About Invia Travel
Invia Travel is one of the largest travel agencies on the European market. The agency with headquarters in Prague operates in seven countries and offers trips all over the world. It has 1,300 employees at 17 locations. According to the company, 225 million users visited its websites in the 2018 business year – and more than three million customers booked their holiday with Invia Travel.
In the DACH area (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), the travel agency has made a name for itself in recent years, primarily thanks to its online portal »www.ab-in-den-urlaub.de/.at/.ch«. On this portal, Invia offers package tours at reasonable prices.
| CLIENT | Invia Travel Germany GmbH |
| INDUSTRY | Tourism |
| BUSINESS FIELD | B2C |
| PROJECT | Design Strategy Consulting and Redesign of E-Mail Marketing Templates |
| PROJECT PERIOD | November 2018 - May 2019 |
| TECHNOLOGY | UXPin |
Initial Situation & Objectives
Among other things, Invia reaches its customers with personalised e-mail marketing. This way, customer-specific offers land directly in the inbox of those interested in going on holiday. In November 2018, the German branch office of »www.ab-in-den-urlaub.de« based in Leipzig approached dotSource with the request to redesign its e-mail marketing strategies.
The existing e-mail templates were to be replaced by more modern ones that are not only convincing in terms of their appearance, but also in terms of their user-friendliness. The dotSource user experience design team started to develop four different new e-mail templates for the travel group’s marketing automation activities in German-speaking Europe.
Challenges & Procedure
On the one hand, the e-mail templates had to master the challenge of mapping a wide range of offers and displaying them. On the other hand, they had to be designed in a way that suits the customers’ taste: those who want to book a trip want to see pictures – impressions of the potential holiday that are inspiring and realistic at the same time. The central task was to give these pictures and information on offers enough space and to include more white space in order to make the design look more modern, tidier and more elegant.
An intensive workshop at the client’s premises was the basis for the new templates. The most important pain points were identified and quick wins were defined. During the workshop, UXPin was used for live prototyping. The responsible designer also used this professional UX tool for the actual implementation later on. This way, low-fidelity prototypes (so-called scribbles) were created, which were then developed into high-fidelity prototypes during the project period.
User experience designers work according to the principles of the human-centred design process, thus putting the user at the centre of all considerations. This also applies to Invia Travel’s new e-mail marketing design: thanks to the new newsletter design, newsletter subscribers are not overwhelmed by offers; instead, the presentation of offers is more subtle and targeted thanks to a cleaner, more modern design – without missing out on pictures or the variety of offers.
Success & Added Values
Besides strategic consulting during the workshop, Invia Travel now benefits from a fresh design for its newsletter. Overall, four different types of newsletters were created, including the modules they contain. No matter which customer receives which type: the mailings now look more appropriate and the offers come across as even more serious although »www.ab-in-den-urlaub.de« continues to stand for good value for money.
Thanks to the leaner design that contains more white space while still allowing room for visually appealing pictures, Invia Travel’s wish to expand its target group and to be able to address even more users than before has been turned into reality. The travel market is highly competitive, and the wishes and habits of users are constantly changing.
The new designs reflect these changes in user habits – from price-related factors to the desire for a perfect customer journey across all touchpoints. Accordingly, they take into account current design trends, but are also designed in a timeless manner.
Because of the cooperation with the full-service agency dotSource, Invia Travel was also able to benefit from learnings that are not directly related to user experience design, but cover aspects of digitisation such as digital marketing or marketing automation systems.
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Markus Bartholmé
