signature travel expert certification course

Signature Travel Expert Certification Course

Module 11: Offers and Promotions Introduction

Revised 7/29/2019

When you hear the term “offer” you might think of a deal, promotion, discount or bargain. Expand this

definition to include regular pricing, special Signature pricing, and exclusive Signature amenities and you’ll

understand what we mean by “Offers and Promotions” in SigNet!

Signature’s Offers on SigNet are individual listings of cruises, land tours and hotel packages available

through Signature’s preferred suppliers. Each offer provides advisors with detailed itineraries, pricing,

exclusive amenity details (where included), amenity redemption instructions and any applicable time-

sensitive Promotions.

This module will explain the different types of offers including cruise, land and hotel. We will also review

the time-sensitive promotions and how they tie back to the individual offers. In short, SigNet offers and

promotions can save you a tremendous amount of time by providing you with a single source for most of

the information you need for selling travel today.

This module covers the following:

• What an Offer is and how the Offer ID ties into marketing, Emarketing, microsites and website content

for Signature members

• Review the different types of Offers

• How to customize and email Offers

• How to Email a Cruise Offer Comparison

• Different ways to Email Offers to your Clients

• Where to view Email Drafts and Sent Emails

• What are Promotions

• How Offers and Promotions are tied together

Signature Travel Expert Course Module 11: Offers and Promotions 2

Lesson 1: Types of Offers

There are several types of offers found on SigNet. These include cruise, land, hotel, agency offers, multi-

offers and hot offers. Signature creates Cruise Offers for all of our preferred cruise suppliers, ships, and

sailings, regardless of whether there is an exclusive amenity or just a general cruise offer. Land Offers are

created for our preferred land and tour suppliers and Hotel Offers feature preferred hotel product to

coincide with our current marketing.

Each offer is automatically assigned a number by our system called the Offer ID number. This number is

used in our print and email marketing, on SigNet and in the content on your agency website that pulls over

from Signature. Clients can use it to search for the offers when visiting your website. advisors can use the

number to locate details about the offer on SigNet. These same offers are what appear on our various

Microsites as well.

In addition to our cruise, land and hotel offers, SigNet can also house your own

agency’s specific offers!

Located under the Offers menu is the link to Cruises: Agency. This directs you to

the page displaying all of the offers created by your agency.

Important

SigNet “Administrative Access” is required to enter your own agency’s offers, but anyone in your agency

can view them once entered. Questions? Contact [email protected]

Multi-Offers

Signature also creates Multi-Offers, which are groupings of similar cruise and land vacations into one offer.

This is a fantastic way to send your clients quick comparisons and choices. These offers also have an offer

ID number that will always start with “M” and then the number.

mailto:[email protected]


This is an example of a Land Vacation Multi-Offer, which

shows the same tour “from price” and travel dates, but one

itinerary is eastbound and the other is westbound.

The two individual offers have been grouped into one offer but

each offer is still accessible individually and has its own Offer

ID number. At the bottom you’ll see the Offer ID number for

the Multi-Offer M11590.

In this Cruise Multi-Offer example, the offers are for the

same itinerary but using different departure dates and

“from prices”.

As with the Land Vacation Multi-Offer, each cruise is still

its own offer, but has been combined to create one easy

to access offer that you can share with your clients for

comparison purposes.

The Multi-Offers also include details regarding marketing

and in which publication it has been featured.

Tip: New to the Industry

Multi-Offers are a very helpful tool when clients have a general idea of where they want to go but not the

specific date or other details. You can send them a Multi-Offer to show several options at once!

Hot Offers

Under the Offers menu in SigNet, you’ll also see Hot Offers. As the name

implies, these are some of the best deals and most popular promotions going on

at the time. While these offers also appear elsewhere in SigNet, you can think

of this section as a quick place to look for “hot” specials at a glance in three

areas:


Our Hottest Offers: deals and specials from within all categories

Best Cruise Value: special savings and promotions exclusively for

cruises

Best Vacation Values: special savings and promotions exclusively for

land vacations

Lesson 2: Sharing Offers - Customize, Email, Share a link, Post and Tweet!

There are many uses for offers, but the primary uses include:

1. A simple, single source for you to “shop” on behalf of your clients

2. A way to quickly find the details when a client calls about one of our ads or promotions

3. A fast and easy way to share a “quote” with a client or prospect

Signature makes it easy to share offers with your clients via email or on a larger scale in Social Media. Once

you have located the cruise, tour or hotel offer you want to share you will see a box on the overview of the

offer containing links to Customize and Email or generate a shareable link for the Offer.

