Promotions Overview
The Softrip Marketing Promotions screen allows users to set up discounts that are offered by your
organization. These promotions can be advertised to the public by your organization. Once these promotions are set up in the promotions screen, the discount can be applied in the cart in reservations.
Marketing Promotions which are supported under the Marketing system are different from Supplier Promotions which are supported in the Product system. The key differences to consider prior to deciding which type of promotion to use are detailed below.
Marketing vs Supplier Promotions:
Marketing Promotions
These are promotions set up by an organization promoted to the public from the organization. An example of a Marketing Promotion is a coupon code. These promotions apply to the selling price of the reservation, not its cost to suppliers.
The discounts will need to be manually applied in the cart using the promotion code.
The discounts will appear as a separate, discounted line item in the cart.
Example:
Hotel Softrip 660.00
Round Trip Transfers 40.00
NewYearsPromo -100.00
Supplier Promotions
These types of promotions are offered by a specific supplier/hotel. An example would be an Early Booking Bonus, providing a percentage off if booked within a specific date frame. These apply to the cost of the suppliers, and may results in a discounted selling price.
The discounts will be automatically applied during the creation of the reservation.
The discounts will be automatically applied to the hotel portion of the itinerary.
Example
If an Early Booking Bonus offers passengers a 10% discount on their stay, then the 10% will be deducted from the hotel portion of the reservation automatically.
Examples of Promotions
There are a variety of different promotions that can be created and are supported under this module. Please see below for some examples and use cases to take advantage of when using Marketing Promotions.
Promotion Example #1:
Company X decides they want to run a flash promotion for any reservation created on Black Friday. This promotion will discount $100 per booking and is eligible for the first 100 reservations that redeem the promotion using the promo code.
Promotion Example #2:
Company Y determines that in order to keep their passengers happy, they want to create a promotion that will allow their users to offer a discount on any future booking if the passenger is unhappy. This promotion can be applied to any contact (passenger) that lodges a complaint for a discount on their future reservations.
Creating New Promotions:
Once the Promotions screen is accessed, users can create new promotions by selecting the plus sign at the top of the grid. At the bottom of the screen, users will be able to enter the specific promotion details.
Defining the fields:
Category
There are 5 (five) different categories that can be selected when creating a new Marketing Promotion. They are as follows:
Coupon
Gift Certificate
Prize
Reward
Travel Credit
If creating a promotion that is valid to be used by any individual on any booking, then the promotion category should be coupon. Otherwise, all other categories are designed to be used for contact-specific promotions.
Example
If creating a promotion that relates to scenario #1 above, use the "coupon" category. If creating a promotion that relates to scenario #2 above, use the "travel credit" category.
Promotion ID
An ID that is associated to that specific promotion.
The Promotion ID is the ID that the contacts/passengers will use when redeeming the promotion. It is suggested to choose a naming convention that is universally user-friendly.
Each Promotion ID must be unique.
Example
BOOKNOWANDSAVE
Description
A brief description of the promotion. This description will appear to the public in the cart in the reservations module and the invoices/documents; it will be the promotion line item's description in the reservation
Example
Book your reservation in the month of January and receive $200 off the total price of your booking.
Brands
If multiple brands are supported under one Softrip application, the brands field allows users to control the brands that the promotion applies to. The application will allow users to select one, multiple, or all brands.
Example
Company M offers three unique brands. They want to run a promotion that is only applicable if someone books under one of the three brands. Users will select that specific brand when creating the promotion.
Sell Methods
Selecting a sell method controls whether a promotion can be redeemed depending on if the booking was made online vs a booking made directly through the call center. Users can choose one or both sell methods.
Markets
Users can create specific promotions for overall markets. Users can select the appropriate market code in this field.
Note: In order to choose an option from this field, markets must first be set up under the Market Codes in the Product system.
Market Code Example
In the Product system, Company M has decided to set-up their Market Codes per destination. Company M mainly sells trips throughout the continental US, so an example of some of their Market Codes could be:
US-LAS
US-PHX
US-PHL
It has been determined to generate more business to Philadelphia, Company M will run a promotion where anyone traveling to Philadelphia, Market Code US-PHL, will receive $150 off per booking.
Product Codes
Entering specific product codes will allow users to run promotions for specific products.
Example
Company M offers an 8 Day Best of New York tour. This Tour is loaded as a Product in the Product application. Users can select the 8 Day Best of New York tour under product codes under Marketing Promotions in order to offer a discount to anyone who books that tour.
Block Codes
Users can cap the number of promotions that can be applied by linking the promotion to an inventory record via the Block Code field. The user can create the inventory record in Operations Inventory and add that block code to the promotion record. The IDate must be set to Dec 31, 2050. This is necessary because the functionality is limited in that you can only create one allotment for the entire promotion. It is not date-specific to the reservation.
Users can create a block code under the Operations Inventory module that is specifically associated to a Marketing Promotion. This can help support the ability to run flash promotions and control the number of reservations eligible to redeem that promotion, similar to scenario #1.
