Travel and Tours Marketing Formula [The How to – Actionable guidebook for online tourism marketing]
Hey, travel agents, still can’t get the results you wish from your marketing?
I’m going to show you the 11 things I discovered while working and presenting strategies to travel agents and small-medium travel agencies for over a decade.
Travel and tourism marketing?
Not only that, but you’ll also discover how to unpack this knowledge and put together a great marketing strategy suited exactly to your potential customers and especially your budget.
So here is the juice.
I know the typical question: can you give me a practical example that might come in handy for my tour marketing?
If you want to learn right away the strategy that works for your tour marketing, without wasting time on nonsense and stuff you only hear repeated from hearsay, and immediately find out what to work on to get you on the right track right away, to acquire your hot online traffic for your tours, then you’ll love this guide!
Sound good? Keep reading!
Getfutura.com provides you here the essential free actionable guide for your business, for your travel agency marketing plan, for your travel and tourism marketing.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 1
What is the Main Purpose of Tourism Marketing?
It doesn’t matter if you are a local tour operator or a travel agency, if you don’t have a website yet, or if you already have one and it is not converting as you may desire.
Because even if you still don’t have a website, this travel marketing guidebook will give you the exact guidelines to start creating valuable content and avoid classic mistakes. travel agents usually do.
We need to start by agreeing that in tourism, unlike most local businesses, most of the marketing in the last 15 years has shifted online. That’s because, obviously, going online makes it easier for everyone to reach your customers on the other side of the world, but even if you were in Cambodia and you were constantly reaching out to customers in Australia and Singapore (for example).
Now that we both agree on this, sticking with the practical definition, online marketing simply means how we organize a repeatable system, making use of different tools to sell products or services to a specific target market in an organized way.
By doing so, you will leverage the various tools to position your business clearly and specifically in front of your customers to differentiate yourself with method, clarity, and consistency.
And already at this point the problems start, right?
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 2
The Big Problem with Your Concept of Travel Marketing
And as I was telling you in the beginning, working with so many travel agents, I heard the same things over and over again: let’s copy the big sites (Viator, Klook, etc…), let’s get out at a lower price and do Facebook and Instagram posts.
My goodness! My reaction was always to shut up, thinking inwardly, “What is wrong with you people?”
Digital marketing is about creating long-term assets and impressions to attract potential customers where they are, matching what they are looking for.
It’s all about creating an impression. And then, once you pass that threshold of a first impression, your visitors and potential clients can be followed up by some thoughtfully crafted email marketing and our beloved remarketing.
Ask yourself a question or two! All that stuff about copying others and maybe even having the lowest prices, please don’t call it marketing.
Establishing the trust factors as the base of any good sales strategy.
You want to nurture the heck out of that relationship..
Why? Because turning a warm lead into a sale takes work, but there’s a huge payoff when you do it right. The average lead returning to your website is eight times more likely to convert into a client than a first-time visitor, making you eight times more likely to net an income.
You want your customer to get to know you and see that you’re THE expert in your field. You want them to feel confident that you’re providing them with tons of value. At this moment, they’ll feel good about spending money with you. [Remember: you are not Tripadvisor].
Your travel marketing mistake number one?
Missing out on showing up where your clients search.
I know we are creatures of habit, but it is necessary to put your time into research! I know it is hard to leave your comfort zone of Facebook selfies for something else, but you are missing out on all the big opportunities… all of them.
You are losing time on Facebook, posting pictures of yesterday’s tour (not even trying to shoot a 50-second video, right?). Meanwhile, across the Internet, something else is going on.
Exactly this: Let’s say your target audience is in the US.
Happy people searching for your tour on Google enjoy learning about your location on YouTube while sitting in Los Angeles or Chicago. On Facebook falks are just chilling out, wasting time as you do, chatting with friends and looking at games; Instagram is no where to be seen in the top 10…
Wait a minute!
I don’t need to be a genius to realize something is happening over here.
And there’s a way to make much more money from this.
Have fun here on Semrush.com on their statistics page. Browse the various countries and categories to find your perfect match.
And that brings me to the next travel marketing mistake.
Your shining object syndrome.
With all the constant noise around you, my dear travel agent, in the online space, from marketing experts to friends reaching out on messenger, you easily fall for fallacious advice and even from watching your competitors and what they’re doing.
It’s hard not to get distracted, I know.
But instead, you should give yourself time to dig into research so you can honestly see what’s working for you.
The truth is that most small businesses expect immediate results, and when they don’t see a crazy payout overnight, they abandon marketing too soon before it ever had a chance to work.
The distinction here is in studying your numbers and comparing what’s working and what’s not.
I know you wish to stick with your Facebook strategy as you have already invested much time, effort, and money (a salary that doesn’t bring any result is a loss of money dear). But you are losing on the big scale.
This is also known as the sunk cost fallacy. Well, I guess this is something for a different kind of expert.
Okay, now that you know what not to do when it comes to marketing, What about what you should be doing instead?
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 3
How can I Promote my Travel Business Online?
Online marketing for tourism actually comes about to create a chance for you to reach out and be known directly by people who are looking for a tour you sell or a location you propose.
The combination of practices such as perfecting your online visibility and sales practices with operational tools that you interpret for your needs.
There’s nothing new, much less reinvented. Online marketing (even in tourism) was born and evolved precisely as a response to small and medium-sized agencies that lack a true international distribution channel.
Every small, medium-sized agency working on local niches does not find it possible to expand with agencies all over the world or at least with branches in neighboring nations, nor to have direct salespeople and staff in every single nation.
Large agencies actually have at least one of the above variations of international distribution. Large online platforms have moved in this direction, gathering data from all nations and expanding with physical offices and staff located in different locations worldwide.
For you who don’t have large distribution channels, who don’t have agencies scattered around the world, who don’t have salespeople in so many countries: Please explain to me how you plan to sell if not online.
Are there secret distribution channels?
Everything start with your website and your online travel marketing system.
Put your efforts and attention to study how People search for Travel locations and experiences.
People are alternating between mobile and desktop devices or laptops from the comfort of their homes. Most mobile travel searches are seeking ideas and comparing prices, whereas the majority of desktop travel searchers are ready (or nearly ready) to buy or book a reservation.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 4
Your Website and e-commerce for Your Online Tourism Marketing Strategy.
But let’s talk about your e-commerce website or what you should do if you don’t have a site yet.
We always start with the important data first.
2.86% of the visits, of the people who go to your e-commerce convert to a sale. Actually, this figure includes Amazon inside. This means that if I average the conversion rate by attempting to take into account the giant sites such as Amazon, your Viator, the various eBay, and so on… the figure for your booking sites is definitely less than half, given the trust and authority problem, of the fact that people don’t know you don’t trust you.
The foundational concept is that it matters more who you are than what you sell. Especially online, where everyone can find what you sell from dozens of other agencies like yours.
So why would their e-commerce work and yours not? You lack a few thousand employees, a few thousand online pages, a few million backlinks, and about 25 years of life and online reputation and credibility. Here’s why.
But let’s talk about your e-commerce website or what you should do if you don’t have a site yet.
We always start with the important data first.
2.86% of the visits, of the people who go to your e-commerce convert to a sale. Actually, this figure includes Amazon inside. This means that if I average the conversion rate by attempting to take into account the giant sites such as Amazon, your Viator, the various eBay, and so on… the figure for your booking sites is definitely less than half, given the trust and authority problem, of the fact that people don’t know you don’t trust you.
