Tatiana Likhacheva

Web Marketing Analyst
TIG Global

What Does Your Company Do?

TIG Global provides full-service, customized Internet marketing solutions to more than 800 clients all over the world - including hotels and resorts, DMOs / CVBs, spas, restaurants, hospitality ownership and management groups, and other companies with a need for comprehensive interactive services. Headquartered in the Washington DC metro area, with a European satellite office based in London, this uniquely inspired Internet marketing company continues to provide unrivaled results, with a definitive touch of innovation and global expertise.

In late 2009, TIG Global joined with MICROS Systems, Inc., the foremost developer of enterprise applications in the hospitality and retail industries. By combining its experience with MICROS's additional technology and global presence of over 130 international offices, this partnership provides even greater benefits and returns for TIG Global clients.

What Are Some Of Your Challenges?

Working in travel sector is very challenging. With travel being one of the largest revenue driving sectors online, it is no surprise that it is highly competitive and innovative. My personal day-to-day challenges involve finding new ways to drive quality traffic to clients' sites by utilizing all available online channels, free or paid, and optimizing every opportunity to increase the probability of conversion and the value of such conversion.

What was your favorite session from SES London 2010?

I would have to say that the Keynote: "21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites", by Bryan Eisenberg, was one of my favorites, due to the amount of actionable material I took away from the session. Landing page optimization is a subject of great interest to me in terms of building knowledge and strategy, and this session did an excellent job of providing me with a good push on the subject, as well as a wonderful list to tick off, first thing back at work.

What were some of the things you learned from SES London 2010 that you were able to use for your business?

I was able to test and implement several things on clients' new landing pages, such as better optimizing them for conversion, and using new tools to pre-test before implementing. For example, I do not know how I lived before without fivesecondtest.com, a tool introduced during the course of the conference.

I also was glad to find out about tools on social monitoring and learn from case studies on possible successes of social media implementation. I have used many of the suggested tools from the sessions and have since utilized this acquired knowledge while developing marketing plans.

What were some of the results you saw after making those changes?

It made my life easier, that's for sure. All the new tools, either for monitoring or pre-testing, allowed for faster decision making on meaningful data. I ran more tests on optimization and conversion, in turn, achieving better results for clients.

These tools helped me to establish new ideas on optimizing landing pages by utilizing techniques that are practiced by the biggest and best companies online; a factor that made me more confident in running such tests.

The in-depth social media sessions also allowed me to develop my clients' social media plans to be more comprehensive and cover more eventualities than I had anticipated before. Overall, I left with a heightened understanding of social strategy that I was able to apply instantly to client campaigns. This knowledge has integrated nicely into the overall marketing mix that I use on a daily basis.

What sessions do you hope to attend this year?

This year I am spoiled for choice with so many interesting options. I would like to attend sessions such as "A Powerful New Choice in Search" to see what's new on the Yahoo/Bing collaboration. I will go to "Dive Deep into Analytics" to learn even stronger techniques for gauging results. I plan to attend a few sessions on display and retargeting, as well as Local 2.0. These subjects are of particular interest to me, as they have all seen massive changes this year, becoming the most prominent topics of 2010 and are expected to be so in 2011 as well.