Currency
If a company allows an option to sell in multiple currencies, promotions can be created to only allow promotion redemptions if a booking was created under the specified currency.
Price
Enter the amount the promotion is worth under the price field. Any price entered that is less than 1.00 will be calculated as percentage. If the amount is 1, it will be treated as 100% discount.
15.00
This will be read as $15.00 and will take either $15.00 off per booking or $15.00 off per person.
0.15
This will be read as 15% and will either take 15% off per booking or 15% off per person.
Rounding capabilities
Users can add R at the end of the numeric percentage value to round to the nearest dollar, RU to round up, or RD to round down. An example would be entering 0.15R
Price QTY
Allows users to designate whether the discount applied is either per booking or per person.
Booking/Departure Dates
Users can set specific booking dates for the promotion, specific departure dates for the promotion, or both.
Example
Users can advertise that a promotion is only valid if a booking is made on November 16th. Users will then set the book start and end dates to November 16th. If a booking is made on November 15th and a contact attempts to redeem the promotion, it will not be valid and will not apply the reduction.
Adv Display/Adv ID
The advertisement display and the advertisement ID is associated to any campaigns that are set-up under the Marketing Campaign Management module. An existing campaign with an associated segment must exist under the Marketing Campaign Management system.
When creating a new Marketing Promotion, users will first select an existing Advertisement Display. The Advertisement ID will automatically generate.
Entering the data into the fields
Consistent with the overall design of Softrip NEXT, when entering criteria into the available fields while building promotions, users will be able to choose options from a drop-down list, type the information they are looking for, or expand the search box to select from a search grid.
Example of choosing from a drop-down list
Example of responsive text
Example of expanding to view the search grid
Searching for Existing Promotions
When searching for existing promotions, users can either conduct a general search by using none of the search filter options available, or, they may enter search filter details on the left side of the screen to conduct their search.
Promotion ID
Users can begin typing the promotion name under the Promotion ID field. The search grid can also be expanded by selecting the drop- down arrow.
Category
A search can be conducted to view existing promotions that fall under the same category.
Under the category search, users can either select one promotion category, multiple promotion categories, or all promotion categories.
Example: Users may want to see all travel credit promotions that have been created. By selecting "travel credit" under the category, users can view all existing travel credits.
Brand
To view all promotions that are applicable under a specific brand, select the brand from the drop-down list.
Description
By using the wildcard search option, users can enter key words or values under the description search field.
Example: Entering *$20* will return any promotions that have $20 in the description.
Product Code
Users can either begin typing the product code name, or, expand the search grid to view any promotion that is associated to a specific product. See the product codes description for more details on how product codes can be utilized for marketing promotions.
Date Range and From/To Fields
Users can verify which, if any, promotions exist for specific book by dates or departure dates.
A drop-down box exists for users to select from five (5) different options
None
Selecting none will automatically gray out the option to add date ranges under the "from and to" fields.
Created Date Beginning between/Created Date Ending between
Created date beginning and created date ending between are two different options within the drop-down list.
Once one of these are selected, users can enter date ranges under the "from and to" fields.
The Created Date search options will search the "book by" parameters that may be set on a promotion.
Departure Beginning between/Departure Ending between
Departure beginning and departure ending between are two different options within the drop-down list.
Once one of these are selected, users can enter date ranges under the "from and to" fields.
Redeeming Marketing Promotions
Once a Promotion is advertised or assigned to a contact, the promotion is eligible to be redeemed through the cart in the reservations system. Once the promotion code is entered under the Promotion Code field in reservations and the promotion is validated against the details of the reservation, the discount will be applied.
Working within the Results Grid
When working within the results grid, there are a variety of different options available to users. Overall, these options are consistent with the other screens that are available within the Softrip NEXT application.
Creating New Data
The option to create data can be accomplished by selecting the plus sign icon at the top of the screen. Review the creating new promotions paragraph for more information.
Deleting Data
Deleting data can be accomplished in one of two ways; using the trash can icon, or, using the right click option.
Deleting data using the right click option will give users the ability to delete one row only.
Using the trash can icon to delete data gives users the ability to delete multiple rows at one time.
Note: Deleting a promotion will not affect any reservations that ave already claimed that promotion.
Editing data
There are multiple options for users to edit existing data.
The first option is to use the right click option.
Using the right click option will allow users to update the fields at the bottom of the screen.
The second option is to make edits directly into the results grid.
Not all fields can be edited directly on the search grid.
All edits will appear in "red" until the changes are saved.
The final option is to mass change data.
Mass changes are available under any column that displays two arrows on the column header.
Users can mass change data or find and replace data using this option.
Note: Editing a promotion will not affect any reservations that have already claimed the promotion.
Update Grid Settings
Users also have the option to customize the order in which the data appears on the results grid. This option is available on most screens throughout Softrip NEXT.
This option also allows users to reorder the columns per user to ensure the most important column and data per their preference displays first. Once users access the grid settings, which are available under the user name, and save their changes, the grid will automatically update. Users will be able to view these settings on the screen each time the screen is accessed in the future.
