With the rise of online price comparison sites and review sites now offering hotels and flights for purchase, the competition for the ecommerce travel industry has never been so fierce.
So what are the top channels for reaching online vacation buyers?
Well, new research by Global Web Index shows that there is no one dominant channel that vacation buyers use to research and discover brands online. Therefore a holistic marketing mix of different channels is necessary to reach potential customers at different touch points of the research stage.
46% of respondents stated they discover brands via search engines, this yet only 34% discover vacations via brand/product websites. This shows that your keyword strategy needs to be based on user search queries "cheapest holidays to France" "best places to visit in Australia", rather than branded keywords, in order to rank your site and persuade them to buy. However, as shown, your marketing mix also needs to include traditional marketing like TV ads, online ads (these could be text ads on search, display ads on third-party sites, or social ads), but how do you tap into the 'word-of-mouth'?
This needs to be utilized via the digital word-of-mouth. Review sites can be the make or break of any business and many people now trust the word of others before buying products. But this requires providing current customers with an excellent service so they leave good reviews. Tapping into travel influencer marketing can be an excellent way to do this - using influencers and travel ambassadors to showcase destinations, hotels and fights can persuade followers to buy.
By Carolanne Mangles
Carolanne Mangles Dig DipM is the Digital Marketing Executive for Click Travel, an award-winning corporate travel booking platform. She is a specialist in B2B SaaS and enjoys planning and optimizing the full customer journey across all digital channels to create brand awareness, great user experience and copy that really sells the benefits of the product. She was previously Digital Marketing Executive for Smart Insights where she was involved with multiple digital channels to manage fully integrated membership campaigns to boost new customer acquisition and current membership retention. She has spoken and given masterclasses at B2B Expo on Search and Content Marketing, holds an IDM award in GDPR and loves a glass of red wine. Connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.
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