Customize and Email: Cruise Offers

Once you have accessed the cruise offer you want to share, click the link at the top of the offer to Send

Quote OR from the Agent Tools link click Customize and Send Quote.

Once the Send Quote link is clicked, a fill in form will display. This is where your ability to “customize”

comes into the picture.


First, you have to decide how you want to send the offer to your clients. There are 3 options available.

1. Email: Complete the form and send the email directly from SigNet

2. Print: This one is easy! Select Print to give your clients a printed version

3. Share Link: Generate a share link that you paste into the body of an email using your own email

platform or paste the link into your Social Media status

The top area of the form is where you add in your client’s information, Name (either by looking them up if

an existing client or adding new), email address, email subject and personal message.

Next are the fields where you can decide to INCLUDE or EXCLUDE information. In most cases the default is

to INCLUDE and you must choose “NO” if you want to EXLUDE the information.

With several of the fields (like Amenities or Theme Info), you can choose to EXCLUDE the information from

the offer by clicking NO when prompted, or REPLACE the standard text with your own version! If you plan

to include your own version, click YES and enter your own text (see example above).

Below are the customizable fields, a description of each, and details about changing the field:

Field Name Customization Details

Send as Agency This provides a dropdown menu of your agency’s branch locations in case you want the email to come from a different location.

Pocket Travel Choose YES to include a short “Blurb” about Pocket travel for your clients.

Cruise Track Choose YES to include a short “Blurb” about the Cruise Track tool for your clients.

Personal Message Be sure to include a personal note to your clients so they know the message is coming from you.

Description SigNet automatically includes the Cruise Line description of the cruise unless you enter your own.

Amenities Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text to replace the automatically included text in the offer.

Supplier Amenities Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text to replace the automatically included text in the offer. (Example: If you have your own group, your amenities could be different or better).

Theme Info Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text to replace the automatically included text in the offer. (See example above)


Available Add-ons Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text to replace the automatically included text in the offer. (Perfect for pre/post hotels)

Promotions Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text to replace the automatically included text in the Offer.

Cruise Inclusions Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text to replace the automatically included text in the Offer.

Show Stateroom Pricing Block If you choose NO here, you should NOT say YES to Pricing Options.

Pricing Options Use this when you want to ONLY show pricing for a specific category. The screen for entering price options will appear AFTER you click the CONTINUE button. We suggest changing all other categories to read “call for pricing”.

Ship Reviews Choose YES or NO to include or exclude all reviews for this ship.

Avid Traveler Choose YES or NO to include or exclude Avid Traveler content (articles and videos provided by Travel writer, Ralph Grizzle).

Display "Tell a Friend" Button Choose YES or NO to include or exclude the “Tell a Friend” Button at the bottom of the offer.

Display “Request Information” Button

YES or NO to display or not display (defaults to NO).

Hide Agent Biography Choosing YES will remove your agent Bio from the bottom of the email.

Shore Excursions Group Link Choosing NO will remove the link to the Shore Excursions Group landing page.

Show Banner Above Personal Message

Choosing NO will display the banner BELOW the personal message. Only applicable if the Agency Logo/Graphic is selected, below.

Show Classic Booking Links Choosing No will remove the Classic Pre/Post Hotel booking links.

Cruise Offer View Choose “Single” (default) or “Multiple” tabbed view.

Include your agency logo/graphic in this document?

To show or not show your agency’s logo/graphic in the emailed offer. To ALWAYS include your logo, the Agency Spot Logo or Agency Banner from the drop down, and then check “Make Default”.

After completing your customization, just click the Continue button at the bottom to preview and email

your offer. Easy! If you selected YES to change the Pricing options, clicking continue will take you to the

page where you can enter your desired pricing changes.


On this page you also have some additional customization fields.


Fees Statement Select “Use Fees Statement” for the following option: The following Fees Statement will display under the stateroom pricing for this offer: Port, security and handling fees, government fees and taxes are included in the fare. Price does not include airfare, transfers and airline government fees and taxes. Select “Use Optional Fees Statement” for the following option: (Optional) Intranet/Agent Statement Port, security and handling fees, government fees and taxes are included in the cruise only fare. "Air Included" prices include transfers and all air-related government taxes, surcharges and fees. Please note that air inclusive price is not viewable to customers.