The foundational concept is that it matters more who you are than what you sell. Especially online, where everyone can find what you sell from dozens of other agencies like yours.
So why would their e-commerce work and yours not? You lack a few thousand employees, a few thousand online pages, a few million backlinks, and about 25 years of life and online reputation and credibility. Here’s why.
Do you need examples?
Open Wikipedia’s GetYourGuide page.
GetYourGuide:
- [Employees: 609 (Q4, 2021)] – [Online since: June 2008]
- [When GetYourGuide announced $14 million in Series A fundraising in January 2013, one of the aims was to develop mobile apps.]
- [In November 2017, GetYourGuide announced a $75 million Series D funding round raised to help support expansion in Asia and the Americas.]
- [In August 2018, GetYourGuide began selling tours under its own brand name.]
- [In April 2019, GetYourGuide raised a $484 million investment from SoftBank Group.]
Another examples of the Amazons in your industry?
Viator:
“Travel Site TripAdvisor To Acquire Viator For Approximately $200M”. Was Jul 25, 2014.
These are just a few of the Amazons in your industry.
Online, people want to know who you are and who they’re buying from, and your reputation becomes the most important thing. Ninety percent of everything you do must prove that you are the go-to expert and clarify your credibility.
You have to use different methods, not random posts on social media.
Your goal:
Authority + Credibility + Trust = Persuasion.
You will never be able to use an e-commerce catalog to create authority.
You will never be able to create credibility with a paltry description copied from other sites.
Not to mention trust!
Those sites you also know sell because they have credibility and authority and inspire trust because they are already known all over the world. And good thing that you are there within some of those sites, but what happens as soon as they start selling your tour with their team and brand name?
Your persuasion strategy can only come through the creation of powerful content.
Power pages
Power presentations
You will always sell at a minimum if you send people to a banal post or a bland e-commerce site.
Your e-commerce, if you already have it or you have to do it from scratch, you will only need it the moment you use it well to bring back customers who are already buyers, and make them become recurring customers by introducing them to new products and tour programs coming out.
Your e-commerce, if you already have it or you have to do it from scratch, you will only need it the moment you use it well to bring back customers who are already buyers, and make them become recurring customers by introducing them to new products and tour programs coming out.
But you don’t have the huge community of those sites there.
Do we understand that your goal is to attract customers from other countries?
Your purpose of going online will be to win new customers or not?
You are opening up to digital now! You need to bring your prospects -the who -to your tour vent page that will serve to build trust and your credibility at the table to bring people to buy, with salespeople and systems ready to retrieve and follow up with customers but also users who abandon your check out cart.
According to the awareness levels of your potential customers:
- The completely unaware customer
- The client aware of the problem
- The customer aware of the solution
- The product-aware customer
- The customer who is aware of your brand
Your e-commerce will also need to be prepared exactly for upsells and cross-sells at every level of the WooCommerce page, shopping cart, and check-out page, as well as having a live chat always available and active to overcome any objections or customer requests instantly.
And this is why you will not have the freedom to choose any WordPress site, but you will have choices limited only to the most comprehensive WordPress themes for all these functions, such as Astra Theme.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 5
Your Assets for Your Online Travel Marketing.
You just realized that therefore more than 90 percent of your efforts will have to be devoted to creating content for your power pages to meet all your potential customers online.
Let me show even more stats!
In recent years, content marketing has moved at the speed of light.
Why?
Consumers are drawn to brands that exhibit honesty, transparency, and friendliness.
As a result, the pillars of content marketing —relationship-building and a focus on the customer rather than the brand— were established in response
Allow these facts to speak for themselves for some good proof. They certainly speak for themselves.
Be ready to persuade.
“Content marketing generates more than three times the number of leads as outbound marketing while costing 62 percent less.”
That’s correct. Content marketing is less expensive than outbound marketing, but it also creates more leads.
According to @demandmetric, when compared to outbound marketing, the cost of content marketing is reduced by 62 percent while producing three times as many leads. #contentmarketing.
After reading suggestions on a vlog or a blog, 61% of U.S. online shoppers made a purchase. @impactbnd @JuliaEMcCoy
Content marketing builds trust in a method that no other approach can reach. The establishment of trust over time indicates that buyers pay attention and listen to and read your brand’s content.
- That is extremely, ridiculously powerful. It’s subtly persuasive and compelling without being in your face. It’s built on clarity and a down-to-earth system. It’s content marketing.
“Content marketing brings in conversion rates six times higher than other methods, completely transforming the perception of your business and your website. So, which is the most effective SEO technique? Content creation. “
Websites that include blog content have 434% more pages that are indexed by search engines compared to websites that do not publish. @TechClient
It is a FIRST and very simple logical conclusion after reading over 127 articles about these web statistics: You have a lot of small paths all around the internet that link back to your website. Furthermore, the more material you publish on topics relevant to your audience, the higher your chances of increasing search traffic and gaining conversions.
Did you pay attention? I didn’t say “”posting randomly on Facebook””! mmm. Wake up! I know what you were thinking dear average tour operator manager…
Why do I know? Because I have been in the offices and in meetings with Southeast Asian tour operators for the last decade and more, and nothing has changed; you still approach marketing in the worst possible way,
Who are the customers you target? Where do they actively search for a tour you also offer? Where do they spend their time when seeking information for their next holiday?
You never have an answer to these simple questions. I wish you would at least follow the data and not your local bias. [First and foremost, you are not trying to sell your tour impressing your neighbor or your boss on Facebook … I hope].
And more…
Okay, 61% of consumers in the United States made a purchase based on blog post recommendations, YouTube videos, and other stuff they found through the search engine from accredited sites, Google and YouTube.
I wanted to spare you this one, but I couldn’t resist. This one is so nice, from www.marketingcharts.com
There is so much people interested in watching your posts to chose you for their next tour. See?
Enough with the stats or I will write 5 books about it.
Let’s get to the real deal.
Now we will step in to see how you can create your website power pages, and later on in this guidebook, we will see how you should create your compelling home page and the strategy you need for your travel and tourism marketing.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 6
Your Website Power Pages
Choose your medium-tail keyword carefully.
When you start to practice doing this, you will be already ahead of most websites and competitors online.
Now, being an expert in your field and your location, you know the topic your customers are always searching for, so it is time to select a keyword that suits it.
Let me explain why keyword research is vital AFTER you identify what clients are searching for.
Most SEO initiatives start with keyword research. They enter random phrases and choose a keyword at random. Pros don’t undertake keyword research like this.
Consider your travel website.
Most individuals use a keyword tool to find keywords with high search traffic and low keyword difficulty about an attraction in your location.
Theoretically, that’s great.
The problem with that approach is that keywords might not be with a high-intent focus.
So when you publish your new page, your influencers will share it, and readers might share it too with their audiences (and link to you), but if there is no high intent behind that search query on search engines, that traffic will not bring in as many conversions as you wish.
True? Good.
Before we move on, a warning: avoid long-tail keywords.
Why?
Long-tail keywords are low-volume, low-competition keywords.
Instead of aiming to rank for “Angkor Wat tours,” a long-tail SEO would target “best Angkor Wat tours under $19” or “best Angkor Wat tours for a small business group.”
The long-tails are easier to rank. That sounds like a great plan. It’s not true. Why?
First of all, they have such low traffic. Second, Google knows that people searching for similar phrases want the same thing.
