Six Marketing Ideas to Consider for Summer Travel Season
The busy summer travel season is at our doorstep. Now is a great time to evaluate your strategy and destination marketing readiness.
According to a recent Hotel Marketing article and Pegasus travel report, "leisure travel has been thrown challenges, but delivers good news. Forward-looking data indicates that leisure travel recovery will persist. Bookings made thus far point to growth rates having the potential to regain lost momentum during the upcoming spring and summer travel periods."
It is daunting to think that gas prices may now be the next planning obstacle for the leisure traveler. Guests will evaluate their destination and look for other ways to save. According to a recent New York Times article, lodging properties and destinations for that matter, "are still striving to figure out the best ways to reach potential customers." It is imperative to step up your online marketing efforts to ensure you reach and capture the leisure traveler.
As we approach summer here are six recommendations to ensure you are ready:
Social Networking Strategy
It is one thing to have a presence on social networks, but to make an impact you need a consistent and proactive approach to build and engage relationships and turn those relationships into visitors. Set your strategy, select a point person, and execute consistently. To get started, we recommend one posting per day on Facebook and twice a day on Twitter. Find what best engages your followers and fine tune your strategy accordingly. As soon as you have these platforms meeting your goals, YouTube, Flickr, Foursquare, and many others should also be executed in line with your strategy.
Local Search
Properly representing your business through local search marketing has become an important factor in your search engine presence. Now that Google has updated their search engine results pages (SERPs) merging organic listings with local listings for relevant queries, users can either visit your website directly or choose to go to your Google Places listing and view photos, customer reviews or business information first. If your local presence is fully optimized the result is a more enticing listing with useful information for the user. Whether you are a single business or a destination with many businesses, claim your local listing(s) on Google Places at a minimal.
Mobile Website
According to emarketer.com, "Mobile travel research and booking is also on the rise." They "expect this less-mature channel to attract 24.6 million travel researchers and 11.8 million bookers this year." With increasing numbers of travelers sourcing information from their smart phone, a dedicated mobile website with unique content and features (i.e. contact information, area lists, driving directions) is crucial to your Internet strategy.
Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is growing quickly. With the use of text and display ads on mobile search results, you can incorporate mobile-friendly capabilities like click-to-call. There are a number of other mobile advertising opportunities to consider and don't forget to incorporate QR codes (customizable bar codes that embed a URL) into your print and other display advertising.
Continue to Build Your Database
Email continues to be a strong means of brand communication and driver of web traffic. Encourage website users and visitors to sign up for future email communications to keep your destination or business top of mind. There are a number of online and offline approaches: home page, contact form, incentives, forward to a friend, at the front desk, at a visitor's center, at point of reservation, at point of telephone inquiry, and make sure your domain is on all printed material. Try to employ as many as possible – and don't forget to have them check a box to validate the subscription permission.
Social Monitoring and Tracking
When it comes to monitoring, Trip advisor and other travel review sites are certainly critical, but it is also important to monitor how you are perceived on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. Search engines are also posting what others say about your business. At a minimum, set up Google Alerts to find out what travelers are saying about your destination. To uncover how consumers are interacting with you and which programs are working or need improvement, tracking is imperative. Start with local listings and social sites to see how your programs are performing.
Tourism and destination marketing is our specialty. Contact us if we can assist you with these and other marketing opportunities.
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Adworkshop News
- Adworkshop is now a certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise through New York State's Division of Minority and Women Business Development (MWBE).
- Sarah Wilson joins Adworkshop & Inphorm as Supervisor of PR, Content & Social. The addition of Sarah, in addition to Content Developer Emily McGuire illustrates the growth of these areas and our dedication to quality work and integration of execution.
- Our Search Marketing Manager, Shelly Cihan, is Google certified and has the insight and expertise to maximize the exposure of your business.
- Two Content team members, Rebecca Steffan and Emily McGuire are now Inbound Marketing certified professionals.
- Programmer Chris Panza recently returned from the Drupal Conference where he gained valuable developer insight.
- Adworkshop's Internet department recently turned 15 and Inphorm, the PR extension of Adworkshop, is now 10. Two great milestones!