OR, enter your own text to replace either of these options.

Signature Remarks Choose YES or NO to include or exclude the Signature Remarks OR enter your own. Note: Entering your own Remarks will override the current Signature Remarks. Please make sure any important information about airfare, additional fees or taxes is communicated to your client if applicable.

Now you’re ready to click continue to preview and send your email.

Share Link:

If you chose the option to generate a share link you will follow the above steps to customize the offer and

then when you click submit, you have to then click the link to “Generate Short Link” which displays the link

to copy and paste using your messaging application.

Create/Share Cruise Offer Comparison

The above option is great if you know what your clients are looking for, and you can send them a perfect

offer to match their cruise desires. But, what do you do if your clients only know that they want a cruise to


Alaska in July but don’t know which cruise line they want? We have the perfect solution! Our Cruise

Comparison Tool!

The Cruise Comparison Tool enables you to create

a side-by-side comparison of up to 6 cruise offers

and email that comparison to your clients!

Located in the Offers menu, the link to

Create/Share Cruise Offer Comparison is the

fastest way to create the comparison but

requires that you know the Offer ID numbers for

the offers you want to compare.

Once created, the side-by-side comparison

includes an overview of each of the cruise offers.

The Description field is a link to the cruise offer

page. When you are ready to email the

comparison, click the Customize, Print & Email this

Comparison at the top. This will display the fill in

form seen in all offers.

SigNet “How To”

1) Click Create/Share Cruise Offer Comparison.

2) Enter up to 6 Cruise Offer ID Numbers.

3) Click Submit.


There are only 2 options for customizing a Cruise Comparison email and they include:


Pricing Options Choose YES if you want to change all of the offer pricing. When you click continue at the bottom of the form it will take you to Step 2 where you can change the pricing for each individual offer.

Custom Content Choose YES to change any of the cruise content on the offers.

If you don’t have the Offer ID numbers, use the

Cruise Finder search tool to search cruises

matching your criteria.

From the list of sailings, click the button to the far

right labeled “Compare Now”.

Once you have selected up to six cruises click the link to Create Comparison Report in the box to the right

displaying your cruise offers.

Tip: New to the Industry

Save yourself time and energy by copying and pasting the details of multiple cruises. Use Signature’s Cruise

Comparison Tool - it does all the work for you!

Tip: Experienced Advisors

The Custom Content field is perfect for adding any additional information, advice, or other details that can

make the Offer truly personal to your client.

Customize and Send Quote: Land Offers

Customizing and emailing Land Offers works the same as the process above for Cruise Offers, with a few

minor differences in options. The general approach is still the same in that you can choose to INCLUDE,

EXCLUDE or replace certain key pieces of information


One example shown below is the Vacation Inclusion field. You can choose YES to include the automatic

text, NO to exclude it, or fill in the box with your own text.

Below are the fields for customizing and emailing a Land Offer:


Remarks SigNet automatically includes tour operator remarks unless you choose NO or enter your own.

Description SigNet automatically includes the tour operator’s description of the offer unless you enter your own.

Promotions Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text replace the automatically included text in the offer.

Vacation Inclusions Choose YES to keep, NO to remove, or enter your own text replace the automatically included text in the offer.

Number of Nights Enter the number of nights you want to show or leave empty to use the default number of nights.

Pricing Options Use this when you want to ONLY show pricing for a specific category. The screen for entering price options will appear AFTER you click the CONTINUE button. We suggest changing all other categories to read “call for pricing”.

Offer is Land Only The default text for this field is "Featured offer is land only. Call us for low airfares from your city!" Choose NO to remove it.

Show Social Media Box Choose YES to keep, or NO to remove.


To show or not show your agency’s logo/graphic in the emailed offer. To ALWAYS include your logo, the Agency Spot Logo or Agency Banner from the drop down, and then check “Make Default”.

After completing your customization, just click the Continue button at the bottom to preview and email

your Offer. Easy! If you selected YES to change the Pricing options, clicking continue will take you to the

page where you can enter your desired pricing changes.

Customize and Email: Hotel Offers

With so many hotels in our collection, it’s not surprising that not all have actual offers in SigNet. As is the

case with Land Offers, Hotel Offers are created to coincide with our marketing efforts. Still, you can

customize and email these offers using the same process as with Cruise and Land Vacation Offers.


