Services of travel companies and agencies are always in demand, but competition in this niche is constantly increasing. To regularly increase the number of applications, it is necessary to engage in travel marketing comprehensively. This article contains everything you need to know about travel marketing.
Key Elements of Travel Marketing
Let`s start our article with the things without which you can not deal with travel marketing.
Target Audience Identification
Your potential customer is a person who knows not only about the advantages of travel agency services but also directly about the advantages of your company. For the client not to lose you among dozens of similar offers, it is essential to emphasize your competitive advantages.
You should start with a detailed SWOT analysis. It highlights the main advantages, disadvantages, risks, and opportunities for business. For greater accuracy, you can involve a third-party specialist who will be more objective in judgment.
Next, determine which of the advantages best resonate with the pains and needs of your target audience. These are where you should start introducing a new potential customer to your travel company. But remember, the benefits must be real. If your promises are false, you can forget about attracting customers again.
Market Research
It is worth remembering that you are competing with other travel agencies. Therefore, an essential goal of travel marketing is to communicate the value of your services to your target audience. It can be:
- Considerable savings in time and effort
- Client on vacation can completely relax rather than having to deal with organizational issues daily
- Opportunity to visit places that the client has not even heard of
These are just the main advantages. We are sure that you can name many more. However, ensuring the target audience learns about them is essential, too. Advertising alone is not enough. Part of your marketing activity should be to inform everyone interested in traveling.
Marketing Strategies in Travel Industry
The Internet is the most popular tool for finding new information and services among potential customers in almost any niche. If you gain a leading position in reach and recognition online, your competitors cannot do anything against you.
There is a huge arsenal of marketing tools available to you on the Web, each with the following advantages:
- Measurability. You can track the effectiveness of any tool using analytics systems. For example, with the accuracy of a single user, you know how many conversions you received from each ad, how many of them left requests, and what total revenue the advertising campaign brought you.
- Interaction only with target users. In this case, you do not just place ads on visited sites. On the Internet, you can customize the display of ads and attract only interested users to the site. For example, in search engine promotion, only people who entered a query related to travel services or your company go to the site. When setting up contextual advertising campaigns, you target ads by interests or topics of sites. Launching a newsletter, you send emails only to users who left their contacts, etc.
- Engaged audience. Offline marketing tools very rarely prompt an immediate reciprocal interaction from the audience. For example, having seen a city banner, a person can only memorize it, and in sporadic cases, take a picture or write down your address or contact information. Internet contact with the target audience is immediately fixed by interaction. It can be clicking on a banner, following a link in a snippet, subscribing to a blog or social network, etc.
Let's consider the main tools and methods of travel marketing.
Website Development
The website often is the first contact with a potential customer. Here, the potential customer learns the basic information about your travel agency and tariffs, chooses a tour, and contacts company representatives. Most of your marketing channels should lead to the website.
Therefore, a quality website is an essential tool for digital marketing. This is the base from which marketing activity begins. It is better to consider the following requirements in advance when developing a travel agency website:
Multifunctionality:
The travel agency website is not just a brochure with information. First of all, it should turn visitors into customers. You need to provide all the functionality necessary for this: forms for sending feedback, online tools with a calculator for individual selection of tours, up-to-date information on promotions, etc. The best for this task is a website where a potential client can learn in detail about each time and the agency and make an order using the tools available on the site.
Convenience:
If you do not provide a convenient interface and navigation on the site, its multifunctionality will be useless. The user should be able to easily find the desired section and page and intuitively understand how to perform a certain action: order, registration, request feedback, etc. It is worth mentioning adaptability for different types of user devices. This is a mandatory criterion for a modern website.
Usefulness:
Usefulness depends primarily on the content. All your content must be created for the user. It should answer questions, provide only necessary and relevant information, etc.
Modern design:
Another important criterion is a modern, unique design. The visual design is the first thing the user evaluates on the website. The impression will be spoiled if it is a template or outdated structure. The visitor will be prejudiced against everything he sees next. For design, it is better to use your style and regularly improve it by testing hypotheses with A/B tests.
Absence of technical errors and defects:
First of all, the user experience depends on it. For example, Bookatrekking has repeatedly managed to increase the monthly number of orders by 10-20% by simply increasing page loading speed. However, not all bugs and defects can be noticed during the website's operation. Some of them are invisible to the user but negatively affect SEO. They should also be eliminated.
Bookatrekking.com is an excellent example of a travel company with an effective website that converts visitors. This company offers people various trekking opportunities, and their website only compliments their UX.
Everything is transparent on their website, and every booking is confirmed immediately. Bookatrekking has a simple design with simple colors and readable fonts. A convenient menu helps visitors find everything they need, while bright images convey what awaits them. This simplicity differentiates it from other competitors and even makes it memorable.
