March 11, 2008 | Tuesday
Ten Hot Tips for Successful Online Travel Marketing
By Simon Whittick in Marketing
We organised a poll in-house among all Latitude search specialists to list the ten hottest tips for online travel marketing, ahead of a presentation that Matt did at the Travel Technology Show last week. Read on for these must read tips:
1. Opt for price/offer-led copies for your pay-per-click adverts. Travel customers are often after value-for-money deals, the destination / activity alone is not enough to convert them in this competitive environment.
2. Adapt your PPC keyword bidding strategy to what you can afford. Smaller travel specialists don’t generally have the budget to compete with bigger players on generic keywords (e.g. “Holidays”, “Spain”). They should focus on what constitutes their strength - their specialism (a very specific location, a certain age market, or a particular activity, e.g. “golfing in the Algarve”) - and bid on niche keywords that will show their expertise and attract a more qualified audience.
3. Make your landing pages as relevant as possible. People searching for holiday in Palma (Majorca) want to go through to a Palma Majorca page once they’ve clicked through, not your homepage, a Spain page, or even a Majorca page. They are more likely to bounce straight off if you don’t make the landing page as close to the query as possible. If the user lands on a page with a search form to fill in, ensure that as many boxes as possible auto-populate. For example “Spain” and “Palma” already appearing in the relevant country and destination boxes.
4. Make sure you realise the power of the brand name. Brand terms are traditionally the best converters for any campaign in any sector, but the chances are that when the user types your brand name on search engines your website will show along websites displaying comments about your offering, such as review site TripAdvisor. As many people only tend to leave a comment if they have a complaint, getting friendly websites to rank at the top in order to relegate negative comments to the second and third pages is essential. One way is to search-optimise micro-sites bearing your brand name, or the websites of sister companies, or even affiliates sites, to boost their rankings.
5. Get on the map. Don’t forget to include Local Search (e.g. Google Map) in your PPC and SEO strategy. Easy and free to do, appearing on the local map that often shows among the search results can have a really strong impact. All you have to do is register with the search engines and you hotel / restaurant / resort will pop up on the map!
6. Embrace social media. Peer recommendation has always been a strong converting factor, especially for travel. With the development of social media (e.g. blogs, forums, social networks) it’s now got an even higher impact. By getting involved in your customers’ online conversations, you engage with them, learn about their needs, drive more traffic to your website and increase the visibility of your brand in search engines. User-generated content, especially including images and videos, tends to rank well on search engine results pages.
What are the easiest ways for brands to go social?
. Figure out what the relevant blogs to your speciality are, read them and ultimately get involved whenever suitable. Be honest, don’t hide your identity and refrain from making your favourite sales pitch!
. Set up a RSS feed from Yahoo! Answers for all the keywords related to your business, including your brand name, and join the discussion when it comes to your field of expertise.
. Keep an eye on the industry forums, such as FlyerTalk or Wayn, and don’t hesitate to come forward whenever customers ask questions about your product.
. Why not create a dedicated social channel, where customers would share their views and experience of the brand? Think about a page on MySpace or Facebook, like Haven Holidays’, or your own private social network, such as the Flying Blue Golf Club from Air France-KLM.
. Explore the viral marketing opportunities offered by social networks, by developing applications that users will share, such as TripAdvisor’s TravelMap, on which users can pinpoint the places they love.
7. Explore alternative channels. Ever thought of getting your product listed in auction websites like eBay? The risk here is low (a listing fee + a low percentage of the final sale payable when the auction converts), and if you manage to attract enough bidders the returns can be worthwhile. Many travel specialists are already doing this check out the results you get when you type “package holidays” as a keyword in eBay.
8. Integrate your various marketing tools to create a halo effect that increases conversion. Research shows that TV adverts trigger a surge in search queries that are related to the product advertised on television. Similarly, according to Atlas, conversion rates for a search marketing campaign rise by 22% when an online display campaign runs alongside it. We also know from Hitwise that combining SEO and PPC produces a 51% lift in click-through rates. All this means that you have to make sure all your promotional tools converge in terms of timing and in terms of message.
9. Improve your website’s usability. Allow the user’s journey through your website to be easy, clean and clear by avoiding industry jargon and reminding them where they are in the booking process at every step of the way. Do not assume that clients know where Majorca is or what a transfer is – use simple terms and take the time to explain.
10. Track your visitors’ journey on your website. For example, give your visitors the possibility to create their personal account on your website. This will allow you to observe their behaviour even if they visit your website from various computers (at work and at home).
You’ll also be able to map out patterns according to demographic criteria – an insight into your audience that will be useful for future marketing campaigns.
In particular, make sure you track the booking process to get a chance to identify where and why people drop out before finalising the transaction.
I hope you find the Ten Hot Tips for Successful Online Travel Marketing useful. If you have any questions or additional ideas you want to discuss with us please let us know.
Comments
There are no comments for this entry yet. Use the form below to add yours.