Use this as an advantage:
If you optimize your Power Page for your medium-tail keyword, including those long-tail keyword selections in your page, you’ll rank for those too. Google will expose your power page to as many people as possible.
Why?
More pages on your site diminish your link authority. Instead, you will concentrate your backlinks’ authority on a few pages, your power pages.
“Having hundreds of pages would dilute your link authority, causing your site to rank lower.”
You should optimize your ‘Power Page’ for a medium-tail keyword.
Workflow:
Let’s move. Find medium-tail keywords.
Sort the keywords by search volume and choose a medium-tail keyword.
Say you sell James Bond Island tours online. Your prospects are searching this kwyrod with high intention to purchease a tour while your influencers will love to link to a James Bond Island tour power page.
I use WriterZen for this. You can use Google Ads keyword planner.
Enter “James Bond Island” into the tool.
Sort results by average monthly searches. So, the most popular keywords are first.
Main words are difficult to rank for. James Bond island is the main keyword.
Long-tail keywords, like James Bond island tour by longtail boat’, appear at the bottom.
Mid-list keywords include ‘James Bond island tour’, ‘James Bond island trip’, which is very interesting because it has a low ALLINTITLE score.
Choose a keyword that suits your customers and buyers intent-focus topic.
Search volume shouldn’t be a major concern. When you optimize your Power Page for a medium-tail keyword, you’ll rank for dozens or hundreds of related keywords.
Tip: Use internal links to funnel authority from your power page to product (if your power page is a blog post or a landing page and not the product page) and category pages. Product pages will rank higher.
Take a close look at some product pages from other competitive industries to realize you are performing poorly at bringing valuable information to your prospects:
In order: 1. chillys.com. 2. grenade.com. 3. huel.com
Share Activators
How to write content that gets backlinks, shares and ranks on the first page of Google.
You will have here layered down nearly everything you need to begin working on your first Power Page.
Once you know what Share Activators are and how they work, you have a topic that your clients will enjoy and influencers will link to.
Write them down on a nice white sheet of paper to stick in your office on the wall near your computer and never forget them.
Let’s dive in!
You discovered a keyword for your Power Page by conducting medium-tail keyword research. You’ll now build on that basis by constructing your first Power Page.
Every Power Page has three elements that make it far more effective than standard blog posts and articles.
These three characteristics are as follows:
- Based on a well-known subject.
- The emphasis is on gaining influencers and links.
- Designed using a content structure.
Let’s build those three aspects on your new Power Page, transforming it into a powerful piece of content by utilizing Proven Content Frameworks.
“A content framework is a piece of content that is specifically created to rank in Google”
Share Activators are psychological concepts that motivate others to transfer (share) your information.
Let’s quickly explore Share Activators and how they can help you generate better results from your content.
Utility is the name of our very first Share Activator.
According to the Journal of Consumer Research, items assessed as having high utility were 30% more likely than the average to make the top emailed list.
What exactly is utility?
Utility is a fancy way of describing stuff that is extremely useful.
Articles about a specific tool, for example, are one of the most widely shared on the internet. Why?
Because they’re incredibly useful. Because they give you directions!
For this example, content frameworks such as the Go-to Guidebook and the Expanded List Post are a really good fit.
Here is the data from www.marketingcharts.com
The next element on our list is a Memory Glue, a Transfer Trigger.
After reading something, you go to a new tab in your browser, and then five minutes later, you completely forget about what you just read.
Let’s face it: nearly all of the stuff that can be found on the internet is completely forgettable.
But here’s the catch: you won’t remember any of that information because it doesn’t contain anything memorable.
Ideas and concepts easily recalled are far more likely to be communicated to others.
So, how can you better ensure that people remember the information you provide? A fundamental tactic is known as the Trademark Technique. The Trademark Technique is a content framework that allows you to design unique strategies and processes that will stick in people’s minds.
You will see it in detail here very soon!
Morover…
People on the buyers’ journey, aware of what they are searching for, want additional persuasion before they even consider buying from your brand. In situations like this, lengthy writing pieces like a complete product page with A+ content, exhaustive blog articles, and tour tutorials are appropriate.
This is why Content Length is also a crucial Share Activator.
BuzzSumo discovered that long-form content received 77 percent more backlinks than short blog posts and articles.
What exactly is going on here? Is there truly something unique about writing over 4000 words?
A power page inspires wonder, and that awe inspires individuals to share that awe with their friends and coworkers.
“Awe heightens our yearning for emotional connection and motivates us to share”.
In a nutshell, readers are more likely to be amazed and impressed by longer pieces, which increases the likelihood that those articles will be shared.
The fact that longer content results in a greater number of shares and links contribute to the explanation for why longer material ranks higher in Google.
And also Amazon certificates this concepts I just spoke about.
Including good emotions as Share Activators.
According to studies, positive content is shared more frequently than negative information.
In other words, pleasurable and satisfying feelings such as amazement and inspiration are more likely to be shared!
Following that, people, predictably, distribute content that makes them appear good.
Assume you are an influencer traveler and a big admirer of Southern Thailand, and you read an article or see a video summarizing a day out with BluAnda catamaran to explore the new observation point at Hong Island, to present you with a new itinerary for a day trip out in the sea, focused on taking only memorable photos and videos from incredible, selected and researched locations.
What plan do you have? Spread the word about these trip scenarios!
People and your prospects, it turns out, are the same way as influencers. Like everyone else, they enjoy sharing stuff that supports or demonstrates their search for the next adventure and the next memory location.
Why? Because it enhances their appearance. In other words, it boosts their social value.
The Storytelling Share Activator is also a powerful component.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that humans are designed to remember and share stories.
Mountains of data demonstrate that stories are more compelling, remembered, and emotive than plain information.
In other words, telling stories produces content that people are more likely to remember (Memory Glue) because it inspires feelings such as amazement, surprise, and inspiration.
And again: Write this infos down on a nice white sheet of paper to stick in your office on the wall near your computer and never forget them.
The Trademark Method
You’re about to discover a famous technic and one of my favorite content frameworks: the Trademark Technique.
Let’s get started.
People are MUCH more inclined to share stuff they remember, as I said in the previous lesson.
Consider this: if an influencer reads and recalls a piece of your material, they are far more likely to connect to you in a future blog post or article.
Yes, it may appear obvious, but it is more difficult to pull off than you imagine. People are, after all, inundated with messages.
With thousands of messages, scrolls, and social updates, the average person has an attention span of fewer than 3 seconds.
The challenge is, how can you make your content stand out so that prospects and influencers notice and remember it?
Publishing Trademark Technique Power Pages makes you an industry expert.
Now it’s time to break it all down, step-by-step.
Your first step is to find a way to break out of the repeated commonalities in your industry. Tackle every idea from your industry to craft a product that will definitely stand out!
List the commonalities but also common problems (problems your clients and customers care about) and tie them directly to your trademark idea.
This will become a strong benefit of your product.
For example, say your customers do not complain, but you hear them saying many times, “If only this tour was private and not shared with others,” or “I really wanted to see the farther and less crowded temple to bring home unmatchable pictures.”
Boom. Now you can craft the solution to this!
You need to give people a solution to one of their obstacles, and it needs to be a solution they’ve never seen before.
Let me clarify. All you have to do is come up with a solution that has a unique twist or combines two approaches.
In other words, combining two approaches is the simplest way to produce your own solution.
“Consider a problem you solved for yourself, a customer, or a client. How did you manage it? Was your approach unusual in any way? If that’s the case, go with it.”
