2008-10-15 17:37:06 -

www.campaigner.com/ - Campaigner, a software-as-a-service email marketing solutions provider, today released tips travel agencies and independent travel agents can use to improve their email marketing return on investment during tough economic times.

With the current state of the economy, consumers are becoming more budget conscious. This is the perfect opportunity for travel agencies and independent agents to reach out

to customers with special offers and discounts for local travel packages. While wallets might be too tight for expensive vacations far from home, vacationing locally may be an affordable alternative.

Email marketing is an easy way for travel agents to send targeted communications to customers - letting them know of what is going on in their area.

Luc Vezina, head of marketing for email service provider Campaigner, offers the following best practices that can help travel agencies have a profitable business regardless of the state of the economy with email marketing:

1. Leverage your customer database - Using customer data - demographic, behavioral and transactional - to segment email lists can greatly improve email marketing campaigns.

2. Send targeted messages - Create relationships with customers by connecting with them one-to-one. Use your customer database to send targeted messages offering local travel opportunities in their area. Offering information that is relevant to your customers builds credibility, strengthening your relationship.

3. Automate your email campaigns - Send follow-up messages automatically based on consumer behavior. Event and action-triggered emails allow travel agents to not only improve content targeting and personalization, but also to time the delivery of email messages to reach customers at the right time in the buying cycle.

4. Give your email a personality - Reflect your personality through your email communications. Send email 'from' a person (on behalf of), or include a personal signature and a photo to build the relationship. Putting a face to a name is proven to help build the relationship between travel agents and consumers.

5. Keep an eye on metrics - Measure results to ensure success - metrics are vital to every email campaign. Review your metrics after each campaign is sent out to better understand your customers' travel interests. If a change in behavior is noted, alter the campaign to meet customer travel needs and interests.

"In a down economy, most businesses are reviewing how they market to consumers and how they can keep their relationships with them strong. Travel agents can work with the budget constraints of consumers by turning their focus to offering local vacation spots," said Luc Vezina, Head of Marketing. "Email marketing is an easy and efficient way for travel agents to keep in touch with customers through targeted campaigns."

About Campaigner

Campaigner's software-as-a-service email marketing solutions enable organizations to have highly personalized one-to-one email dialogues with their customers, measure how they respond, and analyze those responses to interact in a more intelligent, automated way - resulting in more profitable relationships. It is part of a total Software as a Service (SaaS) business communications offered by Protus that also includes MyFax, the fastest-growing Internet fax service used by individuals, small, medium and large business, and the my1voice feature-rich virtual PBX service. Additional information is available at www.campaigner.com.

Topaz Partners
Tom Francoeur, 781-404-2405
tfrancoeur@topazpartners.com
or
Protus IP Solutions Inc.
Sue Rutherford, 613-733-0000 x 519
srutherford@protus.com