With the launch of the website we can reckon the launch of our marketing efforts. Feel welcome to comment and even more welcome to correct us when we don’t do things in the right way, assuming there is a right way for a startup promoting its services in the online sphere.
Brand
We chose the name Etrip because it combines online & travel and it reminded us some services we appreciate, Elance for instance. Besides, coming from a hard-to-handle name such as ‘Fly Open Sky’ (an order most people tend to mix, who can blame them?), we were on the search for something short, catchy and somewhat different from the other players in the market. As we are too, different.
Our logo, though unique, simply goes in the path the first web 2.0 startups lead, and it can be easily included in any of these Web 2.0 logo lists.
Motto
We chose ‘Your Best Flight’ as our leading slogan, in favor of ‘As low as it gets’ that we had in mind before. What I like about this slogan is that it combines empowered users (Your) together with our effort to bring better prices than other services (Best).
In the website as well as in some marketing materials we are mainly using sky, people, and even hearts. The leading line behind it is a term called ‘Lovemarks’ which started from a book by Kevin Roberts, the CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, a global leader
advertising agency.
Lovemarks are brands that represent to some customers more than just a price-service-product relation. My personal Lovemarks would be Google/Gmail, my IBM laptop, The Economist, some books, and even Expedia, a company that would not have made it to where it is today without giving more than just a good service. I hope that in some point of time there would be enough inspirational consumers who will find Etrip a Lovemark.
Rotterdam based
With the launch of the site we also launched a small outdoor campaign where we give away bike stickers (‘pimp my bike’ trend is a very Dutch thing) and magnets that resemble a hippy version of the homepage. These are delivered among the university staff and students.
Some startups would find this act bizarre as online services are usually marketing themselves purely online, but for us this is a great way to use our community.
In the first weeks from launch on, most of our users would be RSM students and staff, the same people we meet daily, which promises great feedback responds.
The other side of it is a pure marketing act: we know hundreds of people in Rotterdam. They know thousands of people in Rotterdam and elsewhere. This is a very quick way to spread out a great service. You can also do it online by clicking this del.icio.us link on the right bar.
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