Combine together two common features (or ways to run a tour, for example) in your industry.
I will give you an example here: Full Day Instagram Highlights and Hidden Gems (combining a common day tour 2 a name that resembles wonderful pictures and the word “hidden gem,” which makes you think of places that are never overcrowded). The page lacks many components of a power page, but you check it out for a good start.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 7
Branding Your New Tour
This is HUGE and where most people fail.
A one-of-a-kind solution puts you ahead of 90% of your competitors, who are busy rehashing the same strategies that everyone has seen a million times before.
You see, when you not only assist people in solving difficulties and finding the experience they were dreaming of, but you do so with a solution that you created, you soon become the go-to expert.
But, in order to truly stand out, your solution must have a distinct name, something concrete that people remember (memory glue).
Your question now is: what should I call my new product/strategy?
In the Trademark Techniques world, there are rules that make some branded solution names perform better than others.
Your needs to contain three aspects, the most remembered and referred.
- Very descriptive
- Has a visual component
- Contains terms such as ‘Formula, Technique, Method,’ or the name of the primary benefit as a tour or product main strategy (LondonEYE Fast Track Tickets / skip the line ticket), or (The Secret Tour – A new way to see the Getty) and so on.
Let’s dissect this method.
First, the name of your branded solution should accurately describe what your technique or product performs.
The fast track ticket, for example, describes the fact that you’re allowing individuals to skip the waiting line with an upgrade.
It should include something visual that people can visualize in their minds. This is a huge step forward for Memory Glue. After all, we all remember visual things the best. (THE TEDIOUS LINE)
Finally, the name of your branded product/solution should include words that make it sound authoritative.
“Look at Menshealth of Forbes to see and take the example of what is a great title followed by a short captivating intro.”
The Trademark Technique content framework’s final stage.
Create a power page that highlights your branded solution.
Here’s the reality. People will not take your branded solution seriously unless they see results from it (in your case, the real story of how your product or tour is different than everything else, in pictures as well).
Displaying actual proof
Make them believable by showing every life part of your tour as well as some backstage information (in pictures as well)
Design your Trademark Technique Power Page.
First, we have your title.
A precise result, a number, and a specific timeline should all be included in your Trademark Technique title.
Let’s dissect each of these three components.
A unique result is self-explanatory.
A number. Specific figures increase credibility and click-through rates.
A timetable. People will know how long it will take to attain what your product/tour promises.
It is highly recommended that you start your introduction with EXACTLY what it is that you intend to cover in your tour and what your product will bring to your guests.
Imagine if you were writing a case study: There is no history provided. There is none of that foolishness here. You can skip the introduction and go straight to the results.
“Don’t try to hide the fact that they’ve just landed on a unique, unrepeatable experience page.”
To make a great introduction, you need to inform readers that they are about to read this specific power page just crafted around their needs and preferences, briefly summarize the outcomes, and cite the branded solution with a promise to instruct them on how to get it for them.
It’s now time for your first page part.
You don’t want to start working on your branded solution just yet.
Why?
The success narrative becomes more real and tangible when individuals see specific results. It also creates an information gap, which encourages people to keep reading. So, after your introduction, add a subheader that describes your branded solution in your first part. Then go further into your findings.
You would do a great job if you introduced this page with a few storylines to induce even more curiosity about the outcomes of the tour.
It’s time to dive into the heart of the power page.
Most product or tour pages, in my experience, are heavy on hype and light on details. Do not leave out any detail. Recollect everything clients need to know and fill them with the information they might love to know (before visiting a specific location, for instance).
Your page is the page they need to go to find all about what they will experience. Do not leave anything missed, or they will click out and roam again on google’s first page.
Finish the page with a concise summary and a call to action. (even if you are on an e-commerce page, repeat the call to action at the conclusion.
Mention repeatedly to comment or share the page.
The Trademark Technique works because it taps into several Share Triggers: memory glue, utility, good emotions, and storytelling.
After you have created your power pages, you can proceed with your homepage.
Your Homepage SEO and Persuasion Roles
If you build or redesign your website to appeal not only to your prospects but also to Google and the other search engines, you will pave the way for future customers.
You must consider two unique but equally influential factors: traffic and conversions.
Your homepage will be composed of incredibly compelling content, which your prospects will require viewing in a particular order before they are convinced to work with you or buy from you.
Reconciling these two competing factors can be difficult, but it is vital for your online sales and the reputation of your website!
To begin with, SEO is the least expensive strategy to reach new customers.
- It’s almost entirely free. But be warned: you will need to make some major effort to reap the full rewards.
It then establishes credibility.
- If you can appear in the top few slots in a Google search, it casts a positive light on your company and helps potential clients regard you as the best option in your sector.
Finally, it links you to the appropriate person at the right moment.
- Whereas other traffic sources, such as paid commercials, disrupt people otherwise engaged in other activities. Online SEO is different since consumers search for things they need.
SEO traffic is undoubtedly the most potent type of traffic.
SEO is divided into two parts: on-page and off-page.
So, what precisely is on-page SEO?
Choosing keyword phrases to rank for; generating written material on those topics, incorporating those words in strategic locations; and, more recently, user indications such as time on page, bounce rates, and click-through rates.
We’ll only be focusing on on-page factors—things you can truly manage immediately on your website.
What is the significance of persuasive content?
Isn’t having a website that’s easily found online enough? Certainly not. Your prospective clients know they have many options, including your competition.
Strong, persuasive content necessitates a plan for which pages you truly require, specific sections on each page designed to provide the right information, at the right time, in the right order to help increase desire and decrease doubt in your business; written content that emphasizes what your customer will get, rather than just a big brag board for your business; and proper formatting that leans into proven online and sales behaviors.
Always remember that people skim websites rather than reading them.
They read and select small bits of information that are easy to see and absorb.
That is why we want to extensively use headings, sub-headlines, brief paragraphs, bullet lists, bolded text to emphasize key points, and photos and videos.
I strongly advise you to create your page content as if SEO didn’t exist at all. And the rationale is straightforward. I want you to be able to form your thoughts freely and establish an ironclad case for your business without being distracted by keywords.
Because if you begin the process with your keywords already in mind, an interesting thing happens. You begin to focus and fixate on them, attempting to work them in as many times as possible.
Your homepage and service or category pages.
The home page or your category page are the places your prospects will go when actively looking for what you are selling.
They’ve already been in search mode, landed on your power page or one of your blog posts, and looked for companies like yours; so here, once again, you need to stand out and showcase the differences between you and your competitors.
We can reasonably presume that they are approaching a purchasing decision. (As in 90% of cases, they arrive at your homepage after visiting one of your power pages or a blog post).
At this point, the only thing left to do is to sell them on your specific tour solution.
A few proven golden rules of persuasion to help connect with prospects more effectively.
Keep these concepts in mind and allow them to guide the tone of your writing.
First
Write in a friendly, conversational tone. People seek human ties more than ever, even with the companies they want to use for their next tour or holiday.
I even suggest going a step further, not using the typical cold-looking chat with a random face, but using a video bubble with a message from you, one of your tour guides, or even both. You can find very nice solutions at https://www.warmwelcome.com/
Writing as if you were speaking with a friend will always connect more deeply and with more personality. Professionalism isn’t as important as you think. “With a few exceptions, it repels clients only to affirm the norm!”
Stay away from any old phony terminology.
And, whether you like it or not, being able to speak about your business solutions makes you appear more authoritative, not less.
Second
Concentrate on your customer rather than your company.
