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Online travel agencies are taking the world by storm, creating a big need for travel agency marketing.
The days of brick and mortar travel agents are waning and customers love browsing across multiple brands at a time using online travel sites. That said, as the OTA industry gets more competitive, you need to up your marketing game to stay ahead. Today, there are too many poor websites and bad strategies leading OTAs to fail or flounder. But with some best practices, you can provide your customers a top notch experience, converting them into customers along the way. Below we list the main tips you need to create a top-notch website.
Travel agency marketing best practices
- 1. Make your website more responsive: your OTA should adapt to multiple devices, including mobile and tablet. You’ll want to make sure your site runs quickly and smoothly across devices, operating systems, and browsers.
- 2. Don’t forget about optimization! There is an art to optimizing your web site for clicks and conversions. This is a bit more technical and may require consulting with an expert in search engine optimization. With today’s competition for clicks, this strategy clearly pays dividends. The more conversions you can generate, the more sales you should expect.
- 3. Invest in analytics. Take a look at the numbers to get a sense of what your users are doing on your web site. This is an important part of the sales and marketing process. You’ll want to focus on how users found your page, where they clicked into, and how long they stayed, for starters. This kind of knowledge has the potential to revolutionize your marketing approach. Again, achieving this might require consulting with an expert.
- 4. Design for success. Take a look at how your information is presented and what the navigation looks like. Is your brand being presented as professional, reliable, and modern? If not, invest in a robust design for your page. A good design is more than aesthetic. Content should be presented in a way that drives conversion and sales. Get feedback from users to streamline and improve your format as you go. Even a small boost in conversion can increase your bottom line significantly.
- 5. Leverage content marketing. With today’s search engine algorithms, producing useful content is a terrific way to drive new traffic. When you produce articles and stories your audience craves, you’ll generate more views and potential conversion every day. A comprehensive content strategy involves blogging, tweeting, and posting to Instagram and Facebook. Delegate these tasks to a web-savvy team member and start reaping the benefits.
- 6. Emails, emails, emails. A good newsletter will provide actual information in addition to promotions. This is a good mix. You want your audience to read your newsletters and hopefully even look forward to them. By adding promotions and highlighting discounts, you might be able to win some conversion from your email campaigns. But make it easy: add “book now!” links to facilitate the sale. A good call to action should always be included.
- 7. Improve your search engine. The basics of an online travel agency are important too. Foremost here is the actual search box and engine. Make sure it’s streamlined and user friendly. You don’t want to provide too many parameters of the bat, as it will intimidate users. Entice the user into searching by requiring only a few fields, such as dates and destination. Subsequent pages should provide finer filtration options.
8. Customer service. Even a travel agency that’s entirely online should have some human touches. Allow your customers to contact you easily by phone, email, or chat to resolve issues and receive assistance. Customer service can often help with converting new users.
Online travel web sites must maintain high quality websites to compete. Make sure your web site is usable, attractive, and filled with the latest updates and information. You may be surprised to find what some simple fixes can do to improve your bottom line.
