Top 5 Tips for Digital Leaders in Online Travel
Written by Toonimo
Marketers in the travel industry work with a slightly different crowd of people as travel-related companies sell experiences more than anything else. When it comes to the travel industry, digital marketing professionals know that the user experience and customer satisfaction is above all. We’ve put together 5 marketing tips targeted specifically to digital marketing professionals and customer experience experts in the world of online travel. Each tip can instantly improve your website user engagement, increase ROI and reduce customer support costs without a radical increase to your budget.
Tip #1: The Content Should Reflect the Experience
Always remember that you are selling an experience, an unforgettably good one at that. When you start writing the content for your website, remember that you are selling a lifetime long experience, not a product. Do not focus on the facts, the hotel amenities, the flight details, etc. Focus on the uniqueness of the experience as a whole. Your goal should be to appeal to the customers’ emotions and get them to book the deal because they long for the experience that you are describing.
Example:
Instead of "The hotel features a large outdoor pool,” consider "Enjoy the beautiful weather as you sit back and relax beside the hotel pool".
Tip #2: Make it Easy to Be a Customer
Customers today are no strangers to online shopping and there are over 148 million travel books online each year. This means that consumers have a lot of options in front of them and they won't settle for anything less than perfect. Your website usability should reflect that and make the entire booking process easy, clear, and fast or your customers will simply go elsewhere.
How do you do this? Think of how the user experiences your website, how they search for what they want, and how easy it is to understand the booking process. Make sure that they have all of the information they need, that important search criteria is available, and suggestions and special offers are provided for those who aren't really set on anything specific.
Tip #3: Do Everything From a UX Standpoint
The moment a potential customer visits your website, they enter the customer lifecycle; It starts with acquisition and continues to retention. As a travel marketer or website owner, you need to make sure that the customer has the best possible experience from the get-go. This is done by taking the user experience into account across every aspect of your website, from design and content to functionality. Not only will this lead to higher conversion rates, it will also increase brand loyalty and the chances that customers will recommend and buy your service again.
Tip #4: Support and Marketing Go Together
Customer support and marketing are usually two very different departments. However in the travel industry, things work a bit differently. Travelers continue to purchase travel related services during their trip. In fact, 58% of spending occurs during the trip, which means that it is not enough to simply provide consumers with support-related services when they are traveling. As a digital marketer, you should take into account the vast marketing opportunities available to you. Because these purchases are usually spontaneous, the only way to be present when they happen is to maintain a constant relationship with the customer throughout their entire trip.
Tip #5: Give Them a Personal, Human Experience
Showing your customer that you care about them and their experience is important, no one doubts that. But can it be done effectively? One of the ways to do this is to use personalization. Something as simple as addressing customers by their name can make a huge difference to their experience with your website. Knowing what the customer has purchased, who they are, and what their experience has been thus far can help you personalize your email campaigns and offers to be more targeted and effective. It will also lower the chances of sending irrelevant offers to customers and alienating them in the process.
Another way to take things a step further is to use humanization tools. Humanization takes personalization a step further by using a human voice and animations to give the user a human and personalized experience while guiding them to the desired action.