One of the most common mistakes businesses do with their websites is to use them as a gigantic brag board, advertising all of their accomplishments, mission, and bios as if their clients care about any of them.
No, they don’t!
Your potential customers visit your website because they have an issue that needs to be solved or because they are looking for something specific.
So create your website about that, your solution, what they get, and how their life will be better as a result.
People do not purchase goods and services. They purchase and pay for outcomes and outcomes.
It is vital to keep your focus on the end benefits you deliver to your customers.
For example:
If you propose a wonderful holiday away from the bitten path for relaxation and contact with nature, your customers aren’t buying the 48 hours of travel roundtrip and flight time to get to your location. Nobody wakes up thinking, “I want to lose 2 nights of sleep and get on a very expensive flight ticket to spend seven tiring days away from my beloved home and feel flipped upside down from the jet leg” Of course not. They are interested in the end outcome. So instead of showing photographs of an empty valley, show the experience your previous guests had! (show the finished product) (show the happy, dreamy part).
Third
Emotional reactions come first, followed by logical considerations, while making purchasing decisions.
Because of this, you should never pass up an opportunity to talk about how your clients would feel after using your product or service, and you should do it at every possible moment.
And when you construct your pages with these ideas in mind, you will be lot better at connecting on a human level, which will result in more connections being made and higher levels of engagement being achieved.
And would you believe it? Because of all the additional involvement, more time will be spent on your website, more pages will be viewed, and more scrolling will take place. And Google considers each of these factors as a strong indicator that people enjoy your pages and that they should recommend your website to even more people when they conduct searches.
“It’s crucial to keep in mind that not everyone will join your website through your homepage, especially if you’ve handled your SEO for your power Pages appropriately,” the author writes. “Remembering this fact is important.”
A quick note to remind you that each product you offer needs a website of its own to direct customers through the purchasing process.
Section by section, an engaging layout for your home page:
- The "Hero"section
- You unique solution
- Your Tours
- Spotlight your benefits
- Emphasis on your testimonials
- Highlighted features
- Questions and answers
***More on this at the end of this GuideBook
Some honorable mentions of great design ideas for travel websites that are just missing a nice live chat:
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 8
Your Blog Power pages for Your Travel Marketing Formula
Use powerful content frameworks to reach page one of Google, attract referrals, backlinks, and useful business cooperations with local partners.
Awards Bait Blog Post
An amazing content framework to aim to become the leader in your community’s travel industry and create long-lasting connections with all your niche-related local businesses.
Let’s craft some powerful old-school “recognition.”
Let’s bring to their full potential the share activators of social shares and positive emotions with the goal of getting more traffic.
The AwardsBait. Choose your topic.
This is key. Like any piece of content, the topic of your AwardsBait makes a HUGE difference in how well it performs.
AwardsBait is automatically about the most niche-friendly topic on the planet: your niche-related local businesses!
Fortunately, your AwardsBait topic needs to be specific and it needs to be in a niche with at least 50 blogs or other websites.
- To get traction, it should be on a topic that stands out and grabs attention, which means you want to get VERY specific. For example: let’s say you made an article about the Marathon’s season in Asia. The topic is very broad and cannot involve specifically and practically your niche-related businesses, even if you forward them your article. – On the other hand, if you manage to write an article about your next marathon in Cambodia, the “ANGKOR WAT INTERNATIONAL HALF MARATHON”. Immediately, you think of all the hotels and drivers in the area, sports shops, event managers, and marathon associations that you can link to and do business with, creating your own package offer involving them directly. You just tapped into a smaller potential target group.
Make sense? Your AwardsBait needs to cover a specific topic.
It makes your award look more legit. After all, it takes a certain level of expertise to give out awards. And unless you’re a huge site like Time.com or Forbes.com, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the authority to get away with crowning the “top 25 four-star hotels to stay at during the Angkor Wat Marathon for an experience out of this world.”
Once you have your AwardsBait topic, it’s time to gather a list of winners to include.
You want to include at least 20 to 25 winners in your AwardsBait campaign.
Why? The more sites you include, the more links you’ll get.
Most businesses are thrilled to be recognized at all, and they don’t mind sharing the spotlight with a few other people.
Running AwardsBait campaigns, local businesses go nuts when they find out they have received an award and are happy to link to you.
“If you like offline marketing techniques, this is the time to invite them all to a nice location to share the award and strengthen your business relationships and deals.”
OK, so you have your AwardsBait topic and list of winners. Great work.
Now it’s time to organize the materials you put together.
From the top to the bottom of the page.
First, we have your AwardsBait title. Here are the three elements you want to include in your AwardsBait headline: a number, a blog description, and a superlative or benefit.
Let’s break this down.
- First, include the number of businesses on your list, along with a word like ‘best’, ‘top’, ‘world class’, etc. For example, ‘Top 50′ or ’33 Best’.
- Next, you want to describe the businesses using the topic you found in step 1.
- Finally, include a superlative that describes how awesome your winners are.
Here are a few examples: ‘Krabi climbing festival – Rock the city at the best 21 Gyms and Training Facilities’ or ‘Top 23 Angkor Wat Guides That Know Their Stuff.’
If you prefer, you can use a benefit that someone would get by reading the businesses on your list.
Examples: ‘Top 25 Trails in Phuket for Amazing Runs’..
OK, so your AwardsBait intro should have four elements: Then they quickly introduce what the awards are, mention how many amazing businesses on that topic are out there; emphasize that this is an exclusive list, and go into some of the things these businesses bring to the table.
- Tell people what the awards are all about.
- Talk a little bit about the value that these businesses provide.
it’s time to list your winners.
First, you want to order them.
Remember: this is an ‘everyone’s a winner’ list.
Put authority websites at the top of your list.
Create a nice listing for each business on your list.
Your listing should have at least four elements: their name, a flattering bio, an image, and a link to their website and social media.
It’s time to create a unique logo and the badge for your AwardsBait page.
Remember, the more legit your AwardsBait page looks, the more likely people will share it. Fortunately, you can easily create a page that looks nice and official.
How? By creating a custom banner for your AwardsBait page.
This custom banner will go right below the title of your post. And when people see it, they think to themselves (subconsciously), ‘This looks official!’
This doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You can get this done on Upwork or Fiverr for about $25 USD. Or if you have design skills, you can make it yourself in Photoshop or Canva.
Next, you want to create a badge that businesses can use on their site to show off that they won. This badge makes it easy for your winners to spread the word.
Now, reach out to the winners.
AwardsBait is unique because it has promotion built right into it.
Give every winner a heads-up via email about their award. This email should also give them the badge.
The people you reach out to will be VERY happy to be on the list. The point of this email is to get them to see your AwardsBait. The rest will take care of itself.
The Expanded List Post
Does it happen to you?
You’re browsing Facebook or Twitter, and you come across a post with a headline like “50 scientifically supported tactics to improve your Hotel profits productively.” You click on the link to discover more.
Many travel websites use this posting style or framework. It has become very popular across many industries, such as fitness, the wealth industry, the food and supplements industry, and so on.
But there is a way to make these posts even better!
You see, in most of those existing posts, you read the first couple of tips on the list, jump out, and leave the page.
And guess what? In this way, your prospects will never consume the information in a valuable way.
So, what’s the solution? After all, list posts have worked for decades.
There’s a way to make it more powerful and effective for your purpose.
And that’s the Expanded List Post content framework.
But you might wonder what makes an Expanded List Post different from a regular list post.
