Ideas and marketing trends in the travel market – Part 1

Of course companies need to have financial resources for their marketing efforts, but it's not the only way be be sucessful. This article shows how small-business companies can achieve big marketing success with a small marketing budget! Some methods are easy, and others are more advanced and expensive, but what counts, is to do it in the smart way. "Dialog Marketing" is the new keyword! Continuously new technology and tools give new content to this word.

First of all it's important to understand the marketing trends, and at the same time being future oriented. The basic rule is: to be late out in the market and adopt late new marketing methods could be very expensive and little rewarding.

What are the advertising effects on internet?
Many have tried advertising on internet. Some of them wonder about the effects, and they are questioning about having put advertises in right media, right place in the media and in right way (formats, design and message).

You have certainly heard your colleges and friends talked about that they have found fantastic offers on tours, accommodations, travel accessories, books, music etc. on internet. It's so quick and easy to find information there, and you can easily compare with other offers. In one or another way you need to be visible on internet, but that's not the only media.

Choose and compose a marketing package
There are many things you need to consider before you start advertising on internet. The must rewarding way to advertise according the new trend is to choose a complete package for advertising. It's recommended to combine a general and targeted marketing approach, both in traditional and digital media.

People search for information and travel offers in many different ways depended of the situation. It could therefore be a good idea to submit your company and website to general catalogues, supplier databases, travel guides, and search engines, so you can reach a wide audience. In addition you should target a market where potential customers have a strong desire for the benefits offered through your products or services, and the money to buy it. So you need to run targeted marketing campaigns in several relevant media as newspapers, magazines and internet websites. Then you will reach your target group in different situations and at the same time reach a great number of customers.

New advertising methods on internet
Internet has been and will be in the future an area for meeting and attracting your customers. It continues to develop in an incredible speed. The changes could be considered as both positive and negative, but no one can be unlikely to how Internet evolves. So how does your travel business match these trends and how can you take advantages of the new opportunities in the digital world?

In recent time advertising on internet has increased dramatically, and traditional media has experienced the same market fall. The development of advertising products and services has both advantages and disadvantages. The most usual formats are banners, net boards, top boards, skyscrapers, popback/popups/popovers/popunders), quick links, buttons, flash advertising (animations) and films. These advertising formats could be found both on websites and in newsletters (campaign mails).

Based on internet's ability to handle rich media content, the HTML format has been become standard in many e-mail campaigns. It has been a growing use of streaming video and video plug in components running in background.

E-mails can also be included voice messages. With other words, the new market place has become e-mail campaigns. If you let other companies run your e-mail campaigns for you, you should make sure about the relevance and quality of the receivers.

SMS campaigns
Another media that could be combined with advertising on websites and e-mail campaigns etc. is distribution of SMS (messages to mobile telephones). Some companies have started to promote their products and services through SMS too. Based on the users' interests (defined personal profile on the users` own information site on the company's website) they will receive special offers and invitations to participate in Quiz contests. 

Great opportunities for targeted campaigns
By minimal investments you could use the opportunities for running targeted campaigns as e-mail marketing, SMS, generate free advertising, adding links on other websites, building web communities (Forums, Guest Books, Chat Rooms, Qiuz contest, Find Travel Companion etc), subscribers` service, use of powerful banner advertising, site maps, page optimations, submission your website to search-engines, flash/animations and more. For they who know the opportunities, they don't need to pay big amounts of money to achieve good marketing and sales results.

Is your website converting visitors to customers?
Communication is about finding and attracting the right customers, adapting and addressing your message directly. Be aware of that your website is a global medium. It's available for everybody with internet access. If you operate in an international market you also have to be aware of that you need to communicate in different ways with different people from around the world. So one way to get a competitive edge is to personalise and make highly customisable e-mails and information on your website.

From off-line to online, from an information website to an interactive communication tool (targeted marketing and direct sales)! It could be a long way, but it doesn't have to be like that!

Most sales are not made on the first contact. Develop a method based on available techno logy to capture and save the names and contact information of prospects who don't buy from you. Follow up periodically. A little nice reminder will eventually convert many of them into customers.

Most companies have internet today, but more could have utilized internet to get closer to their potential customers. How can you make visitors indentifying with your products and services? Website are for displaying information effective, but also for making marketing and sales work more effective, for example offer added value on products and give good service. Websites used in the right way is about building a dialog with visitors, so they could be turned to customers.

New facilities in publishing tools
How do you manage to handle effective an increasing number of customers from different segments and part of the world? How do you control the information and marketing in an effective way through internet? You need to choose the right publishing tool which support efficient communication with your customers. That's the value added for publishing tools now a days. Many business people have spent a lot money and effort to make a great website, but they still can't figure out how to catch the customers and generate revenues.