The customizable fields are as follows:


Description Choose to keep the hotel description as posted by Signature or remove it. You can also replace with your own description.

Remarks Signature includes remarks. Choose to keep these remarks or write your own.

Number of Nights Add in the number of nights you want to show or leave empty to use the number of nights shown in the offer.

Pricing Options Choose YES to change the pricing on the offer.

Offer is Land Only Defaults to YES to include the following verbiage in the email to your client: "Featured offer is land only. Call us for low airfares from your city!" Clicking NO removes this statement.

Show Social Media Box Choose NO if you want to remove the social media boxes at the top of the offer.


Here you can choose to include your agency logo/graphic in the emailed offer document. If you always want to include the logo you can change this to either the Agency Spot Logo or Agency Banner and then check the box to make this your default.

After completing your customization Click the Continue button at the bottom to preview and email your

offer. If you selected YES to change the Pricing options, clicking continue will take you to the page where

you can now make those pricing changes.

Customize and Email: Using the Offer ID

Another way to email any land, cruise or hotel offer is by using the Offer ID numbers. Under the Offers

menu and then the Home/Admin tab is a link to Create/Share Information with Your Clients (using offer

IDs). From here you have the option to email one

offer or multiple offers by adding in the offer ID

number. This uses the same form for emailing from

the individual offer.


Emailing Hot Offers

Once you access the Hot Offers page, simply click the

link to the right to customize and email to send these

great deals to your clients.

The form that appears is the same that you see for emailing cruise, land and hotel offers but it’s important

to point out one of the customization fields when sending Hot Offers and that is the area where you can

select which offers to include in your email.

Here you can uncheck any offers you don’t want to

appear in your customized email. Note: if you uncheck

all the boxes, Signature will default back to using ALL of

the Hot Offers in your email.

After completing your customization Click the Continue

button at the bottom to preview and email the Hot

Offers.

Sharing Offers on Facebook and Twitter

Within the Advisor Admin Box, in addition to the “customize and email” link, you will

see the icons that allow you to share an Offer via Facebook and Twitter. Of course,

you’ll need a Facebook or Twitter account to able to share the Offer.

Follow these easy steps:

SigNet “How To”

1) Click Promote (for Facebook) or Tweet this (for Twitter). 2) A preview window will appear. 3) Click SUBMIT and copy the URL displayed. 4) Paste the URL into a Facebook or Twitter post.


When you click Promote on Facebook, a form will appear that allows you to add a title, descriptions, and “thumbnail” size image to your Facebook post. It’s an easy way to create a post that looks professional and gets attention. After you click SUBMIT you’ll be given a URL to copy and past into a Facebook post. All the details will then magically appear!

The Tweet this feature automatically accommodates Twitter’s 140-charater-post limitation. Your options are to include your Agency’s Branding, or ALSO include your own contact information. (Be sure you are already signed into Twitter). After you click SUBMIT, Twitter will appear with a “Tweet” ready to share!

Lesson 3: Tracking Offers

Signature makes it easy for you to view all of the land, cruise and hotel offers you have emailed to your clients. This tool is located under the Offers menu and the link to Shared Info: Sent. Once the page displays

you will see a complete list of all emails you have sent in the last 90 days. For each email sent, you can view the date it was sent, the clients’ name, the email address, the type of offer sent and then the ability to view the offer or copy and resend. Signature also keeps any email drafts you had started but didn’t send. These are also under the Offers menu and then the link for Shared Info: Drafts. These drafts are saved for only 7 days and then they are deleted.


Tip: New to The Industry

You might think that this SigNet feature is redundant since email apps like Outlook already keep track of

your email messages. However, SigNet gives you a place to ONLY view Offers, without the clutter of other

communications. It also allows you to sort by date and type of offer. That means less time spent sifting

through Outlook folders when a client calls.

Tip: Experienced Advisors

Before speaking to a client on the phone, or via email, it’s a good idea to take a quick look at the Offers you

may have sent them in advance. This can put you far ahead in knowing what you MIGHT be talking about,

and give the impression that you are on top of things.

Lesson 4: Time-Sensitive Promotions

One of the most common uses of marketing is to promote deals, discounts or other specials. In addition to

the exclusive Signature Collection cruise amenities and the amenities offered by our hotel partners,

Signature also provides advisors with access to a plethora of Time-Sensitive Promotions.

