Travel industry marketing is an essential expense for your business. The travel industry is worth an amazing Trillion and it goes without saying, it’s wildly competitive. If your business wants to stand out from the competition, you need to implement creative strategies that will force your potential customers to take notice.
Unsurprisingly, recent studies show that travel and hospitality heavily rely on online bookings. If you want your business to grow, you have to nurture your online presence.
How?
- SEO
- Retargeting
- Online PR
- Social media
Travel industry SEO
SEO is one of the most important elements of travel industry marketing, and actually deserves a page of its own rather than this short paragraph. SEO does not offer immediate results, but overall the return on investment is incredible.
Unfortunately, any travel brand has no choice on if they should implement an SEO strategy or not, because so many sales are made online. The main principle with implementing an effective SEO strategy is making sure that you focus on the user experience. Essentially Googles job is to solve users’ questions, so all your content needs to be highly relevant and knowledgeable in order to rank.
It is advisable to regularly put fresh, valuable, organic content onto your site too, in order to draw in visitors. When you create this content, don’t just think about keywords either. By writing quality content, you will instinctively put in related phrases. Make sure that the way you create content is entirely natural and in no way forced.
Travel industry retargeting
This method of marketing is worth more than a quick glance. You can place your brand in front of people who are actively interested in what you do, increasing conversion rates.
Customer loyalty in the travel industry is excruciatingly difficult to hold onto. Everyone wants a great deal and they will happily shop around. In fact, the average traveller will spend eight-week planning and researching before parting with a single penny.
Statistics show that 98% of people will not convert on their first visit to a website. By placing your offering in front of a consumer who has actively shown interest, but not made a booking, can increase advert responses by up to 400%.
How does retargeting work?
When someone visits your website, then leaves, a pixel follows them. This allows places like Google, Facebook, or Instagram to later offer a specific advert to the same person later. If they click on the advert again, they slide further into the sales tunnel; gaining a deeper recognition of your brand and making a sale more likely.
Travel industry online PR
Your timing with travel industry marketing needs to be carefully considered. For example, if you are looking to promote ski holidays, you will need to put your information forward in an entirely different time period than if you are looking at a family beach trip.
Additionally, you need to be thoughtful and patient if you are sending a generic release as many publications produce content months in advance. However, if you are looking to gain publicity through current affairs, you will need to ‘news hijack’ which inevitably means acting fast.
When we implement any travel campaigns, naturally a huge emphasis is put on making sure that the audience is right. To do this we need to consider what kind of travel services or products you are selling, and who your main target audience is. For example, if you are selling kids sunscreen, your audience will be entirely different to an eco-retreat.
Once your article in in print, you will also benefit from the mention, or link, that your brand will get from the publication. This will significantly help you from an SEO perspective.
Finally, we offer travel industry crisis management. If something goes wrong that could have a negative impact on your brand, we will support you, and ensure that our reputation remains intact. Crisis management is a huge topic in itself, to read more click here.
Travel industry social media
This is one of the most important aspects of travel industry marketing. Arguably, the most important platforms are Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. In 2019, Pinterest reported that 69% of travellers used the platform when deciding what to book.
Unsurprisingly, Generation Z and the millennial generation are most heavily influenced by social media when making travel related buying decisions. Furthermore 40% of millennials chose a holiday destination purely based on how ‘instagrammable’ it is.
Pinterest is equally as important as Instagram, but an entirely different ball game. Whereas Instagram is to share a user experience, Pinterest is more for planning and aspiring to things that you like. It’s a profile where you pin what you want to own or experience.
There are of course other platforms. TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter… the list is endless. You don’t have to use all of them, but you absolutely should budget for the ‘big three’. All of them allow written content, images, and video. These are the three main staples when it comes to selling your travel brand.
When you consider that 97% of travellers post their travel photos on social media, it’s a target audience you can’t afford to miss.
Contact us
As you can see, you really can’t afford to miss out on the social media travel industry marketing agency.
Are you looking for help with your travel industry marketing? If so, we would love to help. You can call our office on 01376 386850 or click here to fill out our contact form.
We will provide you with a bespoke proposal within 48 working hours and we guarantee our results. When you work with VerriBerri you are working with the best.
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