Publishing tools where you can easily and maintain information on your website is more than publishing information. Look for added values through tools which support segmented communication through web schemes and customer dialogue products as campaign templates, personalised e-mail campaigns, effective handling of response from visitors on your website, and enable you to use collected information (response- and statically information) about your customers so you can control distribution of your campaigns.

Make it easy for customers to find information on your website. You can be everything for everybody. By using the full potential of today's technology you could choose both a niche and diversified market strategy for your website.

So what do you do if your website is overloaded with information, and you struggle to make relevant information available for different user groups?

Of course you can make a "Search Function" available for users, but there are other methods which probably are more efficient. Keep in mind that users are impatient and that they give up very easily if they don't find what they want immediately. Here are some examples of targeted information on a website:

·        Advertises can be displayed for everybody or displayed to persons based on their specified interests, for example use of cookies on your website. By using available facilities in the publishing tool and other facilities you can give users of your website an opportunity to define their own site (for example "my site"-function). Based on this they can tailor-made information regarding own need and wishes.

·        An article can be displayed to everybody without limitations, or an article can be displayed to they who are interesting in a specific subject, have permission to watch it or it can be displayed based on other criteria. Make sure that you have full control of content displaying.

Cookie for targeted information
Cookies have become very popular for web administrators to control information for different users. A cookie is a tiny piece of text asking permission to be placed on users` computer's hard drive. If they accept it, then their browser adds the text in a small file. Its purpose is to let the owner of the website (company) knows when they visit its site. Examples of cookies are temporary or session cookies, and permanent, or log cookies. Temporary cookies are necessary to maintain the user session and tell the owner of the website's server which page to pull up next. Permanent cookies are used to facilitate personalization and registration services.

There are several immediate advantages on websites that you can see through the use of cookies. For example special offers from ad banners and special access areas of the site will soon be easier to use with the cookie techno logy. Cookies could be useful for the administrator of the website to give visitors a better web site to use. It gives the administrator monitor information what's working and what isn't through site traffic analysis. For example, a cookie may allow visitors to tell the company what information they prefer to read.

Many users have concerns about cookies. It's important that the users understand why companies want their readers to accept a cookie. They need to make sure that readers understand that accepting a cookie in no way gives they access to your computer or any personal information about you. If users want to give personal information later through registration, that's up to them. Used in the right way cookies will be useful for the website administrators and users.

Flash advertising and presentations
Printed product catalogues and brochures are expensive and difficult to update. Product catalogues and presentations become more and more electronically. New capabilities in flash tool tools have created opportunities for better presentation in several media as CD, DVD, PC, internet and more. Flash gives the opportunities to affect the audience in a stronger way. One another benefit is for example on web advertises. By using animation you can show many things in one advertise on one place. It could be very effective!

The developers can choose from a variety of options for embedding video into Flash movies or options for streaming external video files at runtime, or options for exporting Flash video to other formats.

Flash claims an own plug-in to be displayed. Therefore web administrators have to run a JavaScript to see if the visitors have a flash plug-in installed. If not a GIF advertise will be shown.

Developers need to consider thoroughly the types of video content, bandwidth, length, and the level of user interaction needed before choosing a suitable delivery mechanism. We will later come back with advice about different strategies for incorporating and deploying Flash video. Flash used in the wrong way or unprofessional way could be wasting, or even devastating, and it could cause an opposite effect. Nothing else is more annoying than watching a boring advertising or film, but used in the right way it could have a big effect on the audience in a very positive way.

Reduce your business risk by adapting and increasing the number of products and services you offer, and by using a variety of different marketing methods. Only a small part of your total business will be affected if the sales of one product declines or the response to one marketing method drops. Use the most suitable tools to keep in touch with your potential customers. Find or develop other products or services which you can offer them. Reduce your marketing costs, work smarter and get better effect!

Stein Morten Lund, 13 December 2004

Additional information
Read more articles about marketing trends on our website.

For more information about marketing trends and suggestions, contact us in Travel Explorations at stein@travelexplorations.com.

We will be delighted to give you professional assistance in your marketing efforts, especially to introduce you in the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland).

Short guidance for e-mail campaigns
It's so much work running e-mail campaigns, especially if you have many market segments (customer groups), but doing it with the right tools it could be easier. Whether you do it yourself based on your own customer lists or trough an external company (an email service provider), you have to make sure about the receivers quality (relevans) and make sure that your e-mail gets delivered. It`s also important that you put your message in a context that your potential customers quickly understand.