Spring is here! Which means summer is just around the corner, so if you’re not lucky enough to be on your vacation yet you’re probably planning your summer holiday. Buying flights, booking hotels, planning activities, there are so many options it can be so hard to choose the best brand or the best service for your holiday needs.
This is where the importance of content marketing comes into play. Tourist brands and services need to stand out apart from the crowd, making themselves available at all times of the year, convenient, consumer friendly and both exciting and fun enough to draw consumers in the first time and keeping their loyalty over and over again.
Whether it’s an interactive email subscription, a video that requests your opinion, a step into virtual reality, or a game meant to gain feedback and entertain consumers, interactive content can be utilized for all of the above purposes. It has the potential to draw in new consumers as well as maintain the pre-existing loyal followers.
So how can marketers incorporate this into their digital marketing strategy?
Understand Your Audience
Traveling is most likely going to hold some kind of stress for your consumers. Whether it’s finding something for the kids, financial issues, finding a pet sitter, there are always going to be stresses. With this in mind it is important for travel brands and services to think of these issues before hand and come up with answers and meaningful content that will calm, educate and inspire customers throughout their planning process.
Interactive content can help here by allowing the consumers to actively engage with the content they’re reading. So they won’t fall victim to skimming or simply being overloaded with information.
How about an Interactive List to allow your consumers to prioritize their vacation wants and needs? If you understand your consumer better you’ll be more able to fulfill their needs.
Be There Every Step of The Way
Being accessible and available all throughout the year while plans are being made, then during the vacation where plans are being executed and then after the vacation to remind tourists about how much fun they had is extremely important.
Have your content, educational or inspiring, be accessible all day, every day. I’m talking non-stop. Make it mobile friendly so after their surf lesson in Costa Rica, they can spontaneously decide to go paragliding and they can book that experience with you because you’re right there! Make yourself convenient, a tap, a click away so that they can access you in the middle of their vacation. People don’t want to stress when they’re away from the office, so keep it easy for them because if that is something they are going to truly remember and love about your brand.
If your customer has used your site to book a hotel in Vegas, try a Stack Up to see which shows they’re going to attend during their visit or which shows they’d like to see. Then maybe offer a 10% off on their next hotel booking after completing the simple finger action of flicking right or left.
Maintain Engagement After Vacation
Yes, you booked the client. You got them across the sea, or the state line or even across the street without a hiccupt. You were there every step of the way, you had an app, you had videos, and you had personal help available. You did everything in your power and you nailed it!
But now the vacation is over so you’ll send those clients a boring email asking about how everything went on their trip and if they could take a moment to fill out a quick survey and be entered for a chance to win a $1 off a cup of coffee at a joint 2 hours away from their house.
Your client will delete this email.
Instead, utilize the tools available to you and make their post-vacation as exciting as the pre-vacation planning. Hit them with content you know they’re going to engage with and love, encouraging them to take another trip with your tourism brand or service next year or next month! Remind them of how much fun they had, everything they could have done and what other opportunities lay ahead of them.
Disneyland and Disney World have hit this with everything they’ve got. If you were an annual pass holder or bought a ticket online or made an online reservation at a Disney hotel or restaurant only once in your life, you’ll be accepting interactive emails for the rest of your days. The worst part is you’re actually going to enjoy it! Because it will have fun blog posts about all the little details and special treats you have missed during the 2-3 days you were the day or quizzes that will let your know which Princess you are most like or updates on their latest films or products. And then you’ll fall down the rabbit hole of Disney, counting down the days till your next physically or digitally interactive experience with your favorite characters.
Ready to make your travel brand’s customer experience more interactive?
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