We employed trusted business network site LinkedIn to open a conversation with Business Decision Makers. Our approach was simplicity itself. We simply asked them a question:What, for you, are the most important aspects of business travel?This got them to think about business travel, relating the question, and therefore their opinions, to their own businesses. Their responses were recorded as an ever-developing poll result within their LinkedIn profiles.This whole approach was brave and confident, befitting the nature of easyJet as a business. With no control over the outcome of the poll, we had no control over the out-take of the communication. But, our confidence was rewarded. ‘Low cost’ and ‘convenience’ came out on top, the very attributes that easyJet has built its reputation on. These outshined the more superfluous service aspects that tradition dictated as important (such as ‘priority boarding’) by 20% in some cases.

Point made.

We had an amazing response to our polls. So far there have been over 1,300 responses, three times higher than forecasted response rate. The approach of engaging Business Decision Makers with a question clearly resonated with them.Debate has stretched beyond LinkedIn. Ged Carroll, a blogger from PR Week, stated that ‘if I was BA I would be keeping a close eye on this movement by easyJet’.

But even more impressive was the revenue generated by the campaign. After just one month it had contributed to a 27% increase in seat sales from Business Decision Makers (vs. Direct Response average).