and Webjet 

• Offer incentives to current and potential subscribers for future email marketing and increasing audience reach. Some tactics include: 

• Provide an ‘email a friend’ button and a CTA via a subscribe button so those who received the forwarded email can opt-in to (aim is to reach their audience network). 

• Provide ‘bonus/extra content’ relating to a blog post such as advanced tips or special holiday activities by clicking on a CTA linked to a landing page asking them to provide their email details. 

• Add a CTA button at the top of their Facebook pages linked to a landing page requesting an email address for access to a special offer or resource. 

• Provide a chat function on every webpage to help visitors get specific information and answer all their questions.

References 

Bond, C. (2019) ‘9 Examples of Inbound Marketing that Gets Customers’ Wordstream [online]. Available at: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/11/05/inbound-marketing-examples [accessed 22 February 2020]

Content Marketing Summit Asia (2019) ‘Flight Centre’s Head of Content, Creative and Digital Marketing - Luke Wheatley’ [online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bewtgUORchs [accessed 8 February 2020]

Flight Centre (Website) Australia [online]. Available at: https://www.flightcentre.com.au/

Henry, Z. (2018) ‘Marketing Strategy of Webjet Limited’ Case48 [online]. Available at: https://www.case48.com/term-paper/Webjet-Limited-Marketing-Strategy-1934 [accessed 7 March 2020]

Jenkins, M. (2019) ‘Flight Centre vs Webjet: An Industry Deconstruct’ Shout Agency [online]. Available at: https://www.shoutagency.com.au/blog/flight-centre-vs-webjet [accessed 27 February 2020]

Kelly, M. (2020) The Saas Marketing Blog: ‘Understanding the Inbound Marketing Methodology’ Powered By Search [online]. Available at: https://www.poweredbysearch.com/blog/understanding-the-inbound-marketing-methodology/ [accessed 24 May 2020]

McIntyre, P. (2019) 'Webjet CEO avoids Google search for building brand' The Australian Finance Review' [online]. Available at: https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/webjet-ceo-avoids-google-search-for-building-brand-20190509-p51ll4 [accessed 24 May 2020]

Neil Patel Website (2020) ‘Ubersuggest SEO Tool’ [online]. Available at: https://neilpatel.com/

Webjet (Website) Australia [online]. Available at: https://www.webjet.com.au/