UGC for SEO
The largest source of traffic to a website is search engines. In addition, the result obtained is stored for a long time. It does not disappear as soon as you stop carrying out optimization work. But it takes time and a team of specialists to make your travel agency website appear in the top 3 search results.
You can get people looking for a travel agency, information about trips, or tariffs for specific trips from Google. Such visitors are perfectly converted into customers.
An important factor in search engine promotion is content. Its quality influences your visitors' interest and the website's position. It is essential to optimize the text content for search queries to increase the visibility of pages.
With content, you can also build up the site's backlink profile. It is another crucial factor for SEO promotion. By posting your content on other websites, you gain backlinks, increase the reach of your content, and attract additional interested visitors to your site.
Repost UGC for better social media marketing
Your social media page is where potential customers can learn more about you. That's why staying active and sharing valuable news with your audience is essential. The more followers you have, the more potential customers are interested in your services and are waiting for the right moment to place an order.
Here, you can discuss your different tours: conditions, entertainment, and attractions. A good idea is to publish photos from your customers' travels (of course, with their consent).
For this purpose, you can duplicate the brightest of their posts on your page. Implementing your hashtags will also be useful so your subscribers can find more such publications.
Another essential tool for promotion in social networks is targeted advertising. It helps expand your account's reach or attract interested users to the travel agency's website.
With its help, you can interact with social media users interested in travel and tourism but are not yet your subscribers.
UGC paid ads (PPC)
It is an effective tool to increase your reach quickly. Contextual advertising includes two main types: media and search advertising.
Media advertising consists of bright text-graphic banners and videos users see on other websites. Launching a media campaign can draw Internet users' attention to promotional offers or stimulate increased applications. It's a great image tool that helps you promote services and events when pressed for time.
Search advertising (PPC) allows you to place text ads among search results. With its help, you can increase the number of interested visitors to selected website pages.
The importance of UGC video for successful video marketing
It is better to see once than to hear (or read) 100 times. That's why video content is one of the best tools to increase interest in your services and improve the image of your travel agency. Travel videos are always very popular. With their help, you can grow your audience and deliver the necessary information.
A great format is a video review, which you can do on your own (by starting a YouTube channel) or engaging opinion leaders (bloggers). A great example of such a video is in this Alta Via 1 article.
In the first case, you will need a separate team to create content and time for promotion, but you will be able to constantly maintain contact with your target audience.
In the second case, you immediately get an extensive reach due to the audience of the opinion leader. But to share new reviews regularly, you need to constantly sponsor the creation of new videos on other people's channels, which, as a rule, costs more.
Loyalty and Rewards programs
Remember, the marketing cost of each new application is greater than the cost of re-engaging a customer. So, how do you increase repeat referrals and loyal customers?
First and foremost, honesty is essential. Any promises you make must be true. Even small unpleasant surprises can significantly spoil the impression of the travel agency.
An effective tool for retaining customers and encouraging repeat visits is a loyalty program. Thanks to it, each repeat order becomes more profitable; therefore, it is unlikely that a regular customer will leave for competitors. Loyalty program advantages:
- Regular promotions stimulate people to follow your news, thus keeping the brand's interest and the target audience's involvement.
- Discounts and special offers for regular customers are great ways to incentivize customers to make repeat orders.
- Exclusive travel packages show your regular clients your particular treatment, significantly increasing their loyalty to the agency.
In addition, people who have already used your services and were satisfied are loyal to your agency. Therefore, they are more likely to contact you and can spread positive information about your services among their acquaintances, attracting new clients.
Traditional Marketing
You should not forget about the classic types of advertising. First of all, it works for your recognizability. The most common formats are:
- Travel agency sign
- City banners
- Flyers
You get additional contacts with your target audience using offline channels for communication. Thanks to this, many potential clients have a more trusting attitude towards your travel agency, making them more likely to turn to you.
Successful Case Study: Schiermonnikoog
Schiermonnikoog, the Netherlands' smallest island, is perfect for weekend getaways or longer vacations. Travelers are encouraged to share their experiences with hashtags like #natuurlijkopschier, #schierganger, and #schierstruinen, showcased on their website via Tagbox.
They're not just collecting user-generated content. They aim to boost travel buzz, provide authenticity, and offer social proof. By using Tagbox to display unfiltered social media visuals, they've succeeded.
Their Results are Impressive:
- Visitors increased from 10K to 29K
- Over 2K posts under their hashtags
- 16K+ users viewed their UGC widget
Schiermonnikoog's website now showcases user perspectives, making it more authentic. With their social proof goal achieved, they're highly satisfied and ready to recommend Taggbox.
Wrapping Note
Understanding the fundamentals of travel marketing is essential for anyone looking to thrive in the dynamic and ever-evolving travel industry. This article has provided a comprehensive overview of the key principles and strategies to consider when promoting travel destinations, products, and services.