Promotions are offered by all Signature supplier partners and include specials created by the supplier

exclusively for Signature members, to be included in our print and email marketing. These promotions will

be identified as exclusive with the icon in the Signature Exclusive column.

Promotions also include public specials not exclusive to Signature that are available

for anyone to book. The Promotions section is located under the Marketing menu.

It provides a summary listing of all current Time-Sensitive Promotions.


On the SigNet Promotions page, you will see

the suppliers with current promotions listed by

date updated by default but you can easily

change the order to Signature Exclusive, The

promotion name or the promotion end date.

Use the arrow in the header to sort by

ascending or descending order.

There are also several ways to filter the promotions. These include: By Supplier Type(s), By Supplier(s), Signature Exclusive, New (added within the last 7 days), Ends Soon (expires within 7 days).

Note: The Promotion Type and Supplier filters are independent of each other. A selection made in one

menu will not affect the selections made in the other menu. However, the check boxes for Signature

Exclusive, Ends Soon and New will filter immediately and automatically and apply to whatever is currently

displaying in the list of results.

To view complete details regarding the promotion, simply click on the name of the promotion.

For promotions associated with specific offers, you may click on the link to view the list of matching offers.


All Promotion postings follow a standard format making it easy to find the necessary information:

Field Details

Booking Window Dates the promotion is valid. Example: for new bookings made January 1 – 31, 2015

Applicable Offers List of cruise, land or hotel offers to which the promotion applies.

Booking & Redemption Instructions

Redemption code or process required to secure the promotion.

Confirmation How the promotion will be confirmed to clients.

Combinability Whether or not the promotion is combinable with other specials or amenities. Important: Many cruise promotions will apply to sailings that also feature Signature Exclusive amenities. Look here to determine if it is combinable with Signature’s amenities.

Terms and conditions Any other important terms or conditions provided by the supplier.


Within the individual offers, these promotions

appear in what we call a “Special Promotion Box”.

Each cruise, land and hotel offer will have two boxes,

one which is a consumer view and one that is agent

view.

The Consumer View Promo Box appears at the

bottom of the cruise offer or the top of a land offer

with details of the offer.

These details can be expanded by clicking on the “+”

sign to the right. This directs the consumer to contact

their travel advisor for more details about the

promotion. In many cases offers will have more than

one promotion. Each will be listed on the as a

separate promo.

The Agent View Promo Box appears in the Booking

Instructions of the offer and again is only viewable by you,

the advisor. This is where you would go to get additional

information regarding the promotion. Each has a link to Click

Here for redemption instructions. This link opens the

promotion posting housed in the Signature Promotions

section of SigNet, which includes all of the details necessary

to ensure the promotion is applied.

These Time-sensitive promotions are also featured in

Signature marketing. This is especially true with our

land supplier partners. Unlike with the cruise suppliers,

our land suppliers don’t have an exclusive amenity

program so these promotions can be a great tool to

help you close the sale! They appear in the marketing

piece as “Our Exclusive” which is YOUR exclusive. Be

sure to take credit for these amenities as coming from

you, their valued travel advisor.


Summary

After completing this module, you will have an understanding of the following key items:

• What an Offer is and how the Offer ID ties into marketing, Emarketing, microsites and website content

for SIG agencies.

• Review the different types of Offers

• How to customize and email Offers

• How to Email a Cruise Offer Comparison

• Different ways to Email Offers to your Clients

• Where to view Email Drafts and Sent Emails

• What are Promotions

• How Offers and Promotions are tied together

Resources

The following links direct you to additional training resources available on SigNet:

CruiseFinder Cruise Offer Search

CruiseFinder Cruise Comparison

Land Offer Search Signature Promotions

Learning Instructions

This handout provides a general overview of the key objectives of this module and is designed to support the

learning process of participants taking the online course. It is highly recommended that all learners complete

the online version of this module as it provides more in-depth details and practical applications related to

these topics. All quizzes must be completed online to fulfill certificate requirements.

Questions

If you have questions, please contact the Signature training team: [email protected]

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=51624381

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=5F22AAB9

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=5F22AAB9

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=A7B9337C

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=A7B9337C

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=F3079930

http://sigtn.com/utils/ghf.cfm?ft=F3079930

mailto:[email protected]

signature travel expert certification course

Documents