An Expanded List Post is different from a traditional list post for one simple reason: it lists out the steps for every tip on the list.
A big deal!
All normal list posts lack step-by-step details.
In a normal list post, the reader skims through the first tips and realizes that she will need to read other articles to fill in the blanks of what is missing in the post.
On the other hand, an Expanded List Post hooks you up with EXACTLY what you need to execute each tip/part. So, if you’re ready to take action immediately, you have everything you need right there.
Your step-by-step plan for your first Expanded List Post.
Choose your topic.
Your Expanded List Post topic needs to fit two simple criteria.
First, it needs to be “search friendly”.
Next, the topic needs to be something that you can provide 15 to 88 (the sky is the limit) bite-sized tips on.
- So, for example, when I look over my list of topics and find one I could easily write over 15 tips about, and it matches with a lack of the same type of posts on Google’s front page, then I will go for it. On the other hand, if I know I can write over 15 tips, but I find posts on the first page of Google with 57 tips and 75 tips, I need to evaluate the time I need to spend researching the topic more. Only then do I decide to go with an Expanded List Post or if I need to use a different content framework.
Once you have your topic, it’s time to list out your tips.
Pretend that a client or customer is having a coaching session with you.
- What problems will they bring up?
- What issues will they cause?
- What simple suggestions or plans would you give them?
- How did you figure out how to solve them, and did you have a similar experience before?
Then list some simple tips you could give them that they could execute immediately.
If you’re still stuck, you can research other blogs. Just Google keywords like ‘your topic’ + tips and ‘your topic’ + strategies to find other list posts or guides.
You can borrow techniques from these resources that you find and add them to your list. Just make sure to cite them when you do.
To take advantage of the ‘wow’ factor from the content length, Share Trigger, try to list as many tips as you can, still being precise with the steps to implement them. If it is anything even slightly unclear, don’t list that tip.
That’s simple: you want to ‘wow’ the people, but you also want the techniques and tactics that people easily understand and can use within minutes.
“You want to choose the most actionable tips to go into your Expanded List Post.”
A suggestion. When you have identified the 3 to 4 most interesting tips (that most people haven’t seen before) on your list, those are the ones to use at the start and the end of your post.
Create your post.
Your Expanded List Post title needs a key benefit and several tips.
Example.
You can start your title off with that number:
- ’22 Smart Hotel Marketing Strategies to Increase Bookings steadily.‘
- ’37 Ways to Increase Profits and Visitors to Your Tour Agency’
In the intro, you must quickly mention the benefit, then show some potential results immediately to keep the reader well interested.
Just tell your reader what you have in store for them.
Then, show off some potential results.
(These can be results your client achieved from using the itinerary in the post or what someone can expect to see if they put your tips into practice during their next holiday in the forest).
The tips list
Each tip needs to contain three elements: a benefit-rich title, a brief intro of the tip, and detailed steps.
You can look at each tip as a mini blog post. It has a title, an intro, and steps to achieve an outcome.
“Make each item on your list SUPER descriptive and benefit-rich.”
Outline the steps they will need to execute the tip.
This is simple. Just hold their hand and walk them through the steps. And don’t be afraid to tell them EXACTLY what to do.
You need a conclusion now!
Ask people to commit to trying out one of the tips/techniques.
The fact is, when someone gets results from your content, they become a fan of you. Encourage people to choose one specific technique to start with. That way, they’re more likely to take action.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 9
Your Tours Positioning
In your travel marketing system you have got to look for ways to be different.
I hope you understand at least this!
Instead of focusing on the advertising, concentrate on the thoughts of the advertising’s prospects.
How do you get into a mind: not by telling your prospects your product is better, that’s for sure. But telling your prospects that your product is different will be the key thought that will make you develop your unique positioning.
Be the first brand to occupy a certain position in the minds of your prospects.
So the fundamental idea of positioning is to hunt for an unfilled hole in the mind and then be the first brand to occupy that vacant area. Simple, yet quite effective.
I’m curious. Do you want to increase your product’s or company’s visibility? Want to reach customers in a congested market?
Keep up. Positioning is a powerful, effective, and stealthy communication approach that will help you establish your brand or business.
Positioning is a communication strategy that begins with a product, service, company, person, or country. The idea isn’t to invent a new communication medium but to use what customers already know.
Positioning involves unwinding and keeping existing connections.
Consumers’ thoughts, items, and services, even tours, are categorized in the consumer’s imagination.
Brands organize products and services into categories.
This being said, the consumer’s thinking already holds the ideal marketing message. You may place your tour or service in relation to it and eventually in the consumer’s thoughts if you understand how the consumer has organized this information.
A key takeaway: First is best. First is easiest with consumers. (This is where the Trademark Method becomes useful!)
Consider. First tour and services reviews portal: Tripadvisor, right. Who was the second? …
Consider. First Hotel booking platform? Booking.com, right? The second?…
Consider. First famous islands in the south of Thailand? Phi Phi islands. Right? The second? Nobody cares about the second except travelers who have weeks to spend in the South of Thailand.
So what? You can position your tour as first in a small niche even if you are not top in a category.
Rank yourself.
To successfully position your tour in the consumer’s mind, you must discover a niche or area and attract their attention.
Conventional advertising was used to emphasize the bad-looking overcrowded beach, filled with speedboats anchored on the beach, where no one had even the slightest chance to get a nice picture to bring home.
This ad’s positioning was effective. It defied the industry premise that going on cheap tours from Phuket to Phi Phi was the best solution to experience the islands and the lagoons, opening a new niche.
This ad developed the sunrise and luxury Phi Phi tour niche in the consumer’s perception.
The ads always concluded that the Sunrise tour was the quintessential way to experience the island and the only chance you got to visit the lagoons when crows were yet to arrive.
Ultimately, it would be optimal if you avoided line extensions.
A line extension is when a corporation applies the brand name to a new product.
What’s wrong with line extensions?
A Line Extension will dilute the established brand’s power and cloud its position in the consumer’s perception, thereby reducing overall sales.
Imagine if the company with the first branded Sunrise Luxury tour was also going backward, starting to sell cheap Phi Phi tours by speedboat. That would be a disaster.
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 10
Boost Your Search Engine Rankings
Layering Your Keywords
The exciting thing now is to start layering your keywords into the pages you’ve already built in a natural, easy-to-read manner that won’t turn off your human visitors.
Always put your readers first. This means that if you’re having problems working in a certain keyword phrase, or if it doesn’t seem to flow easily, you should choose another keyword phrase or not use it.
Your pages must actively persuade your human site users, your future clients, to do business with you.
As a result, keyword stuffing is counterproductive.
Google, on the other hand, is getting wiser by the day.
Keywords aren’t their only source of information.
They can figure it out even if they don’t know what your pages are about.
They also provide more weight to the pages that are most relevant to the searcher’s query. In other words, if your human visitors like your website, Google will keep showing it to many potential customers over time.
So, when you’re faced with a difficult decision, promise me you’ll go with the people-first approach.
Let’s strategically use the majority of your terms to boost your SEO while still reading naturally for your human visitors. So, start with your list of sites and their corresponding primary phrases, secondary phrases, and associated terms.
Begin with your main phrase, which will be included in:
- The title of your page;
- Your URL;
- Your H-1 tag, which is your page’s main title;
- Your first or potentially second H-2 will be the headline for your problem-solution section, and it will most likely be the first sentence of your first paragraph (because your keywords do count for extra the higher up on the page they are).
