Ctrip Mobile Marketing Analysis

Ctrip Mobile Marketing Analysis Report

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Executive Summary

Engagement theory, with special focus on the customer interaction and engagement in a company, has become popular in modern marekting nowadays as the attention has been shifted to focus more on customers. The rise of mobile techonology gives birth to mobile marketing, the newly emerged digital marketing tool that overweighs most of the tranditional marketing channels. This report analyses the mobile marketing performance of Ctrip, the leading travel agency in China from several perspectives, including the design of its mobile application, the integrating level of Ctrip mobile marketing to its future trend as well as implimentation of mobile advertisements and interaction with other marketing tools. Some recommendations are given to improve mobile marketing by using Adobe Slate.

Table of Contents

Contents

Executive Summary        

1.        Introduction        

2.        Mobile Marketing of Ctrip        

2.1.        Designing Mobile Application        

2.2.        Following Mobile Marketing Trend        

2.3.        Mobile Advertisements        

2.4.        Interacting with Other Marketing Tools        

3.        Improvement with Adobe Slate        

4.        Conclusion        

References        

1. Introduction

With new marketing theory shifts its attention to customers, the importance of user experience has given rise to engagement theory. Engagement theory, with exclusive focus on engaging and interacting with clients to improve customer relations as well as

brand loyalty, provides corporations a new approach to seize market share in the field of modern marketing. Aiming at developing our understanding of customer experience and providing theoretical basis to enhance brand awareness as well as customer satisfaction, engagement theory integrates relationship marketing and service-dominant (S-D) logic perspectives to illustrate customer engagement process, among which Brodie and Hollebeek contribute a lot (Hollebeek, 2011). However, as influencing and prevailing as it is at the moment, engagement theory is still at its early stage of development, leaving it with less empirical support and more conceptual concepts (Wirtz, 2013).

Due to the fast development of information techonology, mobile marketing has overweighed some other tranditional marketing tools when it comes to modern marketing. Smartphones have designed to be more practical, user-friendly and multi-functional, making it extremely accessable and convenient for customers to keep up with products information and purchase. Anne and J. Teague (2013) stated that one of the most outstanding features of mobile marketing is that with the help of mobile techonlogy as well as data analytical methods, it provides exact and precise tailor-suited solutions to individuals and therefore, clients become their own hosts and seize the ownership. In another word, the implementation of mobile marketing could not only be served as a new marketing approach for companies to promote their products and improve brand awareness, but also a way to reduce buyer search costs for customers (Bakos, 1997).

1. Mobile Marketing of Ctrip

1. Designing Mobile Application

Ctrip is one of the leading online travel agencies in China that provides a whole set of service for travelling, including accommodation, transportation as well as travelling tips. According to the principles of application design, which are engagement, interactivity, personalization, content, experience focused and trustworthiness, Ctrip has successfully promoted its products and service through its mobile application, where you can easily gain access to all related information needed for your travelling. Ctrip provides 24 hours’ online customer service so that clients could have better interaction with the company and thus improve their user experience (Ctrip, 2016). In addition, customers could also share and exchange their travelling experience with other travelers in the application, which greatly improves engagement and interaction among users. When it comes to personalization, Ctrip would regularly forward their customers related information based on their location, search history and subscriptions to ensure that customers get to read what they are interested in. Users also can plan their own trips in the mobile application and receive personalized service for their journey. Targeting at providing one-stop service to make travelling easier, Ctrip fills its mobile application with all kinds of contents related to travelling to spare you time and effort to search elsewhere, which not only enriches its contents, but also improves brand loyalty and user satisfaction. What’s more, Ctrip is also known for its reliability as well as trustworthiness, as one of the trustworthy ticketing agencies in China (Ximin, 2013). All the payment and transactions, along with all personal data, are guaranteed through Ctrip security.

1. Following Mobile Marketing Trend

According to Strout in 2015, one of the key mobile marketing trends in the future is that mobile security becomes critical, calling for more diligence in securing customers’ personal information. Ctrip Security, developed by Ctrip to protect information of its users as well as their online transactions, serves not only to secure personal information from being leaked, but also to detect loopholes in the applications to prevent any systematic risks (Ctrip Security, 2016). Strout (2015) pointed out that the potential of personal information being leaked out may lead to a decrease of e-commerce users, illustrating the great significance of securing personal data. By implementing Ctrip Security, Ctrip has ensured its safety and trustworthiness to its customers. However, it is reported earlier that Ctrip was involved in the scandal of information leaking, which to some degree causes a decrease of clients as well as brand loyalty.