Travel is opening up—are your digital channels ready?
DMOs are preparing to meet increasing demand, but uncertainty and fierce competition are also on the rise. Is your digital strategy set to make the most of every opportunity?
Considerations for an effective digital strategy
Make sure your approach is:
Holistic
All tactics in the marketing funnel work together, guiding visitors to your conversion goals.
Purposeful
Marketing and content creation efforts have contribute to meaningful goals, not vanity metrics.
Authentic
Your messages and brand promise set visitors up for satisfaction in their truthfulness and authenticity.
Effective
Best practices, proven patterns, and iteration play a key role in making sure visitors convert.
Measurable
Your efforts on all channels are measured and evaluated for the best ROI on your investment.
Repeatable
Discipline, consistency, and clarity are core rather than viral-fame or home run campaign attempts
Assess your digital marketing strategy
Let’s take a brief look at your digital marketing strategy. The digital traveller is more savvy than ever with higher expectations for their digital experience. How does your destination stack up?
Are you reaching the right audiences and communities?
TOP OF THE FUNNEL
Many destinations do an excellent job of creating content, reinforcing the brand, and managing social engagement. However, it's common to see efforts fall short when specific iterests or affinities are concerned. If you're not New York or Paris, you'll need to find common ground with your audience, which may mean building connections with niche interests and communities.
You're building your brand promise in the early stages of the customer's journey. In later stages—and ultimately when the visitor comes—you'll need to live up to this promise. So be yourself and shine a light on what makes your place, people, and experiences truly special.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Do all of your tactics integrate and support each other?
- Are you continually measuring and refining for better results?
- Do you market both brand and bookable experiences?
- Do ad placements lead to targeted, message-matched landing pages?
Do you effectively drive conversions?
BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL
Many destinations are the weakest when it comes to converting. Complicated funding or business models can make it challenging to design a clear conversion path. But just because you have limitations doesn't mean you can't improve conversion. The travel industry just needs to take more queues from e-commerce.
There's an endless supply of knowledge and best practices we can learn from commerce brands. It doesn't take an overly keen eye to observe that influential commerce brands know when to be clever and when to be clear. Household names like Nike create groundbreaking ads, but their navigation, categorization, and checkout are based on proven patterns, data, and best practices. Your presence should do the same.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Is search and filtering easy to use with auto-complete and faceted search results?
- Are experiences and businesses intuitively categorized?
- Are packages and bookings available directly on your website?
- Do you frequently promote deals and specials with partners?
- Do your detail pages follow the best practices of e-commerce product pages?
Do you accelerate research, planning, and decision-making?
MIDDLE OF THE FUNNEL
In the middle of the customer journey, your content needs to guide visitors in decision-making.
Content should engage while providing practical information and obvious next steps.
Different destination business models can make this phase challenging. But, do your best to provide a comprehensive overview of your region, educating stakeholders on the benefits along the way. Your visitors will surely want information about major partners, events, and accommodations, but it's often the small, unique, or free experiences that make a visit memorable.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Do you provide a complete picture of a visit to your destination?
- Can a visitor easily find basic information on where to stay and how to get to your destination?
- Do you provide obvious queues for the visitor's next step?
- Do you make it easy throughout the journey to find bookable experiences?
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