Virgin Holidays

The benchmark in travel eCRM

Millions in sales, big impact on profits

Virgin Holidays had tried online advertising. It had a reasonable website. And there was an occasional email newsletter. The team knew that more could be achieved, but they needed some help to bring it all together under 
a unified digital strategy based around customer acquisition and retention.

We redesigned the website, making it easier to use and to bring bookings to the home page. Working under the ad agency’s creative direction we produced fast-turnaround online campaigns, which were tracked all the way to sale. And then we created what became the world’s largest travel industry eCRM programme. Devising a segmentation strategy and managing delivery suppliers, the programme integrated all digital activities in a cycle of constant tests and improvement. It means around five million emails every year across 40 segments.

The first ad we produced sold 156 holidays. The first email we sent generated £3 million in direct sales.

We helped shift 6% of sales from agents to direct channels, directly impacting the bottom line.

22% of all holiday bookings are now made online.

And the eCRM programme’s core campaign generates around £26 for every £1 spent.

In 2008 we handed over the programme to Virgin’s internal team to manage. But it doesn’t end there. They kindly put us forward for the redesign of Virgin Megastores’ e-commerce site (which became Zavvi, for which we ran the 2million-customer eCRM programme) then Virgin Games. And we still manage the Virgin Hoildays Frequent Virgin Club website.

• Winner, BIMA Best Email/CRM Programme
• Winner, six DMA Gold Awards (with ad agency)
• Commendation, IMAA and IWPA Awards
• Finalist, Campaign Digital and Revolution Awards