- Of course, you’ll want to use it again whenever it makes sense and reads well.
- In the alt text of your most visible image, use your primary phrase.
- Include an embedded YouTube video with your main phrase (if you will add one, and you should).
How about your secondary keyword phrase?
- Combine at least one of those into an H-2 or H-3. (Remember, those are your page’s sub-headlines.)
- Use your secondary keyword phrase once or twice in the body content and once or twice in the alt text of one of your page photos.
Other words that are related.
- Sprinkle them wherever they make sense and include them in the alt text of one photo.
Optimize Your First Page Linsting
Now you have a strong foundation for your website’s SEO.
Your Power Pages are specifically planned to rank on Google’s first page.
Now you have got to dominate a set of essential ranking factors known as UX Signals to use them to get higher Google rankings quickly.
So, how does Google know if your page is satisfying its users?
Google tracks how people interact with search results and uses that information to determine whether results on the first page should be elevated or lowered in rank.
It’s not enough to show up at the top of the results page. It would be best if you had your prospects click on your listing over all the other choices on the first page.
Start by including your keywords, which signal relevance, and benefit and results-driven terminology meant to persuade.
And by doing it even barely better than your competitors, you will get the clicks you need.
Not only does the initial click kickstart the whole buyer’s journey for your possible customer, but it’s a powerful signal to Google, too.
“Google collects all those kinds of signals from the users, and I will list great solutions to optimize those signals from your page here.”
The best part? Most businesses don’t give this much thought.
Better CTR equals higher rankings, so, take control over your Url, title, and description right now.
Consider using short, keyword-rich URLs.
“You should optimize for that because it’s worth the effort for some users. According to research, short URLs have generated up to 45 percent more visits than large URLs. If you think about it, this makes sense. The URL of a page reveals the content of that page. I suggest keeping your URLs as succinct as possible.”
- Now, the only tricky part is just packing in as much punch as possible with that limited space.
- You’ll notice you have a short space for your title, and then this is what they give you, more or less, for your description.
- But just like your page itself, you want to keep your listing benefit-driven and customer-focused while ideally working in your top keyword phrase.
Since we likely already worked in that primary phrase into your H-one tag in the hero section, if you remember, let’s go ahead and repeat that for your headline. (This creates a lot of consistency. So when your prospects click on your listing, they will be greeted with the same message in that H-1 tag, solidifying their confidence that they are in the right place.
Your tour SEO description.
- You can either reuse your hero section’s sub-headline to create consistency;
- You can highlight the problem you solved.
- You can use two or three of your benefits or any combination of these elements that fit into the space.
Make a strong case that makes somebody want to click on your listing over some of the other ones that are just more basic.
This is the best way to get big-time SEO results while still keeping all the elements in place that are proven to lead to lots of conversions, customers, and profits.
Extra tips:
1. Add a number to your title tag.
There’s a rationale why numbers are splattered all over magazine covers: numbers draw attention. Number-rich headlines receive 36% more clicks than non-number-rich headlines. And, even if your content is not the list post you just created for your new marketing following this guidebook, you may use numbers in practically any title.
For example, add ‘Over 173 Satisfied Clients’ to a service page, or put ”33% Off” in the title tag of a tour page.
2. Use brackets and parentheses.
Some research says that brackets or parentheses can boost CTR up to 38%. This small trick can produce a BIG difference in your CTR.
3. Write a description that pushes people to click.
It’s simple: follow proven description formulas.
- This is a [content description]. Learn how to [particular benefit] from this [content main concepts].
The aim here is to use your description to describe your content and tell visitors what they will get if they click on it.
PS> To identify which results on the first page are making their users happy, Google analyzes click-through rates as an indicator.
CTR data is collected by Google as soon as you make it to the first page of search results on Google.com. Your result will get much attention if many people click on it. This will determine your listing to rank higher or lower.
Apply the Content Strategically to Boost the Dweel Time
Websites are optimized for UX signals. In other words, they optimize their content for the specific types of user experience signals that Google cares about.
The key Google UX ranking factor you need to care about for your tourism website is Dwell Time.
You see, Google ranks pages that people spend a lot of time on.
To put it another way, there is a significant relationship between Dwell Time and rankings on the first page of Google.
When you optimize your site for dwell time, you’ll also lower your bounce rate automatically.
You need to use strategic methods to increase your website’s Dwell Time.
Keep your key content above the fold.
Pushing the first sentence of your content above the fold. This means eliminating ads, images, or anything that stands between a Google searcher and your content.
That way, anyone who lands on that page can start reading immediately, without needing to scroll down—which hooks them better.
Use sticky intros.
Considering that your intro is the first thing someone reads, a bad intro almost always equals low dwell time.
What’s the solution? Sticky Intros.
Sticky intros have three elements that make them different than most other introductions.
- Sticky intros are between three and six lines.
- Sticky intros let the reader know they are in the right place. Your introduction must be your GREAT opportunity to let the searcher know they have found the best tour solution.
- Sticky Intros briefly preview your content.
Like this: Your Guidebook to the Online Marketing World of Tourism. This free Guidebook is a must-read for any operator marketing related to travel.
Give your reader a complete answer to what they’re looking for.
And if this will require somewhere near 2,000 words, go for it. And sometimes 4,000 or even 6,000 words.
It doesn’t matter.
Take the time to produce your own Guidebook and impress every searcher with the only complete result, the complete answer there is out there. Show your expertise, don’t leave it hidden in your office.
For example, this Guidebook has over 14,000 words and is constantly updated. I didn’t want for it to be that long, but that’s how many words it required to cover this subject without getting into too much depth, to the point where someone looking for it wouldn’t have to hit the back button because they have everything they desire all in one place.
I cover many other methods to boost reading time and Dwell Time in these 2 blog posts:
Travel and Tours Marketing - Part 11
Tourism Marketing and an 8x More Profitable Website Traffic
Believe me when I say there are a million strategies to get new random visitors to your website. But what if I told you this isn’t the best use of your time and energy?
Rather than asking, “How can I persuade people to visit my website?” The true million-dollar question is, how do I persuade them to return?
How much more valuable is a returning website visitor compared to a first-timer?
According to research carried out by Barilliance, returning customers add 65.16 percent more products to their shopping carts than first-time customers do. In addition, the percentage of repeat visitors who converted into customers was noticeably higher than that of new visitors.
According to the findings of other studies, the percentage of first-time visitors to a website who end up taking some kind of action (such as initiating a chat session, completing a purchase, or setting up a phone appointment) is, on average, 1.5 percent.
“By thoroughly using the techniques in this guide, you will, in any case, increase this performance since you will directly impact high-value organic searches and prospects looking for validation, and not only that, even prospects who are very close to buying a tour in your location.”
But when the same studies look at conversion rates for people who came back a second, third, or fourth time, that conversion rate shot up to 12.6%.
That’s eight times as much!
Customers are aware that they have many options available to them, so the fact that they have spent time on your website is already a significant accomplishment on its own.
By adopting this specific, solid marketing strategy in this guidebook, you have set up the experience for them to return.
So if you want to get way more of those return visits when it comes to your website:
You can use a bait!
A more strategic lead magnet repurposed just for your typical client, giving them a reason to want to come back in a way that at times is profitable for your business, and even encouraging them to visit you at your agency and get in contact with you.
In short, your website will prominently feature an award gift contest.
A gift that promises to save your client money and time.
The key here is to make it actionable and irresistible through the topic and the title, and with an attached presentation of your best-seller tour. (Your most profitable, of course).
