The Effective Online Travel Campaign Challenge
The travel industry has its fair share of challenges. It is a fact of life, as well as an unavoidable part of operating any line of work. At least the good news is that every trial the industry faces comes with an opportunity in exchange. For example, if you have an issue that is difficult to solve, most likely your competition is experiencing a similar problem. While the competition is still looking for a way to fix the said concern, you have the opportunity to get past the problem and discover a way for your company to improve.
Some common concerns that the travel industry faces include the aggressive competition when it comes to search results and increased demand for photography and video in electronic devices. Advancements in technology have provided people with faster internet speeds and portable devices like tablet computers or smartphones for better media consumption and Marketing automation. Travel providers have to offer a good combination of video, images and text in their corporate site and online advertising campaign to convince clients that they are the company of choice.
photo/ William Iven via Pixabay
Speaking of promotions, Omni-channel marketing has the travel industry make use of different ways to interact with customers, including telephone sales, mobile app stores, retail stores and their own e-commerce site. The problem with this approach is that it ends up being inefficient, and the funding spent on it is just wasted because most of this advertising is too focused on the consumer.
A lot of advertisers are under the impression that the benefits and features that consumers will like are also going to appeal to the travel agents. The reality is that these agents are more concerned about how a specific product would help their business, and if said item will make an impact on overall customer satisfaction.
Keep in mind that your travel agents are there to sell your service for you. They are not the consumer, so it means that their needs and wants will differ. Consider this scenario: you have a customer who will surf the internet for travel deals because he or she wants to go places while spending less money at the same time. Then there is the travel agent who wants to make that customer happy, but at the same time has to keep the company alive by selling additional products or services for commission. If your promotional campaign is portraying the same message for both entities, it most likely will not appeal to them.
For your advertising campaign to be successful, you need to know what people want to hear and then provide it. Most travel agents prefer to have travel advertising that is personalized to suit them. Think about the usual vacation package that is being promoted to customers, which often feature inexpensive prices for premium packages. From the perspective of the agent, this is not good because he or she cannot make money by offering packages that are cheap. An intelligent advertiser can utilize the same package using a different strategy by highlighting the amount of commission the agents can earn, together with all the amenities that a vacation can give. This will definitely appeal to the agents since the sales will offer an opportunity to make money.
As for the consumers, more people are using cyberspace to build their dream vacation piece by piece and read user reviews on services and their providers. This allows them to get the best price for everything, and be more informed than ever. If the travel industry wants a piece of the pie, they need to compete online.
Here are some tips that will help travel providers advertise their services over the internet:
The process should not stop after the sale.
Customers who love to travel will want a vacation provider that they can trust. It should not extort them for extra cash or send them to an unpleasant location. If your customers enjoyed your services, have an open line of communication with them. Ask them for feedback, send them some offers via e-mail, and encourage them to book with you again next time. Chances are, they will.
Have a travel blog.
More consumers are depending on travel blogs for inspiration on their next travel destination. Aside from being a great organic optimization tool for your website, this method is great for producing natural backlinks and social media traffic.
Allow people to share your content
Speaking of a travel blog, a great way to encourage more travellers to do business with you is to let your satisfied customers post testimonials and photos of their trips. You can set up a contest where the customer with the best photo wins a discount on a vacation package.
Utilize Affiliate Marketing
This is the best area to use Omni-channel marketing, as any affiliate (it can be anything from a website dedicated to a specific travel niche, a blog, or a site for travel comparison) can drive online sales.
Invest in SEO
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is very important for profitable travel sites. It basically makes your site more visible in search engines, and proper usage of Marketing automation will make sure that your site constantly has top ranking.
Also if you don’t have a website you could always build one. What you need is a domain name, hosting and a good website builder like WordPress. There are lots of helpful sites with step-by-step tutorials on how to create your own website that you could use to build a website.
Author: Gabby Roxas