So why is that always the key? You want the visitor to opt into the contest with their email address.
So then a few things happen first. Hopefully, your presentation is captivating and compelling, with some real A+ content that is way better than what they can find elsewhere and that arrives directly in their email.
And they are just immediately impressed with that.
Then to build on that good first impression, here comes the fact that they are participating in your contest, so they are most probably expecting you will contact them again with a winning message! (You can even tease the award a bit right inside the email, telling them why it’s so valuable).
The email will include, as we said, your presentation and the link to your tour webpage.
Now they are back for their second visit, and you might get some action there. Plus, you can even follow up later on by email.
The ultimate goal of this strategy is to stay in front of your warm leads so that you are top of mind when they are ready to make a purchase.
Email marketing allows you to reach your audience with a purpose and to build relationships.
If you love to find out more about email marketing, I put here the link to the dedicated page so you can directly request me The Complete Email Marketing Guide, free of charge!
Now!
You need to add a second method to get more returning website visitors: Pixel and retargeting.
After that, you can retarget those visitors by displaying paid advertisements on other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or the Google display network.
The obvious best part of this retargeting?
You are marketing to an audience that already has some familiarity with your company as a whole.
Pixeling and retargeting goes hand in hand and make up some of the most useful tools in any digital marketer’s arsenal because they won’t let visitors forget about what they were checking out in the first place.
My choice is absolutely Adroll, to increase revenue while saving time with a consolidated marketing platform.
The combination of these 2 retargeting systems will bring you incredible benefits, you will see. Not only does it warm up your web visitors and all your potential customers even more. But it automatically helps you create the brand awareness that will bring you the best referrals over time as well.
Finally
Done this!
You’ll grow with more salespeople re-contacting customers and chasing your visitors, who if you were good were all warm and interested visitors, to bring them back again and again to visit your best sellers!
And this is the only system you have to grow your profits with online marketing. Anyone wasting your time with nonsense on social media is wasting your time, and you will never get anything out of it.
And this is a basic version, which is not posting on Facebook randomly. This method is the only real method that won’t waste your time but will only make you grow in assets and impressions.
When you get to the point where you want to expand your visibility, you will multiply the system by all the other tours you want to sell and make visible to bring in more money. There is absolutely nothing different you should do. There is no one who can tell me ‘my industry is different.’
You are not Tripadvisor or GetYourGuide, or anything else.
Ultimately, you will enhance all traffic channels. But only in the final stage. Gentlemen, you will never succeed if you do this in the initial stage.
I repeat: You are not Tripadvisor and neither is GetYourGuide or anything else.
You cannot rely on a social media outlet bringing you a few visitors. And how many tons of videos and how many employees should you have? And when social media changes, what do you do?
Are you going to have to build your traffic on a solid, continuous basis, yes or no?
Now you might find influencers.
Yes. Only after you have created your assets that bring in continuous, repeatable, predictable revenue. But at the end of the whole process. Not from the beginning. Just as in the same way, you must not start from cold social traffic or how you don’t start from a meager e-commerce.
Building a content marketing machine on Social Media is the last thing on your to-do list (unless, as I said, you are already using YouTube extensively).
Let’s see what your objective would be here.
Post something consistently and create a calendar to post on a platform that you like. Ideally, a platform you are consistently using.
In a second phase, you can increase volumes from posting once a day on a few platforms to multi-posting, maximizing each platform.
You can create and repurpose all that stuff across many social media content platforms.
The objective is clear: to nurture your prospects.
That, of course, costs time, and that costs money.
That being said, the purpose of creating social media organic content is lead nurturing, not lead generation.
“Think about what happens if someone comes in through one of your paid ads, or one of your guides, or one of your emails? What do they do? They will land on your website and look at your social profile to examine if you are a legit business.”
That’s it.
Any question coming from your prospects through your content is a new piece of content you need to create.
With your new content based on your client’s questions, your sales guys can proactively provide specific and detailed answers to the prospects.
A good idea would be:
- To build an Excel sheet of your best content of all time, highlighting some of the content that you have made that convinces more people to buy from you on that content sheet.
- To collect the types of questions that people ask on sales calls to get ideas for content you can create in the future.
- The sheet will be vital for the sales team and for marketing.
“You do it for the sales team because as soon as they have that question, they can send that as a reply and impress, increasing the likelihood they close the sale.”
…
So think of the content you’re making. It’s just a low-risk way of testing hooks and headlines to get people to buy from you or contact you.
That’s all you’ve got to do.
Actively creating.
You are making good enough content that the platforms are serving new audiences because they can grow the amount of time people spend on the platform. Because your stuff is good, they pay you back with impressions for providing value to their audience or followers, and more likes and shares.
Plus…
You still have to have a way to convert those people into customers. So the way to do that is just to have a call to action.
Cost perspective.
There is a long-term cost, a time cost, and a financial cost.
Think about the creation, the research, the writing, the editing, and the distribution across all platforms. You’re not going to be able to do it on your own. So you need some degree of leverage in the form of labor.
You’re going to have to pay people to help you out from the beginning, possibly a specialist on each of these platforms you need to use (Google, Youtube, Facebook, and so on), because what they are going to do is get you up to speed much faster.
The only vital things are the values that you have, the messages that you want to get out there, and who you’re trying to reach!
This content production could cost you some thousands of Dollars a month. You are promoting, and you are using this instead of using paid ads.
So, get your mathematics right! Bring specific employees in-house and start scaling!
Do we understand each other?
I hope I have saved you years of time!
And now, I’ll also show you some of the questions I’ve been asked all along that inspired me to write this guidebook.
To conclude the story with which I had started this Tour Marketing Guidebook, here are some of the questions that were recurring when I was explaining to travel agency owners their only possible marketing strategy.
After I create my own content on my tours, should I find a different way than others to attract attention?
Will some of you have to decide to train, yes or no?
If you hand over the work to a web agency:
First, it costs you tenfold.
Second: If you don’t know what content to create and what to write first? At least figure out what to do, and then you can delegate to an outside party. Learn your keywords and how to create your core content.
“Those are your core assets.”
Third, they can only do the technical stuff. What should the web agency do if you are not creating the content? With zero material? What should they publish in your opinion?
In short, we always go back to the beginning of this guidebook.
I am a small agency. We have a few employees. What should I do to do marketing?
No! You’re wrong by thinking in those terms because you haven’t included compelling content in your sales assets and share triggers from the start. And you are not an influencer. You have to grab the attention of your audience only.
And who is your hot audience?
Only those who are looking for what you are selling. Period!
You don’t seek consensus from people who aren’t on target. You just need to reach the people who already have their wallets open to buy your tours. If you do anything else, you are just wasting money and time.
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Disclaimer: The cited traffic or sales figures are my own sales figures. Please keep in mind that my results are not typical, and I am not saying that you will replicate them or anything else in that case (if you are not willing to understand it clearly and to be aware of the implications of it). I’ve had the advantage of studying with world-class marketers and practicing and performing marketing for over a decade, and as a result, I’ve created a substantial following.
Any “how-to” knowledge purchased by the typical person has little to no results. I am bringing you free extremely valuable travel marketing information.
Your individual outcomes will be unique and contingent on a wide range of variables, such as those we’ve already mentioned (and more), such as your training, experience, and dedication. In business, as in life, you have to be willing to take risks and put in a lot of work every day. Do not buy this book if you cannot or will not accept that premise.